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Attorney Peter Daigle Talks With Katherine On “This Needs To Be Said” – Part Two On Probate.

 

Hello, everyone. Thank you so much for joining us on “This needs to be said”, our friend, attorney Peter Daigle is joining us and we’re going to do part two as promised of probate. So we got, it was very, we gave you like, well, he gave you, the idea of it, the understanding of what probate is. So part two, we’re going to give you the conclusion of it, an understanding, and then of course, he’ll let you know how to get in touch with him. Probate may seem like something that you don’t have to worry about, but I don’t know, keep your pen and paper out. I think that we will change your mind. Welcome back to the show, Peter, how are you

Oh, thank you, Katherine. Thanks. Nice introduction.

Fantastic! I’m happy that you’re here. I want to know some more about probate. Sure. I think I’m going to be a celebrity one day and I don’t want to do this to my family. I’m just kidding. Okay.

All right, so let me, so let me just talk about just in general about how one would even start considering it. Okay. So, you know, when you’re young, you, you know, you think you’re invincible, you know, and you’re going to live forever. And, and, and so what happens is, is that, you know, people have a tendency to kind of just push it down the road because it’s kind of, it can be unpleasant. Okay. Yeah. Situation, especially with, as, you know, possibly a divorce involved or another family remarriage, you know, children that you might not be getting along with at the moment. And, you know, having a, having a children or spouse with a, with a substance abuse problems that you don’t want to leave money to because of that. And so what’s happening is, is that all these dynamics and, and it’s moving, at, you know, in the moment and it makes it difficult sometimes for people to be able to sit down and say, Hey, this is what I want to do, because we don’t have a crystal ball. And, you know, we don’t know whether or not this is the way we want it to be. And, but so a lot of people just push it on down the road and they don’t of it sometimes until it’s too late, you know and so, you know, because they keep thinking, well, I’m going to, I might change my mind.

I’d have more time or whatever it is. Yeah. That’s, that’s a task I can get to one day, whenever one day is, yeah. Got it!

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And sometimes it’s the point where you had a stroke or a nursing home or something, and then the one day never comes because it’s too late. So I want the folks to know that, it means if you put something down, you can always change it. Okay.

But now,

Of getting it down and so, you know, and at any point you can talk to the attorney or, and, you know, and have it revised if something were to happen. Okay. And also if you ever were to get divorced, it automatically terminates as to your spouse. So if you’re getting along great with your spouse and you have a will and you leave it all to them, and then you get divorced. Well, the, as a matter of law, the divorce sub separate. Okay. So, wow. Okay. So that’s one thing.

I have, a question for, I have a question for a different topic, but it makes me think, when you talk about divorce, I guess I could ask this question, what out does a divorce automatically dissolve I know that may not be directly probate, but I’m curious.

Well, yeah, he had somebody be, that’s been a beneficiary of a life insurance policy or something like that. You know, you want to make sure, you know, it should terminate it, but you want to be making those changes to any beneficial interest that you’ve left your former spouse. You know, and then also, you know, names and your credit cards and things like that. So, but that’s a whole other topic, but,

That is a topic, I figured it was okay. But that’s, that’s interesting that you said that back to probate.

Yeah. So as far as the probate goes, it’s, it automatically terminates as far as the marital concern also, in your will, if one of your children, God forbid would have previous CCU, you can always also make provisions to leave their share to their children. Okay. And so the will be drafted so that if something were to happen to, you know, whoever you’re leaving it to an alternate provision could be made. So for instance, I live with my children, John and Mary, and the event, they predecease me, I leave it to their, to their children. Okay, so something along those lines. And so it would not have, you know, correct it again. Okay. So, the first thing you want to do is at least start the dialogue going. And I can honestly say that I had so many calls from people that tell me they want to do this. And then they drag their feet and we send them, you know, a, a stay questionnaire, which are thought provoking questions. And then they just, it’s like a deer in the headlights they freeze. And then we don’t hear from them again, it’s not because they don’t want to do it because they just have a hard time facing, what they, what they want to do. And so, you know there’s not much that I can do, we don’t bug people. So it’s a matter of, you know, just making that,

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They really want to do that. Yeah.

And so,

And I understand why people

Easily understandable because he just don’t want to, you know, to be thinking about what happens, you know, when I go in, and again, when you’re younger, you don’t, you don’t feel that mortality as much. Okay, but one, another reason to consider doing it early. If you have young children, is you really want to be able to state, who’s going to take care of the children, and, both financially and also to care for them, because if you don’t put it in your, in your will, then it’s up to the, to the state or the judge could decide, okay. And, you know, may not be what your wishes are. And so at least when your children are younger, you know, you want to have, make some provisions for that. Okay, yeah. So these are all the reasons to sort of get, you know, get moving and, and have your documents in a row so that when probate does occur, it gets administered according to your wishes and things don’t happen, to your estate and to your family that you don’t want. Okay, because what happens when you die and you don’t have a will and you’ll have it, altogether then, then the laws of the state will determine how your estate is divided up and they may not be what you want. Okay.

Very likely not what we want when we talked about that last time. I think that if you don’t have a plan, I think for as far as the state is concerned that they have a plan, it just may not be what your plan is. Like. Like I used to, I used to wonder, like, if someone can’t pay to bury themselves, what happens and someone kind of said, flippantly, oh, the city will bury them, but there are provisions for that, but that’s not your plan. Like the city is going to, you don’t have any, you don’t have any input to state that you live and you don’t have any input because you left it to them. So, yeah! Think about it. Think about it. Somebody else’s plan isn’t the best idea for what you want to do. And again, like I said, last time I said this about wheels, but I think that this probate preparation as well is a way to say, I love you to your family. So take the time to do it.

And the time yeah!

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We all are going to pass. None of us want to face it, but it’s necessary.
Yeah. Yep. So part of the whole planning process is, is to, is to do exactly that is to start thinking about how am I going to take care of the people that I love, when I’m gone. And so a lot of times it’s just a matter of doing the first step, you know, what happens in life. And sometimes when we try to, you know, think of everything, once it gets daunting and then we don’t do it. And so I like to be able to take the process of just small steps. Okay. We’ve made this step. This is what we want to do. Okay. So let’s, let’s not overwhelm ourselves with too many of the, what ifs and let’s just start somewhere. Okay. And because you can torture yourself with all the, positive and then it causes unnecessary stress. So the idea is to make the first step by talking to an attorney and say, listen, I got to start this process going, you know, how can, I make this as easy as possible for me?

And, then we can always amend it later on if things change. Okay. so the reason is, is that as we, a few moments ago, and also last time is that again, things are not, decisions are not made for you, but it also gives you some sense of peace to it knows, okay. My, my fears are an order, and it’s not a nagging feeling that you are you going to account for as time goes on, you know, when you get into a, when you get on an airplane and all of a sudden there’s turbulence. So when you get, you know, all of a sudden you start not feeling good, it’s like, well, what’s wrong with me And you have these feelings of mortality, that you have, and then you realize that your affairs aren’t in order. And we all have them.

And we got cut off by a driver, or again, you know, a plane starts to shake and roll, rattle and roll, when we’re in the middle of the sky. And you’re like, geez I hope I have my affairs in order. And so when you’re able to like, be more comfortable in the countering things in life, because you know, that that has been taken care of. Okay. So, you know, it just gives you that peace of mind, that you’ve started somewhere. Okay. And the cost of doing a will and estate documents and having a probate goes well, as you suggest is really not that expensive. Okay, considering the, the, the fallout from, from not having it. Okay. So, you know, and these are things to consider and also whether or not you want to trust that up at all, that’s managed by somebody else.

If you have a child that’s a minor or if you have a family member that’s not good with money. And you’re concern that if you leave them something outright, as part of the process of drafting the documents, you can make sure that once you do pass away in the probates administer that, that these, the family members are taken care of, but they can’t just, you know, go through the money, you know, faster than, than you would have wished because they’ve got some, some issues with their own life. Okay. All right, so, you know, these are all considered, considerations, prior to having the probate administered, that you know, that you want to, you want to consider, okay. Okay. Any questions so far at all, or

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No, not for this particular one is this conversation is definitely saying, Hey, we have to have two to come back and talk about a list of things, but what I think is encouraging, and what you said is that you can amend, you can make changes to the document, which I think I’ve always thought, and maybe other people did too. I’ve always thought that it had to be, you know, done this document is done, not a living document, not a document that I will revisit over time as things change. I didn’t think of that. So I think that brings a fire because you could fall out with someone, in a tremendous way, and you’re not stuck with giving them anything or leaving anything for them. I just think that this is protecting, so this is encouraging to, because this isn’t something that I’ve even done because, because of what you’ve talked about, it, it makes you face I’m going to die.

And then thinking, I may not have enough stuff to leave anyone, or I don’t know who I need to think about, you know, so I hadn’t sat down and really put that all together. And even as your children get older, and you begin to have grandchildren, that may, and you brought that up, that it could be not just your children, it could be where their children, so how you write it up. So I guess a question would be to close out our conversation today is, would, would you have, a quick checklist Like, this is what I need if I’m thinking, or how do I know, I need to be thinking about probate other than I’m going to die.

Okay. So in our office, we have a questionnaire, Okay, It’s eight to nine pages long. And in that questionnaire where these thought provoking, things, you know, who do you want to be the administrator of your estate What is your name and address Who is the, who do you want to leave everything to And what happens if something happens to them And, and what do you have for assets You know, what is it you want it, or what are you worried about So we ask these thought provoking questions in the questionnaire, and then that gets us started. And then we follow back up and we answer questions about, you know, what’s on it. And, and then we start the process. So you have to start with the questions as to, what happens to what, and, and most lawyers in our office has a Mickey makes it easy for you. Okay. It’s like following your menu and you don’t have to think outside the box. It’s all right there. Okay.

And I made a difficult just now didn’t I wasn’t there checking what I need to be thinking about, but I know as humans, we do that because we don’t, we don’t know, it’s a big unknown for many reasons, but again, thank you for bringing up this conversation is definitely an elephant in the room. It’s definitely a hard topic is definitely emotional. And, and Peter, you do that every time you make sure that we understand, and you’re not trying to scare us, and it’s not to get us caught up in our emotions is something that won’t take a lot of time. It will take some time. And it does take you facing some facing life, but eight or nine pages say that my life must be pretty important before you all even see me like the first word. So that’s, that’s really cool. I’m glad I asked that question. Tell people how to get in touch with you outside of “This needs to be said’ for their own.

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Yeah, no, you can call me at (508) 771-7444. You can also go on my website, which is Daigle, D A I G L E law office .com and you can schedule an appointment that way, or also look on our blogs and, other information that we have in our list of services and there’s lots of information there.

Lots of useful information! Definitely! Thank you so much, Peter. See you next time.

Okay, Katherine, you too. Thank you. Bye bye now.

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