How to Set Up Your Own Business and Save Taxes in California

Jenni: Hi, welcome to the Modern Family Finance podcast, where we explore things, money, career, and life. I'm your host, Jenny, a San Francisco Bay Area financial planner specializing in the needs of women and LGBTQ professionals. So estate planning is one of the most critical and often most overlooked steps when it comes to building a secure financial future.

And protecting the people that you care about the most and especially for women, LGBTQ families, singles, unmarried couples, the stakes can be higher with unique challenges that require thoughtful planning. So that is why I am thrilled to welcome Jamie Santos of Santos Walding to the podcast today.

Jamie is an experienced estate attorney based in the Bay area. She's a native of the East Bay and a graduate of UC Berkeley school of law. She has over 20 years of experience helping clients navigate the complexities of estate planning, business law, and tax strategies. So I love it because she does it all.

And her passion is really helping people protect their families and their futures. So thank you for joining us today, Jamie.

Jaime: Hey, thanks for having me, Jenny. Nice to be here.

Jenni: Awesome. Did I miss anything in the introduction?

Jaime: No, you made me sound fantastic.

Jenni: Awesome. Cool. Well, Jamie and I have been working, we've shared a lot of, we've, we've been talking for quite a while.

So I know that you have a lot to share. So I will just start out with, you know, why is state planning essential for everyone? regardless of their net worth. Or maybe it is, maybe it is relevant to their net worth. You tell me.

Jaime: Well estate planning is a broad is a broad description, right? And when people think about estate planning, they mostly think about wills and trusts.

And when it comes to leaving your stuff to the next generation or to, to whomever you want to give your gifts to, sometimes the, the value of someone's estate is, is relevant. But mostly, It's about making sure that your wishes now, while you're alive, are actually carried through once you've passed. So estate planning can include how you want your things to be passed on to someone after you've passed away.

But estate planning also includes some interests that you may have during your lifetime, meaning, for example, for example, you know, is there someone that you want help from if you're unable to manage your finances on your own? A durable power of attorney can help with that and for your medical medical agency, you might want to pick people now that can help you later on in life when you need help.

Making medical decisions. So it's really for everyone and it's not just about death. It could be for help during life as well.

Jenni: Awesome. Can you walk us through what happens if someone were to pass without a will or trust in California? What if they don't have these documents in place? Actually, let's take one step back.

Let's say they're incapacitated for a period of time and then pass away. They don't have any of these docs in place. What would happen to them?

Jaime: Right, so California is the, the trigger word here, right? Every state has their own rules about what happens when you die with, without a will. But I have to say most states are alike in that just as in, with California, there are special rules for who gets your stuff if you didn't lay out your desires in a will or a trust.

And so in California, these laws are called intestacy laws, and they dictate the order in which someone will get something. And it'll sound familiar to anyone who came from a biological family. It lists all of your biological relatives in a particular order. So, for example, if you're married and you don't have kids, the spouse gets everything.

If you're married with kids, your spouse and your kids will share stuff. And then if you're not married and you don't have kids, then the state starts looking at degrees of, of familial relationships. So they'll see if you still have parents who are alive. If you don't have parents, do you have siblings who are alive?

If you don't have siblings, cousins, uncles, aunts, etc. But The point of the matter is that you had no choice in this, and if you didn't want your, you know, your brother Jeff to get everything that you owned, and you didn't write it down, and didn't write that down in a will, you now no longer have a choice.

Jeff's going to get everything.

Jenni: Got it. And what about what happens if let's say in this example, I become incapacitated, I am in a car accident, and I'm in the hospital, and I'm not conscious and I don't have any of these, I don't have a durable power of attorney, I don't have any of these things, then who, who would be at default to make these kind of decisions or, you know, be able to pay a medical bill, like what happens then?

Jaime: Well, okay, so if you're incapacitated, you're still alive, then a will and a trust, even if you had one, wouldn't necessarily jump into action. When you're alive what the what the institutions will look for is who is your agent, right? So who is your agent for financial decisions? Who is your agent for medical decisions?

And these documents are called a durable power of attorney or a power of attorney for medical decisions. And if you don't have those, then the state It goes through the same order that we just went through with the intestacy laws. If you're a spouse, a spouse. If you're if you have kids, then kids.

But, It's not as easy, even if you have these folks, for someone like a hospital to sort of give up their control to someone who's not used. So, so for example if you don't have a document that says, hey, I don't want to be on life support I don't want to use feeding tubes, it will take a hospital a lot longer to come to the conclusion that they should turn, flip off the switch than if you had the documents.

And that's because they're worried about liability. They're worried about, you know, doctors are, are, are supposed to keep us alive. They're not supposed to turn off the switch. And so if you want your desire, desires to be listened to and upheld, it's really worth it to have these documents in place.

Jenni: Got it. You've kind of mentioned some of these core documents. Maybe you can just run that list again. But when does somebody need to have a trust versus relying on just a will or like, you know, what, what are kind of the general Documents that everyone should have and the extra ones that some people should have.

Jaime: Right. Let me, well, let me do it in reverse order, right? Let me end up with the trust. So, because most people don't think about this, like if, if you have kids who have reached 18 and they're going off to college or they're just going out on their own, everyone who's 18 and older should have durable power of attorney and a medical power of attorney because If they're away at college and something happens to them and they're no longer able to speak for themselves, you want to make sure that the parents, or if they want their siblings to be in charge, that they're sort of named in these documents.

Most people don't think about 18 year olds needing any documentation, but but they do. Right? And in the rare case that something would happen to your kids those would be good to, to have in place. So after the durable power of attorney and the medical power of attorney, we think about wills and trusts in terms of how to give away our stuff after we've passed away.

And a will gives away your stuff. If you are a parent of minor children, a will is also where you name. the guardians for your children if something were to happen to both, both parents, assuming, assuming there are two parents. And a will must go through a probate procedure, procedure. Now probate is just the name for a particular court division.

We have civil division, criminal division, and probate is the division that takes care of, of wills. And with a will, it's got to go through probate. It's a procedure that takes at least 12 months to 18 months. It can be very expensive unless you do it yourself. And And most people want to avoid that, which is where trusts come in.

So a trust is, like a will, a document where you can stay, state who you want to get your stuff. After you've passed away, it leaves instructions for someone after you named your, named your trustee to deal with the distribution of your stuff. But also a trust deals with what happens if you are also incapacitated and who can make.

decisions about giving away gifts while you're still alive, et cetera. And when is, when would a trust be better than a will? Well, if you want the people that you're, you've, you're giving gifts to, to avoid probate, you absolutely want to do a trust. And also, in terms of, of wealth, we suggest that once you own a home especially in California, you're going to save your beneficiaries tens of thousands of dollars in fees if you use a trust instead of a will.

So we so we use that as a, as a, as a major marker for when you should have a trust. But even if you don't have, a home. In the state of California, if you are leaving someone over, say, I think this year it's 184, 500, right? So if you're a state, if all you have is you know, vinyl record collections that are worth only 10, 000, you may not even, you may not need a trust, right?

You can do stuff with a will because the people you've just left your record collection to can go through what's called simple probate. Bye. But if you own not just your record collection, but now all sorts of electronics you have computers, you have, you know, rare guitars and all this stuff adds up to 184, 000.

Now people are going to be forced into probate. And so if you own a lot of stuff, even if you don't. own a home, we say a trust is, is worth it to the people that you're, that you're giving these gifts to because it's not quite a gift if you've given someone something and then they have to pay, you know, 5, to an attorney to deal with the probate.

Jenni: Gotcha. What about like just speed or access of this stuff? Right. So I've heard a lot of clients who maybe have, or people who have received stuff from their family, meant from like maybe a deceased parent, parent didn't have anything in place, it takes forever to get the stuff right. Like if you have a trust, then can you get it right away or like tell me about.

You know, how long it takes if you have just a will and go through probate versus if you have a trust, you know, to actually access check bank accounts, you know, change ownership of the home to you, et cetera, et cetera, or to your heirs, I guess, in this case.

Jaime: Right, right. So, if you're dealing with a court, you know, a court is just supervising what it is that the executors are doing with the estate.

But the court has certain time frames during which you can't do anything. So, for example, in the first four months after, after you've been named the executor of, say, your parent's, parent's estate you can't do anything because you've got to wait for creditors to come and make a claim in the court.

So you can't touch anything, nothing, no bank accounts, nothing, you just. You can't spend anything just in case some creditor comes in and says, Hey, I need to take all of this. Now with the trust, you still have to pay creditor's claims but because you don't have a court supervising what it is that you're doing, as long as you're making sound competent and within the law decisions about the assets, you can use some of the assets.

So, for example, if you're still waiting to hear from creditors in an estate, but you as the trustee of the estate need to do some other things, need to pay some other bills, you can at least take the money from the estate and pay those other bills instead of just making everybody. Everybody waits. So it's not immediate.

It still takes time. You have to wait for death certificates. You have to get, open up a bank account. But you certainly are not going to be waiting for months or even years as you would be with a probate, which is when there's a will involved. So, you have a lot more access. You have a lot more freedom.

You have a lot more control when there's a trust involved.

Jenni: Got it. Okay. And you mentioned a little bit about guardianship and the need for families with minor children to have a will to name a guardian. You know, what happens if, like, how, like, let's say, God forbid, the parents both die in a car accident if they have not named a guardian, then what happens?

Jaime: Right. So yeah, we, we, we like to say that, you know the, the risk is low that both parents are going to die at the same time, but the outcome is catastrophic from the point of view of, of the child and people left behind. So don't sort of leave it up to, leave it up to chance. And parents tend to travel together.

They get in cars together, they get in airplanes together. So, you know, even though the risk is, is low, it's, it's definitely not zero. So, so what, so. What happens? Well anytime guardianship is an issue, it's also supervised by the court, right? The court's always interested in the best interest of the child.

And in California, we have laws that say who's first in line when it comes to guardianship of both parents are are deceased. And in California, the first people in line are the grandparents. Now, of course, the court will see whether or not they are, the best people suited to, to be guardians for the kids, but if you've got two parents and now you've got two sets of grandparents, how, how's that gonna work, right?

And what if the grandparents, one set of grandparents isn't in California, but perhaps they're more affluent versus the parents, the grandparents who are in California, who aren't as affluent, what's the court going to do? You have no choice here now that if you don't have a will that names guardians, you're leaving it up to the court to decide which set of.

Grandparents is going to take care of the kid. And what if you didn't want your parents to take care of the kid? What if you had siblings or best friends or, you know a neighbor that these kids like grew up with those people don't have a chance against grandparents in the state of California.

Jenni: Got it.

Okay. Super important guardianship. Okay. And, and tell me about, how about like for LGBTQ families? Like we have marriage equality now. Is that all good? Are we all good now? Or are there certain gaps and challenges even with marriage equality for these kind of families?

Jaime: Right. So before marriage equality, right, it was a much bigger issue for LGBTQ plus folks.

What we have gained since we have marriage equality is that our spouse, if we don't have anything in our, in place, our spouse is the first person in line through intestacy laws to, to get stuff. So in, in that sense, we're equal. However, What if both spouses are gone? Then we still go through this process of looking to biological family and biological kin as the next people in line to receive things.

And in LGBTQ plus families, still today in 2025, there are a lot of us that are experiencing rejection from our biological families. So unless you come from a family where, you know, You want your parents to be the next ones in line, or you want your siblings to be the next ones in line to get your stuff or to make decisions for you it's best to, to, to have the proper documentation in place where you get to take control now and name the people that you want to be your trusted your trusted go to folks.

Jenni: Got it. Okay. Let's kind of move from families to how about single folks, right? If you have single folks who don't have a spouse. Maybe have or don't have children don't know like how how should they be thinking about a state? Like what are some of the particular considerations for them?

Jaime: Yeah, so for single folks, I like to say, you know that It's time for them to start thinking about it now, right?

Most of us, myself included, right, didn't start thinking, or didn't start acting on my estate plan until after I got married. And then, then certain decisions become default decisions. Well, I'm married, and so I want to make sure that my spouse is taken care of. We have, we still have a parent who's alive, so together we want to make sure that that parent is taken care of until, you know, unless, and until, you know, that That parent goes before us, these are default decisions, right?

It's, it's the way that we think as a society of how things should happen. Well, as single people, we really have to think, we have to sit and think about what's important to us, who's important to us, and what is it that we would want, especially if we're younger. And, and, and I imagine we're going to talk about, you know, the difficulty of having to, To deal with the emotions of doing an estate, an estate return, but I, I feel like it's easier, perhaps, to think about the farther away you are from, from from Your death, if you're going to live a long life.

And but the, the, the issue for single people is don't wait until it's a default moment. Right? Don't wait until you get married. You know, think about it now. Who are your specific people? Maybe it's not your siblings. Maybe you've got a best friend, someone that you went to college with, or your childhood best friend that you've known for the last, you know, 20 years.

Talk to them. Have discussions together about, you know, what you would want to happen if you were incapacitated. What you would like to do with your stuff if something happens. The point is that single people have to be more proactive

Jenni: than married

Jaime: people.

Jenni: Got it. I mean, what advice would you give to people who, you know, are struggling to identify, you know, that best friend or family member that they trust?

Because it's a hard thing, and also maybe all of their friends are their age or older, so they're thinking, well, by the time this happens to me, we're all going to be 85, so like, how can I trust them to handle this stuff? What, what options does someone have in this case?

Jaime: Yeah, so two pieces of advice.

Number one is Everything can change, right? So if you made the decision today, like I've got a childhood friend named, you know, named Jesse, and I want to talk to Jesse today about, or I want to talk to Jesse about whether or not they're the right person to help me with this, you can have that discussion with them, you can find out whether Jesse's the right person or not, and then next week or next year or 10 years from now, you can make, you can change your mind, right?

So thing, the thing about estate plans is that wills and revocable living trusts can be changed, right? So I think we stress so much about whether or not we're making the right decision. Is this the right person? Well, it might be the right person today. And then down the line, you know, that if they're no longer the right person, you can change them.

So. Relax, right? And don't try to be so perfect. And then the second piece of advice I would say is you'd be surprised. Strike up a conversation with your friends, one at a time, or, you know, if the, if there are three or four of you having a glass of wine in someone's, you know, living room bring it up.

You'd be surprised. We're all thinking about it. And just start the conversation and know that you don't have to have everything figured out today. But if you don't start talking to folks and, and, and find out for yourself what's important for you and who those trustworthy people are it may be too late.

Jenni: Okay, super helpful. Are there, if, if, are there other options, like fiduciary, can you tell me more about, like, if they wanted to, say, hire a professional or some of these things, what are, what are, what options are out there?

Jaime: Yeah, so a fiduciary is a person, right, whose profession it is. To, to act as trustee after someone has passed away, or to act as conservator or guardian if someone has, has become incapacitated.

So these folks exist. There are tons of fiduciaries in every city I found out I live in San Leandro in the East Bay population 90, 000. We have a dozen fiduciaries in this town, and I've met almost all of them. It can be expensive, but it's, it's available. If you really don't have people that you, you can trust to do what it is that you want to do after you've passed away they step in as trustee and they will follow the directions in your trust just like any other trustee would.

Jenni: Got it. You mentioned the term trustee. We've also heard terms executor, like all these things, like what, what does that actually mean? What are the, what are the terms and what's the difference?

Jaime: Yeah. Okay. So many terms. This, this is, yeah, term, term soup, term stew. So a trustee and executor and agent are all positions of authority and positions of, of power.

And there's really no difference except where that person, in what document that person is being named. So, a trustee is the position of power in a trust. When you create your own trust, you are the first trustee. You're the one in charge. And then when you pass away, you have a successor trustee.

And that is the person that, that follows the instructions of the trust to distribute your assets. They're not necessarily the beneficiary. They're not necessarily the same person that's going to get your stuff. But they're in control. They're now the CEO, as it were. And they're going to make sure that everything goes where they need to go.

An executor, is the same person, only that's the name that we use in California when it comes to a will. And a lot of times when we do an estate plan here, the executor and the trustee will be the same exact person. It requires the same skills and there's no reason for it to be a separate, not always, there's no, not always a reason for it to be a separate person.

An agent is the person that you name. in a document like a power of attorney or a medical power of attorney. And again, they're the person in charge. They're the person making the decisions when you're incapacitated. And, and they, that may require slightly different skills than a, than a trustee or an executor.

So, for example, my medical power of attorney would never be my brother, because he doesn't have the same emotional skills, he's got plenty of emotional skills, but he doesn't have the emotional skills that I want from a medical power of attorney. So I've named a best friend as my medical power of attorney, because I trust that she can turn the switch off.

I cannot trust that my brother would turn the switch off, right? So different skills involved, but the people in power is what they are.

Jenni: Gotcha. That's super helpful, actually, because I get confused with all these terms as well. So many terms. Okay, so we've talked about, we've talked about different family types.

We talked about single woman, single anyone, men and women. What about unmarried couples, right? I think it's getting more and more common for couples. They can be cohabitating for a long time, maybe even have children. But they're not married on paper. And so some, like, does the default stuff still apply?

Like, what, what should, what do they need to be considering?

Jaime: Yeah, so unmarried couples, even if they're cohabitating in California, unless they're married or they're registered domestic partners, they have no quote unquote legal relationship in the state of California. There are other states that recognize common law marriage, which means like if you've, if you've been living with someone for seven years, you have the same rights as a spouse.

That does not happen in California. Unless you have the piece of paper from your county or from the state of California, you have no legal relationship, even if you have children together. So, yeah, so so it's, it's, it's very important that if you intend, Like, if, if, if it's your desire to make sure that your your partner receives something after you've passed away that you have a will or a trust in place.

Because those same default intestacy laws will, will come to get you. Now if you are co owning something, For example, if you are living with your unmarried partner and you want to own a home together, there are some things that you can do with a deed and you don't necessarily need a will or a trust.

So, for example, in the state of California, unmarried people can own property with what's called a joint tenancy. And in a joint tenancy, just By sheer fact that you've chosen that on your deed, when one person in the couple dies, the other person inherits the property. Doesn't matter what it says in a will, will, no will, trust, no trust.

Because that's what it says on the deed, your partner will get the other part of the house. And that's a great tool to use. If you're not ready to do a will if you're not ready to do a trust, but you've got a house, it's a great way to own the house to make sure that your partner gets it and your, your default family doesn't.

However, then you have the issue of like, well, what if the both of you die together, right? And again, the risk is low. The catastrophe is, is, is high and in that case, the will, that, that deed doesn't do any, any good. You'll still want a will or a trust. But same, same issues and some things you can get around with, with a, with a good deed.

Jenni: Got it. And speaking of kind of, we have the will and trust to dictate how things go. You can also, it sounds like what you're here, what I'm hearing you say is that if you have a deed on a, you know, house or whatever, and it's joined with the rights of ownership, that's going to trump whatever's happening in the world.

Trust. Tell me also about like, Beneficiary designations, because that's also like some people, their primary assets are their retirement or pension. Yeah.

Jaime: Yeah. This is, this is a really good point, right? There really is a lot that we can do outside of drafting a will and a trust. And death beneficiaries are any financial institution, any account that you have, whether it's a checking account with your bank, or it's a brokerage account with one of the major brokerage field brokerage houses, you can name a beneficiary for those accounts, and they're called death beneficiaries, and when you die that institution will wait to hear from that death beneficiary.

When that death beneficiary shows up, the account becomes theirs. So again, just like with the deed, it doesn't matter what the will says, it doesn't matter what the trust says. All of this happens outside of your quote unquote, estate and it's also really efficient. It's just can't it just can't deal with very complex gifting schemes, and what I mean by that is if you've got one account and you want your, your nephew to get the whole thing, that's very easy, and the bank can deal with that, right?

100 percent to my nephew, period, right? If you're If you've, if you're now older and maybe you have kids, maybe you have grandkids, you have a lot of nibblings, right, nieces and nephews, and you want some of them to get something, like everyone gets something, you know, I want little Jimmy to get 10 grand so he can buy his car and I want Alice to get, you know half of the rest of it.

These institutions can't deal with that kind of complexity. But simple, simple stuff, definitely, I, I advise everyone to make sure that they have death beneficiaries. The same is true for retirement accounts. Retirement accounts require that you name a beneficiary. I don't know if anyone listening has ever actually physically set up an account, a 401k or an IRA.

You can't do it without choosing a beneficiary. But your bank accounts, they won't tell you. They won't make you choose a beneficiary. You need to reach out to your institutions and name those beneficiaries.

Jenni: Yeah, that's actually a question like you know the retirement accounts they do require you But when it comes to say a taxable brokerage account or a bank account, you know There's like the whole transfer on death designation or beneficiary designation Is that airtight in terms of kind of receiving the same?

treatment of avoiding probate like let's say somebody does not have a will or trust in place, but has a designated beneficiary on their bank account and on their taxable brokerage account. Is that pretty airtight in going through that, or could that still get caught up in the probate process?

Because I've heard different opinions about this.

Jaime: Yeah, it's, it's not going to end up in probate by itself. And, you know, if it's, if it was done correctly and nobody, If someone wants to challenge it, then it should stay out of probate, but there's, but even if regardless of whether or not there's a will, whether or not there's a trust, if someone dies and someone believes that they should have been the recipient of something, they can bring, they can bring a probate case, right, as a, as an interested party.

And I've, I've seen this happen where someone a child was not, The will couldn't be found trust couldn't be found, there was a death beneficiary that was very, it was an old, old choice, and the, the child is now, was, wanted to claim that that they're the rightful owner of that because that relationship no longer exists and so it's, it's not yeah, it's, I wouldn't say it's bulletproof, but it's mostly bulletproof.

Jenni: Okay, good to know. Yes, we make sure to, that all, all of our client accounts have beneficiaries, okay. So, you know, I'm, you've worked with a lot of people doing their estate plans. Can you is there like a story of, you have a favorite story from your practice where estate planning has made a big difference for a client in a positive way?

And if you have a favorite story of a disaster as well, of someone not doing it properly and kind of the beware love to hear that too.

Jaime: Yeah. So the disasters unfortunately happen, and they usually they usually happen because somebody waited and or there, there are two types of disasters, right?

There's the time element disaster, which we're dealing with a client right now who has a, has a will and has a trust, but they, They created this will and trust over 20 years ago. Over 20 years ago, they were, they were in a relationship. Now that this is the kind of person, this couple is the kind of person where like once they decided they didn't want to be together anymore, they actually stayed married.

They didn't get a divorce. They stayed married, but they haven't been in each other's lives for 20 years. They're just You know, we're kind of like, well, we don't really care what the state thinks. We're just going to go on and be, have our own lives. Well, this client wanted to redo his trust because he was getting older and he knew he was going to pass away.

And he also knew that his old, old trust named his spouse as beneficiary. And a few days before he was set to sign his new trust, he died. So now the children have to deal with the spouse who's not really a former spouse and trying to negotiate with them to say like, you know, you know, I mean, it's, it's a mess, right?

Like the spouse is, is legally do everything, but not morally. Right, because they weren't together. So that, so that's a disaster and that's based on time and waiting, waiting too long before doing something. Another disaster can come from having a trust, but not actually putting your assets in the trust.

And what I mean by that is, If you have a trust and you own a home, the way that you get your home in the trust is by changing the deed of the house. And you change the owner from you to the trust. The trust owns the house. And a lot of times people will create their trust and forget to put things, put, actually put things in the trust.

And That can lead to problems later and that can force someone into probate that didn't, that didn't want to go to probate. So those are the disasters. Time and not funding the trust. So one of the things that was, like, even though it was a tragedy, one of the things that turned out well is I had a client who was engaged to be married.

And the plans were to get married like six months down the line. And he decided to do some paperwork before, before getting married. So as part of the estate plan, one of the, one of the documents that we provide is actually a HIPAA release form, the healthcare healthcare release form that survives you.

So right now, like, you could give your partner access to your medical to, to your medical documentation. But once you die She would lose that access, unless you have this special document in place that says, Hey, I still want my partner to have access to my medical, my medical documentation after I've died.

So in our, in this estate plan we did for this guy, we included that document. Three months later, he has a stroke. Two weeks after having a stroke, he dies. And the insurance, he had life insurance, naming his fiancé as the beneficiary, and the life insurance company did not want to pay out without looking at his medical records because they thought that it looked kind of fishy that he had just purchased a life insurance policy, had just done an estate plan, and then was dead three months later.

And we were able to provide his fiancée with this documentation. She sent it to the insurance company and within, you know, ten days she had a check. And so she had the money to pay for the, pay for the funeral. So without it, it would have been months and she would have had to argue and argue and argue with the insurance company.

Wow. Tragedy.

Jenni: Yeah. Speaking about morbid things, right? I think speaking of morbid things well, what you're dealing with is people have to think about their own incapacity or death and how a lot of us don't want to think about that, how, how, is there a way to reframe so, you know, to, to think about this better, you know, and, and how, and not just for yourself, but also in raising it with reluctant partners.

Or reluctant family members, like if you're trying, if you're thinking ahead, you're thinking for also for your own parents or whatever, like folks who, you know, in your life that are closer to this, like, I can tell you, like, my, my father is, you know, in a state where he's medically, you know, he, it's, he's, he's not well and, but raising these questions are very difficult, right?

So both for yourself and for reluctant family members, how, how do you advise to approach this?

Jaime: Right. So a lot of times when I do a lot of times when I do workshops for different communities, I will talk about an estate plan in terms of, of being life documents and not death documents. Right? And even a will or a trust can be described as a life document. Certainly the other documents, right? A power of attorney, a medical power of attorney.

These are documents that have nothing to do with your death. These have to do with your life and how you want to be treated while you're alive, but unable to to, to affect your own agency. And then in terms of a will and a trust, I still call them life docs. And that's because you're alive now. You have agency now.

You have desires now. You have a will. Bad choice of word. You have the desire to leave things organized. for your family members and your, and, and your, and your special people, right? You have the desire, and you only have the agency and the power to do that now, while you're alive. So these are life docs.

These are not death docs. Now, it's a It's a, it's a play on words, obviously, and a will and a trust actually doesn't become activated, right, and until you die. But the desire to, to make sure that things are organized for the people that come later really has nothing to do with your death. It has to do with your love today, right, and your desire today to take care of people. Now, I've had clients in the past, and one in particular that said to me, I don't give a blank, right?

I don't give I don't give an F about what happens after I die because I'm dead.

Jenni: Yes.

Jaime: But out of the hundreds and hundreds of people and families that I've helped, it was only that one person who didn't care. Everyone else cared about. What they were leaving behind. So maybe hard to think about your death and what comes after your death, but this is this is more about your life and your love and the people in it right now.

Jenni: Yeah, I hear you. What about helping. to bring up this conversation with parents, right? We work with a lot of folks who are in their forties and fifties. So their parents are in their maybe eighties or so. Maybe there's still an okay health now, but you know, they have seen their friends have to wade through this mess of when parents are deceased and they don't have anything this proper, but they're afraid to bring it up with their parents.

And you know, their siblings involved like this, it's, it's a very touchy subject. How, how do you advise folks to talk to? Reluctant parents, if you will. Right.

Jaime: So, a lot of times, even without them admitting it, what parents are going through is a feeling of insecurity about what they know and what they don't know.

And not necessarily the fact that they're going to die. And they may not be willing to admit that they're insecure because they don't understand how it works. And so in those instances, you know, bringing it up with a parent and say, Hey, I need to do this for myself, right? Hey, mom and dad, like, you know, I, I'm not sure if you have a will or a trust, but I'm going to go get one right now, and if you don't have one, is this something that you guys want to do?

Like, we could all do it together as a family, right? We can work with the same attorney, maybe, and and, you know, I'll be there to help answer questions or maybe they're, they're translation issues if parents are not native English speakers. And so doing, doing it as a family actually helps.

And some of my favorite clients of all times have been like parents and children who come in together. And I think that that's such an act of, of love for the children to, to do it that way. And if, if that's not the issue, right, if it really is about death I would say, you know, broach the subject with other family, yeah, with other family members present and just have it be a question like, is there, you know, is there something that's keeping you from doing this?

And is there someone that, that you'd rather talk to besides me that could help you make certain decisions? You know, maybe there are siblings that are still alive or maybe they don't want to talk to the kids. Maybe they'd rather talk to. the other family members. And in a lot of cultures, it's taboo to, to talk about death, especially within The within the, the nuclear family structure.

So maybe help try to find someone and maybe they belong to a church, or maybe they belong to some other sort of community organization. They can have a discussion outside of the family.

Jenni: Yeah, yeah, I often advise like clients in this situation, you know, the one way they can. broach it as simply saying, Hey, I'm working with a financial planner on this stuff.

And these topics have come up. How have you been thinking about this? And also as part of your own financial planning, sometimes like trying to, it would be silly to totally disregard a potential inheritance into your own financial planning. And, you know, again, it's up to the. you, but you know, it often parents are happy to tell you because they want to help you.

They want the best for you. Right. And they don't want you to be stressed out about money. So yeah, I think sometimes engaging if you're doing it yourself, it's a good chance for you to bring this up with the parents too. Exactly. Okay, just a couple more questions. So one is about California, actually, because California is pretty special, like around community property and maybe some other things.

Like, what are some of the California specific issues of a state community? Like, you know, do we have a state tax community property inheritance that are unique to California? Since, as you mentioned all this stuff is state specific,

Jaime: right? So believe it or not, California is one of the only states that doesn't have an estate tax, which yeah, it's like, whoa, how did that happen?

Now there's, there's a federal estate tax right now. It's pretty high. Each individual can give away 13 million during their lifetime or at their death without without, The person or the estate paying a tax, that number may sunset at the end of it's scheduled to sunset at the end of 2025, but we're expecting that the current Congress will probably extend it so that that number won't come down.

California does not have an estate tax, which is great. California, you mentioned is a community property state. What that means is that once you get married or domestically partnered in the state of California, from the date of that joyous occasion, everything that you purchase with money that you've earned in that relationship is, is considered owned by both partners.

So if if if I own a house that I, that I've owned for a decade and then I get married, That house is my own separate property, and it's not part of, it's not part of my community. But then after I get married, my partner and I buy a house together. That house is community property. So when I die, I can only give away half of it, because I only own half of it.

So I can't give away my partner's half. And that goes for anything that's been purchased during, during, the community, right, during the marriage or the domestic partnership. You can only give away, you can only will away or trust away your half, not your partner's half.

Jenni: Gotcha. Kind of a one off but we We have a lot of families that we work with that are international families.

They have some property or assets abroad perhaps their fit their Parents came from there and their stuff over there or they bought a place over there Or they're married to somebody who is from there, whatever it is what are the challenge? What are the considerations? Like what do you do if you have?

assets, whether that's real estate or bank accounts or money, that's in multiple places.

Jaime: Yeah, so what's, what's consistent across state lines and across country borders is that where your stuff is located is it's the laws of that location which dictate what What happens to that stuff once you die.

Even so, if, if you own property in France, but you live in California, it's not the California rules and regulations that will deal with that property when you die. It's the French rules and regulations that deal with property when you die. And there's no way around it. You can't contract your way around that.

So, if you do own property or assets in other countries, get to know, you know, get to know those laws now. And don't, don't be surprised, or don't let your family be surprised when they have to, when they have to hire a French. lawyer or a Spanish lawyer or, or someone in Brussels to deal, to deal with those issues.

Now you should still list those assets. And according to the, and according to the U. S., you must list those assets in your trust and will. And they're part of your estate. So if you own a 13 million chateau in France, but nothing in the United States. When you die, guess who? Uncle Sam is going to want to tax you on the value of that.

13 million Chateau in France, but the point of the matter is that like yeah, don't wait before finding out from someone in Europe or in Asia or wherever the, the, the properties located about what, what would happen and you'll need separate documentation. Yeah. Your, your trust and will in California has no power.

over those assets.

Jenni: Yeah. Yeah. When we've had clients with this situation, we have had to do documents in the U S as well as documents in the country, working with a local lawyer there to create them. I think you raise a good point, which is that although the rules of how the stuff is passed is dependent on where the property is, the U S still wants to tax everything, just like they want to tax income everywhere.

So it still is going to matter. And I do think like estate taxes in the U S it's, It's pretty generous that we have this 13 million lifetime exemption. A lot of other countries are far, far, far lower. So you might be fine in the U. S., but you will realize that they're you're going to get taxed in, you know, your property in Europe or Asia, and in that case, you have to figure out with those lawyers, what is the best way to navigate that.

Jaime: Right, and how is it going to get paid for? Because if all you have, right, if all you have is real estate in these other countries and no cash, and they're going to be, they're going to be taxes. death taxes in those countries. How are they going to be, how are they going to be paid for? Absolutely.

Jenni: Okay.

So let's say somebody listens to all this and like, Oh my God, I got to get all this stuff done. What are, what do they do? What are the options? You know, there are obviously working with lawyers like yourself. You know, you get also a lot of ads for like, or you people do it DIY with legal zoom. There's ads for these online services.

What makes sense where?

Jaime: Okay, I don't know if you'll ever find an attorney that says, you know go use LegalZoom or go use RocketLawyer or something like that. Sometimes sometimes it's okay but what a lot of people don't accept about DIY, options is the DIY part. Right? So you shouldn't trust the documents that you're getting if you don't understand the information that you're putting into them.

Right? And what do I mean by this? Right? So, so, you know, Rocket Lawyer and LegalZoom have spent a lot of money developing these technologies for for filling in blank spots on documents with the words that you provide them. But if you don't understand What it is that they're asking you're not going to get, you're not going to get what you want out of it.

So I went to LegalZoom last night in preparation for this and I tried to find instructions on the website for what I needed to do to prepare to fill out their information for a will. It took me four clicks to actually get to a page that had instructions and those instructions were not complete, in my opinion and I counted, I, I, I estimated how much time it would take to read all of the pages that included instructions just for a California Will.

It wasn't all on one page. They were on multiple pages and blog posts and stuff. And it would have taken me at least an hour to read all of them. So my first, so my first a bit of advice is if you want to do DIY, be prepared to read all the instructions. Just as if you were to want to use any kind of fill in form, read the instructions first.

If you have a simple estate plan, meaning if you own less than 184, 500 worth of stuff Maybe you want, might want to think about a, a, a DIY and not have the expense of, of paying an attorney to draft a trust up for you. But if you have a home, if you have minor kids, if you have things that you would be really, really sad about if they ended up not going well I don't recommend using Using a DIY.

And it's not because these companies are scams, it's because it's not, you shouldn't lay it at the feet of the company, right? You've got to know what you're doing, they're not always going to explain it to you. And a lot of times the mistakes that are made aren't even in the documents, they're in the execution of the documents.

Meaning, did you sign it correctly? Did you have it witnessed correctly? Was that supposed to be notarized versus being witnessed? And, and a lot of times folks don't. They, they, they, they expect to receive a complete package once they've downloaded that document, and you're not done yet. You're not done yet.

You, you still have stuff to do after you've, after you've gotten that.

Jenni: Yeah, and I'll add to this. It's like, it's kind of like what you said earlier, which is like, okay, well, maybe you did it right, but if you did it wrong, the, the consequence is very, significant for your heirs. You know, I have talked to people who unfortunately, due to incorrect beneficiary designation, failed to receive the pension of their former partner.

Right? And so, there's nothing you can do about it. Like, once it's done, it's done. You know, if the partner has passed and your name wasn't on it, there's nothing you can do. And that money, like, which could have supported you, you are out of it. So, you know, that's an example of a beneficiary designation, a little bit different from this, but it's just an example of, like, doing your estate plan properly with somebody who would have I'm sure would have identified that problem earlier, you

Jaime: know, right.

And that's, that's something that, you know, I want to reiterate for folks is, is that, you know, you're, when you, when you hire an attorney to work with you on an estate plan, you're not hiring them to type out a bunch of documents, right? What you're doing is you're hiring them for their advice, for their counsel, for help with complexities that you may not even understand exist yet and what you end up getting.

In return is not a set of documents, but some sort of sense of, of, of relief and that, that you did your homework by talking to someone and that you can trust that the people that you wanted to be taken care of are going to be the people taken care of when, when you're no longer around to, to to vouch for them.

Jenni: Yeah, absolutely. Okay. So last question is like, what is the process of working with you? Like, as you know, kind of just what is it like to work with an establer? What happens?

Jaime: Yeah, so I think it's, it's pretty common across across, across the industry. You know, we, we meet with folks and have an initial consultation to make sure that that we're a good match, right?

That, that we're good attorneys to work for you, and you're the, the kind of clients that we can help the best, and, and if you're not, we, we're happy to give referrals, and then if we are a good fit, and you want to hire us, we move on to being engaged and we start collecting information we collect information using a questionnaire.

If folks are not confident using online technology, we don't force them to. We'll, we'll get on a Zoom call or sometimes we'll even show up in your living room if you want us to and get the information that we need to create your, your documents. Then we create your documents. We send them to you to review.

That can be overwhelming. because you know, you didn't, you didn't you didn't expect to have to read a, you know, a 50 page trust or a 15 page will, but we work through it with you so that you don't get caught up on the boilerplate language, but instead we just make sure that we've gotten everything the way that you want it.

Then we print everything out. We use these really cute. Binders, there they are. When we deliver them to folks, we make sure that you execute them correctly, we notarize them for you, or we send a notary to, to your home to notarize for them, for you, and if you have real estate or other assets that you want put in the trust, you can, you can have us do that so you don't have to worry about whether or not you've done it, you've done it correctly And you can sleep at night.

And I have to tell you, I didn't think that I was going to be affected when I was done with my estate plan with my partner, but the moment that we signed and had it notarized, I, I shed a tear because I felt like I'd finally done thing that I'd said I was going to do for years, and that was, you know, make sure that my family was taken care of.

And so it's a significant thing. It's a significant gift to yourself, as well as to your, to your family and friends.

Jenni: Awesome. Thank you so much.

Jaime: Thank you, Jenny. I love working with you guys.

Jenni: Yeah, we, we do too. Love working with you too. I forgot how we got introduced, but how did we get introduced?

Jaime: It was through the Horizons Foundation.

Jenni: Oh, was it? Yeah, I guess so. Did I reach out to you?

Jaime: I can't remember. One of us reached out to them. Yeah, yeah, I might have reached

Jenni: out. We were like, I was like, well, we need some queer professions. That's awesome. Is there like a particular type of household that you guys specialize in or want to work with?

Just as I think about, This is not, this is just for us. We're just talking now.

Jaime: We do, we do it all. I do really, really well with folks who need more explanation. Folks who are a little bit more nervous about doing what it is. Like the, the story about the mother and daughter who came together because mom was like, this scares me.

They really are my favorite clients to date. And it was because like the daughter was like, holy shit, mom, you don't have an estate plan. Well, we, we were going to do this together. I work with a lot of folks who are immigrants, a lot of folks who are, who have first generation kids who said to, you know, the parents, Hey, you need to do this.

And I don't mind going to, for older folks, I don't mind going to their houses. If they're, I, you know, I, I have to travel like 25, 30 minutes to get to my office. And if I've, if I can go in 30 minutes to their house and, you know, and older folks really, really love that. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I'm sure.

Jenni: What's your, what's your, like, general cost, like, if I were to tell a client, like, about how much to, for a typical family?

45

Jaime: is, is the 2025 prices. And if someone is, like, if, if they've, if they literally just have the house that they live in, if that's what they're putting in there, we'll, we'll throw in the deed which will save them Which will save them, like, another 300 or so, because it just seems like What does that mean,

Jenni: throwing the deed?

Like, will you change the deed for them, or what? Yeah,

Jaime: yeah. We'll change the deed for them. Oh. Without, without an extra, without an extra fee. Oh. So

Jenni: Is it a pain in the ass? I've never done this before. Is it a total pain in the ass for someone to do it themselves? The deed?

Jaime: Well, is it a pain in the ass? I mean It's a

Jenni: change.

Jaime: Yeah, I mean, you've got a, you've got a, I mean, I, I suppose you could copy the deed that you, that, that's in place. I mean, it, there, there are certain elements of the, of the document that have to be perfect, right? When I drop a deed off at the recorder's office, they will sit there and read it and make sure I got everything right.

And if you don't get it right, they just send you away and they don't tell you what you got wrong.

Jenni: I know. We've been dealing with a lot of like not deed stuff, but just birth certificate stuff and all these kinds of things. Cause anyways, like totally not related to this, but Lisa's trying to get citizenship in Italy.

And it's like, constantly, like we get things filled out wrong and then we're like, I don't know what's wrong. We don't know. You have to find a kind soul to help you.

Jaime: You can you know, you, sometimes you can hire a title company. to do a deed for you and they'll charge you between 300 and 500 dollars.

Deeds. com will charge you between 300 and 500 dollars. So for folks who like, you know, if, if, if what they're trying to do is just make sure their house goes to their kids and that's the only thing that they have, we're like, let's just throw the, throw the deed in. Yeah. So last year's prices, so it went up since last year.

Jenni: Okay.

Jaime: Yeah, I mean,

Jenni: my understanding is it's about like five, five ish grand anyways for, for, for to do this. So it's like, that's very in line. Yes. We all know

Jaime: that, by the way, everyone in the industry. Yeah,

Jenni: exactly. It's also like my industry too, right? Like we all know the standard prices. Yeah, yeah. How was I going to ask you about, And it's like with Sorry,

Jaime: go ahead. Go ahead. Well, and it's like with anything else. Like, sometimes we're making a really good profit on charging 4, 500, and sometimes we regret that client. Same here, same here. Yeah.

Jenni: Like, oh my God, how many hours have I spent with this client?

Actually, I have one specific client question and one general question for you. One specific client question is related to the deed. If somebody, like, jointly owns a piece of property with their brother, and then they want to, like, buy their brother out or whatever, like Can they just Chance, you know basically exchange money like I guess I'm not even sure formally how that works They just exchange money.

Like let's say the brother's stake is 500, 000 Can the brother just pay him 500, 000 change the deed so solely in my client's name or like what are the implications when you want? To you know get somebody off.

Jaime: Yeah, so you have you have the deed which is a reflection of ownership And then you might have a contract, right, just like when you would buy or sell any kind of asset.

Do you need to have the contract? No. I mean, the deed is on its face, tells the world who the owner is. But it would be really good to have some, some sort of contract. I'm working with a client, a tax client right now, who doesn't have proof that she paid her father. For the house that he sold her and the IRS is like, what's your basis in the house?

Oh, geez, and she's like four hundred fifty thousand dollars and they're like show me.

Jenni: Yeah. Oh gosh.

Jaime: Yeah, she can't So she's going to end up paying, they're going to end up saying that the basis in the house is zero. Oh gosh. Mm hmm. It's fucked up. So yeah, so, but the contract doesn't have to be complex.

Yeah. It could just be, you know, you know, you're giving me 500, 000 and I'm selling you my half of the house.

Jenni: That makes sense.

Jaime: The person buying it for 500, 000 wants that contract.

Jenni: Right. Yeah. Okay. That's helpful. And then a general question, which is like sometimes I have clients who like, they know they need to do their estate documents, but I mean, I can't get them to do it or whatever, you know, like, I mean, believe me, it's not like I don't talk about this.

And so all I, same with

Jaime: financial planning. Yeah, exactly.

Jenni: And so at minimum, I'm just like, look, can we at least get a durable power of attorney and a medical proxy thingy for you, you know? And so what I've been doing is just using like the default California document for durable power returnee and then like the proxy thing from like Kaiser or Stanford and both of them have to be notarized.

But is that like, will those work? Yes. Will those work? Okay, good.

Jaime: Yeah, I'll send you the one that's not from Kaiser or Stanford. It's it doesn't, it's not related to an institution. Okay. But yeah, and the, the the power of attorney you're talking about is called a California statutory, statutory uniform power of attorney.

Yes. Yes. Those, those are fine for most things. So the California statutory power of attorney, the descriptions of what it's good for are very, very vague. Yeah. And we tried to use one. For something that had to do with my uncle, my cousin is the power of attorney. Yeah. And I tried to argue, and I knew that it was going to not, could not work.

I was going to try, I tried to argue that that allowed her to open up an account for the trust because he never opened a trust account.

Jenni: Yeah.

Jaime: And we need, anyway, so funding the trust, right? We wanted, we wanted to fund the trust before he died and he was already in hospice and the bank said, no, this doesn't do that.

Jenni: I see.

Jaime: So it'll do, it'll do a lot of things, but it won't do everything. I was going to say something right before you asked that question. We were talking about something else. I

don't remember.

Jenni: It's

Jaime: okay.

Jenni: We also had like this weird, this client's kind of in this same vein. We had a client whose mom was already. Oh, go ahead.

Jaime: Any transfer that's sibling to sibling Yeah. Will not get there, there will be an increase in property tax. There is no exclusion when one sibling sells to another sibling.

Jenni: Yes,

Jaime: yes, yes.

Jenni: I am quite aware of that because we are the, we are the beneficiary of having a go from father to daughter, thank God. So we're, yes, but we, but even like aunt to daughter. Aunt to niece doesn't get it either, right? It has to be.

Jaime: Yeah, parent to child and grandparent to grandchild only if the middle parent is dead.

Jenni: Yes, that was our case, right?

Jaime: Yeah,

Jenni: but yeah, part of it belonged to the aunt, so that portion had to get elevated. Because it was like, basically, it's her dad and her, her aunt.

Jaime: Exactly. So I inherited this house, and my property tax was this, and then we bought my brother out, and then that half was increased.

Oh, because

Jenni: your brother, your brother could have kept it at that point, but you wanted to buy him out, right? Yeah. So, okay, you accepted the increase in, I guess, it's just all trade offs. Here you Oh, I was going to say, I, I'm curious what you think about this situation because we ended up working it out.

But there are state lawyers to something different. Basically the mom of my client is a memory care already, right? So already has dementia and we were trying to get them out of annuity because it like made no sense. It was super expensive. And and so we wanted to roll that money to IRA. But the problem was because they're already a memory care, like we didn't, we.

We couldn't get them to, we couldn't, we were struggling to allow them to name a beneficiary. Get, get what I'm saying? Like, we need to open an IRA under the mom's name, with the beneficiary being the children. Right, but, but because they're in, in the end, I think we managed with Strava, I can't even remember how to do it, but like, is that normally, like, how does that, what happens if, I'm sure this happens, right, I'm sure you've dealt with this where the client is already, the, the whatever, the person is incapacitated, you're trying to kind of get things in order, but you're kind of stuck because they, they're no longer in capacity to, to open accounts and name beneficiaries.

Jaime: Yeah, and even if you get it, even if you can get to the point where you, an institution will allow you to open it. Yeah. Naming the beneficiary is a different, is a different animal, right? Somehow

Jenni: we managed to get it done. Is that, do you normally allow to get it done, or is

Jaime: the normal answer no? It's normally no.

So, so the stat, the California, the statutory power of attorney wouldn't allow the agent to make those kinds of choices, but in a durable power of attorney, there are powers that you can add. I see. To allow the agent to open trust accounts, to fund trust accounts, to, you know, to, to move to, to, to change, to change beneficiaries.

Yeah. Now that has to be a real. Kind of trusted person, right? Because you can't, you, you can't sort of just if you have disharmony in a family and you're just going to let one sibling be in charge, that sibling can like disinherit everybody else. So it really, really, it has to be a special kind of trust.

Trust relationship. Right. But that's

Jenni: kind of what you're saying. Like I could currently use the California saturate at least has something in place But working with an attorney like you you could then design the power of attorney to kind of solve for some of these things Right because in this case we did want to allow the children to rename it They weren't trying to screw each other right there, right, you know But this is trying to get it out of a bad investment, which you know So

Jaime: and we, and we talk about like family dynamics and family harmony or like when we're dealing dealing with parents and we'll, and we'll, we'll Ask really sort of honest questions, like if something were to happen to you, you know, is there one child that's more trustworthy than the other?

Do you want to make sure that both of them have to agree so it has to be unanimous? But as long as they can get to unanimity, then they can, I mean, there are things that you can do where, like, if your parents are in, in, in memory care.

Jenni: Yeah.

Jaime: And you know. That they've got all this money and they have not been making, they haven't not been making their yearly gifts, their, you know, 19, 000 a year gifts.

You want to start that program so that the grandchildren start getting this money? You have this durable power of attorney that will allow you to do it. The statutory one, not so much. Yeah, so. That's enough. Yeah, that's the stuff. And just because you've been named conservator doesn't necessarily mean, like, so that's the other thing, like, say you don't have a power of attorney and you end up trying to, or you don't have a trust in place and you ask a court to name you as conservator for your parents, still doesn't mean that you're going to be allowed to make That, those kind of after death financial decisions.

Right. It's got to be in that general durable power of attorney. Fuck. I know, right? Read, read all my stuff again. Mo money, mo problems.

Jenni: I know, that's the thing. It's like, it's only a problem if you have money, right? I mean, we haven't, I did not want to, I didn't want to go into this in our conversation because for most of my clients it's not an issue.

They're not going to die. Like, as a couple, you'd have to die with more than 26 million, right? So that's a lot. Some of my clients have this problem, but most of them don't.

Jaime: Yeah, I have some clients that I need to go back to. I, I met with them. It's great. It's a great family. And I love that I got, they, they have a queer daughter and that's how I got the gig because she found me on horizons.

Yeah. And. When I met her, I was like, Oh, that's why you chose me because you are butcher than I am. So she chose the butchest picture she could find. And her parents had just in the 60s and 70s in San Francisco just started buying property. Yeah. And they own, their home is across the street from the marina.

Wow. Their home. Damn. Yeah. And then they own these multiple unit apartment buildings in Pacific Heights. And this is just like, they, they were just like, we have a little bit of money, we're going to go, we're going to go buy it. You know, it's, I mean, it's, it's amazing. Yeah. And I, I, I went and met with them last year and I was like, let's not do anything yet because, and they need irrevocable trusts to try to Anyway, so they I was like, let's not do anything yet because, you know, hopefully, and we all believed in the same, all wanted the same outcome, hopefully you're going to be hit with some really bad estate taxes, but let's not do it until we know the outcome of the election.

Jenni: Where's your picture of Kamala? She's gone. Oh, yeah. She's gone.

Jaime: Oh, she's down here. And it's because I, yeah, I met with someone the other day. I wasn't quite sure whether or not to do that. Yeah, who was that that I met? Why, why would I care? I was gonna say something else. Oh, Horizons. I don't know if you, did you get did you get an email from the, The pack.

No,

Jenni: I don't think so. Well, at least it managed my email, but I can ask her. Yeah,

Jaime: we're changing, we're changing the way that it works. Okay, so instead of, instead of the pack existing like on the horizons website with everybody's picture and stuff, we're now going to be our own LinkedIn group.

Jenni: Okay, cool.

Jaime: So you should have gotten an invitation to join the LinkedIn group. Okay, maybe.

Jenni: Yeah, I'm sure.

Jaime: And I'm still one of the co chairs. Some of the older co chairs, oh, the people who've been co chairs for the longest are leaving. So that's sort of, I'm being elevated now. And I was kind of hoping that we could use the PAC more for, like, queer networking the way that you're doing.

They want to use the PAC more for, like, who can do good for horizons validation, which is great. And that's, you know. That, that, that's necessary. But

Jenni: I mean, it can be for both, right? I mean, people need to find value of joining the thing. So, yeah,

Jaime: but the great thing about the LinkedIn is if you join the LinkedIn is that you can do some research about other folks that you would want to maybe invite into, into our circle, your circle, our circle, our circle, our circle.

Jenni: Yes.

Jaime: And I just, yeah, I would love to find some other estate planners who, yeah. Warrant is like, they're very,

Jenni: wait, do you know our, ours, what's her name? Alex, are you, are you, she's in Oakland. Queer.

Jaime: No, yeah,

Jenni: we found her. I don't remember who referred her, but I mean, I was working with her before I started this business.

So she was the one who did our initial, she was the one who did our finance or our state plan. It is like, look up a Y O U B. And she has a partner now, a business partner, and Dodson. Dodson, oh yeah. A I U, yeah. So, I, I don't think her partner's queer, but she's clearly queer and has kids and stuff. I think so, yeah, it was a friend of a friend who introduced me because she has kids, I think, someone my age, our kid's age.

Jaime: Cool.

Jenni: But she's like right, she's in Oakland, somewhere. I went to her office when we had a sign off draft,

Jaime: so. Oh, she's right. Yeah, she's in the same building that you guys use, right? Or no, no, it's the one next door, 1990. Yeah, I mean, our

Jenni: building is, is a virtual building, but

Jaime: yes. Why do they, they both look familiar?

Jenni: I'm sure, I mean, how many queer estate lawyers are there?

Jaime: Well, but, but we don't. We don't really well, there's, there's an East Bay Estates group, but I, I went to like one of their meetings because they were like all about, these, these networking groups are more about like, let's go to Jacqueline and Square and get drunk.

Yeah. I don't, don't, I don't, you

Jenni: don't want to do

Jaime: that. I don't want to do that, no.

Jenni: I hear you. Cool. Well, thank you. I know I took up more of your time, but this is awesome. We'll go through the same process as last time. Jesse and Lisa will do their magic with these stuff. You'll review the final thing before we send it, while we do it.

And yeah, I am trying to also be more proactive about getting my clients to do this work. By the way, is the Shaz doing something? Hopefully. with you, Heather and Heather Shaw. Heather and John Shaw. Oh, oh, oh, oh, John

Jaime: Podmore and Heather Shaw. Yeah, yeah, yeah, Podmore. Yeah, I think we're just I think we put it on the shelf for a minute around the, the holidays.

Oh, okay, okay. And they were really under, they were really understanding when it was just like, you know, death and the family and I just don't know what the hell happened with my life. They're actually like a

Jenni: referral from a friend, so. Yeah, need to get done there too. Teenage, almost of age children.

Jaime: Where do, where do most of your clients actually come from? Like, cause I feel like You mean live?

Jenni: Or

Jaime: No.

Jenni: Oh. The internets. So I would, I would say it's a minority right now for referral. It truly is. The Google, so we do have like a good set of client reviews and that seems to bring a lot of people.

And then we happen to be listed in like the Google employee list so that like somebody put us on there. I don't know how we got on there. So we get referrals from that. And we're on like some fee only financial planning directories. So we get some like NAPFLA and fee only network sometimes through Yelp.

Jaime: I didn't remember that you offered a fee only.

Jenni: Well, people get confused about fee only fee only really from an industry standpoint means we do not take make money off of any commissions. So anytime I put them in investment products, insurance products, like if you talk to Morgan Stanley, those are not field, right?

So it's actually a, it is a big deal, but then clients perceive that as like hourly or whatever. But the reality is like, we're kind of a blend. Like we will, we don't care about how much assets you pay have, but we have a baseline fee. You know, so as long as you can pay that baseline fee, I don't care above that base, and that'll include a certain amount of assets under management.

Once it gets above that, it's kind of our way to basically scale for complexity. Then we will charge a percentage for the assets. It's basically like, if you look at our website, but that's kind of how we've tried to do it so that we can be profitable yet, not be. Just asset base because really we're a financial planners and investments is part of it But not I would not call us wealth managers.

We are financial planners who do investment management. That makes sense

Jaime: I have a I have a friend and maybe did she I wonder if she reached out to you Because I would have given her your name, but I guess not if she didn't say so. It's okay It's

Jenni: also like you give people's name and sometimes they reach out sometimes they don't

Jaime: I and I have a feeling it was just because It was the holidays, but she She has between one and two million.

Yeah. And she got there on her own. And so she's, she's, she's like, I know that it would be better for me to work with a financial planner, but I don't know why. Like, I've done this on my own until now. Why is this, why is this going to be different? And so you know, she's got, she's married, but they own everything separately.

They've got kids together.

Jenni: Yeah.

Jaime: I can't even. Get her to like do an estate plan. Oh gosh.

Jenni: Yeah. I mean as you know, right like it's it's really hard to convert people who don't see the need for an estate plan or don't see a need for financial planning. So I really focus on, of course, if anybody asked me I will explain what, why, why we're helpful.

But at the end of the day, we're far better off, like, showing that, okay, you're looking for a financial planner, this is why I can be helpful to you in particular, you know, relatively. Right, right, right. Because it's really hard to, like, convince someone of that need.

Jaime: Right, but she's, but she's like, I, I want to start working with a financial planner.

But I feel like she's one, it's, it's sort of like when I work with tax clients who are like, well, I need to, I want you to do my tax return, but I want you to do it the way I want you to do it. And I'm like, no, I don't want clients like that because you're asking me to like fraudulently state you're in.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, exactly. And I feel like folks like this, and, and I, and I love her to death, but I, I'm like, I'm a, I'm afraid that what she's, that she would be like a pain in the ass. Like one of those people that's like, well, you just, we just made, you know, 7 percent this last year and the year before I made 19.

So why the fuck am I with you? Right. Yeah. Yeah.

Jenni: Yeah. And then that's the thing, like, I also like, I'm very clear to clients. It's like, you're not hiring us to beat the market. You're hiring us. To help you reach your goals, you know, and I'm very clear about that. And we talk about tax planning, like, you know, how hard it is to consistently beat the market by even 5 percent year over year, that that's like, you know, like, I mean, I was just talking to professional wealth manager, meaning they're dealing with pensions and hundreds of millions of dollars to have a track record like that.

Everybody would be giving your money. So really well, like, and then we say, look, but if we can save you on taxes. A couple percentage. That's like real money in your pocket, you know? So we talk about that. We talk about kind of like, again, just like you say, it's the relief, right? It's the offloading off sourcing.

But I'm also like, if you're happy to do it yourself and you are, feel like you're doing a great job and you don't have this problem, good for you. Awesome. Yeah. Press on. Yeah. You know what I mean? That's, that's good luck. Yeah. Press on like, I'm not here to like try to force you to. Exactly. And honestly, like I tell, I tell like my team, I'm like.

We already screen our prospects a fair bit, you know, to make sure we're getting the right people. And I'd say it's like, it's the exception that you're a good fit, not the, you know what I mean? Because it's really, as you know, terrible for you if you have a bad fit client. So it's terrible. Yeah, I have

Jaime: one right, I have one right now who I should have known when she walked in the door and said, I'm here because my partner told me that I need to get an estate plan.

And at that point, I should have said we're not a good fit. Like, you need to come to this decision on your own. And I've already spent way too much time, and she's like, she's reading every single word, even though I gave her, like, this, here are the boilerplate things, like, don't even read these. And she's like, reading them, and questioning, like, the sentence structure.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's like the

Jenni: worst case situation. It's true. Because, like, once you're engaged with them, then you feel a responsibility, and then it's hard to fire people, you know what I mean? It's just a mess. God, I wish

Jaime: I drank and we could go out to the, we could go out to the sports bar and we,

Jenni: yeah, you can, you don't have to drink alcohol.

I barely do. We should do that. Next time. Let's meet. If you're willing to come to San Francisco, let's go to this woman's. I will. Will you? Okay. Let's do it. I will. I will ask my dear scheduler, my wife.

Jaime: And if, and if, and if my, and if my dear wife and Valkyrie's partner ever doesn't isn't able to make it to a game, then you and Lisa will have to do rock, paper, scissors.

Well, she can go. She's a sports person. I'm like,

Jenni: whatever. I don't know. Yeah. I'm not gonna be like a full appreciation. She actually loves basketball. She, that's her favorite sport. She played it in high school and she just loves it. So.

Jaime: All right. So I'll have to make sure that she's, she's on, she's on the wait list for one of the days Jen can't make it.

Okay. Awesome. All right. I got to run. All right. We'll talk soon. Thanks. Bye.