Latest / The Jon Sanchez Show / How To Make One Of The Most Important Decisions Of Your Life...Choosing Your Trustee
Transcript
- Jon G. Sanchez: Good Wednesday afternoon to you. Welcome to the John Sanchez show on News Talk 780K, which it's a pleasure to be with you. Hope you're having a great hump day, Jack and Kristen said. ⁓ what a great show I have lined up for you today. We're gonna recap today's stock market activity. You once again, Teflon coded market. Missiles flew last night, missiles flew today, market didn't react to it. Good thing there. Oil prices barely reacted to it. Good thing there. And the market just keeps chugging away. Just keeps chugging away. Again, so resilient. So I'm going to bring you up to date on what happened today, why it happened, so on and so forth. then it's going to be time to get into my topic of the afternoon. Each every Wednesday, I bring you an estate planning issue, a topic, something to enhance your knowledge of the estate planning world. I've titled today's show, Choosing the Right Trustee. Now, you know who the trustee is, right, they go by a lot of different names. They can go by executor or successor trustee or so on and so forth. So we're gonna keep real simple. We're just gonna call him trustee for the show. The trustee is the person that you have chosen to manage your estate when you are gone, right? This assumes if you're married that both you and your spouse are gone. Or if you're single, obviously when you're gone. This is the person that steps in and must by law, by law, follow the instructions that you have laid out in your living trust. But I want to talk to you about this one today. Because, you know, people will spend months literally creating a trust. Not our process, but with others. But they will spend literally minutes who is going to be the trustee, who's going to manage it. So today I'm going to discuss one of the most important decisions in estate planning that you will ever make choosing the right trustee. Should be a spouse? Should it be a child? Should it be a friend? Should it be a professional trustee, which some of our clients choose? I'm going to give you all details. Because when people create a trust, they usually spend more time talking about it than choosing the trustee. And I don't want you to make that mistake because have been on the other side. I have been the advisor when a client who has passed away has chosen the wrong trustee. And I'll tell you, it makes everybody's life a living, you know what? Both the trustees, all the professionals they have to deal with, and then, of course, the client. Looking down from heaven, going, that wasn't what I wanted. ⁓ no, no, no, no, no, no. It's an extremely, extremely important role. We'll talk about compensation. What I see typically is ⁓ the trust does show some type of compensation to the trustee. However, I'm in the midst of ⁓ restating trust for a client right now, and there no compensation for the trustee. So when I have my discussion with her. That's going to be one of the things that I bring up. That you do not ever to name someone as a trustee without, first of all, telling them, ⁓ which see a lot, that they're going to be the trustee, getting their approval. And number two, giving them some compensation. Because again, it can be a very time-consuming, ⁓ stressful especially if it's a poor written estate plan or no estate plan whatsoever. Then of course you have an executor. but it same same responsibilities. It can be absolute terrible. It can it can disrupt a person's life. And what people don't realize that I'm going to help educate you on. This is a very serious position. Because, again, by law, you have a fiduci responsibility to that estate. Meaning you have to follow those instructions that were given to you in that living trust. If you don't. There could be substantial legal and financial consequences. You also, I'm letting the cat out of the bag here, but I'm on a roll. You also could be held personally responsible if you violate your fiduciary responsibilities. So it's not something to take lightly. And that's why I wanted to spend today's estate planning show discussing that with you. Once again, if you are of interest, you have an existing trust, you need it looked at, you need a second opinion. Go to our website, specialized trust dot com, fill out the let's get started, and I will hold a free 30 minute discovery meeting with you and discuss it. See what needs to happen with that. If you don't have a living trust, same thing. Go to specialized trust dot com and ⁓ take a look at our packages. Same thing. Click the let's get started and I'll hold a discovery meeting with you and ⁓ talk about what you need. right. So that's gonna be the topic. I'm gonna get to it here just shortly because I got a lot to talk about on that. And luckily, there wasn't a tremendous amount of activity in the stock market today. So I can do this pretty quickly here. we you know, the day got started relatively quiet in the pre-market session. We had major report the calendar today. That was the PPI, measure of inflation on the wholesale side, producer's price index. Like the CPI yesterday, which again is the retail side of it, PPI came in lower than expected. So immediately as soon as that report came out, we saw an improvement in the futures. And that kind of carried through the rest of the market. PPI on a month-over-month basis. ⁓ Was down three tenths of percent. So this was June. So from May to June, wholesale level of inflation dropped three tenths of a percent. look at the year over year number, not quite so rosy. Wasn't as bad as what they thought, but it's still a very, very nasty number. Five point five percent increase year over year on wholesale level. Core PPI up two tenths of a percent month over month. That was also below expectation. So the market liked that, obviously. The market also liked day two of the Humphrey Hawkins testimony by our new chairman, Kevin Warsh. Once again, the chairman this week emphasized, and we had another Fed governor, New York Fed governor Waller, come out today and say, Hey, you know what? Waller said inflation has peaked. It's going to come down. And I made the comment when when his comment came out this morning. I made the comment on my stock at one of my stock updates. And I said, you know. I hate to say this, but I I hope these other Fed governors are not drinking the Kool-Aid of Kevin Warsh. That's pretty harsh accusation. But let me tell you why I'm saying this. There was a fear, as I discussed many, many times with you, when Kevin Warsh's name was being thrown around along with a handful of others to become, to be nominated, I should say, the next Federal Reserve chairman. There were a lot of concerns that he was going to be a puppet man of President Trump. So far, he seems to be standing his own ground. But what I don't like what I'm seeing so far, just right out of the gate with him, number one, his comment yesterday that I think is not fair. And I hope I'm wrong. I hope I'm wrong. But I don't think it's fair to come out and say essentially is inflation is going to be nonexistent within five years. It'll be down to around two percent the Fed's mandate, but he's also made some hints that it could be pretty much non-existent. Then you get Waller coming out today and saying, Yeah, it if we've peaked on inflation. How in the heck can you say we have peaked on inflation? The only reason this PPI number was down today, the only reason the CPI number was down yesterday is because energy prices, oil prices, gasoline prices came down during the month of June. That was it. It's not like we saw a big decrease in the other factors that go into the calculation. But you see. Washington is trying to spend this to you. I mean, it was all over the headlines yesterday. Inflation dropped. Well, again, the rest of the gu the rest of the country is not as smart as you. Because you have me to listen to each and every day, and every one of you are so smart. It only dropped because oil prices came down. So when Waller comes out today and says, hey, we've peaked on inflation, it's going down from here. Again, I look at it with one eyebrow raised and say, really, how can you have the the the audacity to come out and say that when it's all dependent upon oil prices? Now, maybe you know something, Mr. Waller, from the president indicating that this war is going to come to an end and oil prices are gonna remain sustainably low. It's not looking that way at this point. But all it takes is something bad to happen in this war where it sustains itself or other incidents has happened, and you get oil prices. Kicking back up around $90 to $100 a barrel. And I promise you, you are not going to see a decline in July's CPI or PPI number. And then he's going to look like he has egg on his face. Because everyone's going to go, hey, hey, remember back on July 15th, Mr. Waller, you said inflation has peaked. Well, look at it, it hasn't. So again, I hope I am wrong, but my common sense says those are very bold statements. A by worse saying we're we're going to have basically no inflation in five years. And by Waller today saying inflation has peaked. back to my point, I hope they are not being puppet men of the president. I really don't, because you know that he's got to be getting pressure from the president to say whatever, to do whatever, to get inflation down. I just, I have never, in my 36 years doing this, I have never seen a Fed chairman come out, especially new Fed chairman, and make that bold of a statement that inflation is basically going to be gone in five years. And then followed by a very powerful Fed governor, New York Fed president, again, Waller, saying, you know, we've peaked. I've never seen that. So something, I don't know, something just doesn't feel right to me. So my reason of going on this rant is be careful. I'm sure none of you are s or or I'm I'm sure all of you are smart enough to to have the common sense to say, Yeah, you know what? I'm not gonna make a a bet on this. Let time pan out and and let's see what happens. But don't believe anybody's prediction. We we all know the Fed is very very inaccurate in their predictions of inflation and economic activity, right? How many times did we hear from from Chairman Powell about ⁓ transitory inflation or this or that and only to again get egg on his face. So take it with grain of salt. You know, look at the other factors when you're making your investment decisions, but don't put a tremendous amount of credence in my opinion on those comments. Again, I hope I'm wrong. I hope those gentlemen are right. I don't think so, time will only tell, of course. All right, we come I want to share with you a few ⁓ mark ⁓ movers and shakers, tell you what the market did, interest rates, as well as oil prices. Welcome back to the John Sanchez Show on News Talk 780 KOH. All right, before we get to our topic, how to make one of the most important decisions of your life, choosing your trustee. Before we get to that, here's how we finish for the day. day today, finished up 150 on the Dow, a 0.29% gain to close at 52,658. NASDAQ 162.62% to a close of 26,269, ⁓ and SP higher by 29 points, 0.38% to finish at 7,572. Just a 22 cent gain remarkably in oil, 79.62 a barrel. Lost $12.20 on gold at $4,057.50 an ounce, and down four basis points on the tenure to a yield close of four point five five percent. once again, the ⁓ major report of the day was the PPI data. All right, far as ⁓ some stocks on the move today, this is one of those days where we saw semiconductors weak today. in in most the one that bucked the trend was Asmal ASML that delivered a ⁓ nice beat and raised the earnings before the open, but the stock ⁓ the broader semiconductor space did reverse course after initially ⁓ moving higher earlier, but the stock finished up ⁓ point two three percent, thirty-nine dollars and sixty-three cent gained to one thousand eight fifteen twenty-seven. But turn to the memory names, you had micron down seventy-eight dollars and eighty-four cents, eight percent loss to nine ⁓ four twenty-eight, ⁓ sand declining one hundred and forty-two dollars and eighty-two cents. 8.12% decline to 1615. that ⁓ stock that ⁓ debuted on the NASDAQ last week, South Korean ⁓ semiconductor company SH Heinex ⁓ down $17.46, 9% loss to close at 176.46. other areas ⁓ in the tech space, information technology specifically did well. We had Microsoft up ten dollars and seventy cents, two point seven eight percent to three ninety-five sixty three, Apple Rose a four point zero one percent increase. 32750. ⁓ Apple benefiting from a report from the media company, the information that the company is exploring acquisitions to bolter bolster its AI chip capabilities. ⁓ was a strong performer, $12.88 increase to $370.21. ⁓ with Amazon. A good day there. $7.47 increase up 3.02% to $254.96. And world's largest money manager, Ball Ackrock, they had a great earnings report. They finished up 6.63% or $67.96 to $1,093.40. PayPal up $17.2%, $8.15 rise to $55.52. Here's the reason behind it. ⁓ was the best performing stock in the SP 500. ⁓ reported early this morning that Stripe and Advert International have offered to acquire the company for approximately $53 billion. I not see any comments back from PayPal. And ⁓ where do we sit on a year-to-day basis? Well, the Dow's up 9.6%, SP is up 10.6%, Russell up 19.9, and the Nasdaq's higher by 13%. right, mortgage applications, as we discussed on the show with Dwight and Corey yesterday, ⁓ down for the prior week, ⁓ down 2.7%. All let's get down to ⁓ our topic today. Once again, one of the most important decisions you will ever make, choosing the trustee. And again, not to get real technical with you, but the trustee is the person ⁓ or You can have more than one. That you have to handle your financial, medical, et cetera, affairs after you have left this earth. And again, many spend more time planning, spending months literally planning their trust, creating the trust. Shouldn't take that long. We do it in two hours, but they only take a few minutes to decide who's gonna manage it. One of the biggest common questions I receive. So when people create their trust, they spend their time talking about the trust itself. But also, here's what I want to have happen to my house, my investments, who I want as my beneficiaries. But today I want to talk to you about something I believe is just as important, if not more, which is the person who will carry out those wishes. And that person is called your trustee. Because choosing the wrong trustee can create confusion, it can create family conflict, it can create delays, and most importantly, I've seen it create a tremendous amount of unnecessary stress. So choosing this trustee is extremely important. Maybe one of the greatest gifts you can ever give your family is choosing the right person. But the question I always get is, what do I look for in a trustee? And I'm gonna, I'm gonna cover what I, you know, what I want you to think about. So let's start with I've I've called these factors. Okay, so you're gonna hear me say factors. I've got 10 of them that I've created. Let me tell you about factor number one: integrity. Remember, I'm going to repeat this a couple of times because many people do not know this. The trustee that you select has to be, excuse me, has to follow fiduciary rules, meaning they've got to handle the money like a prudent investor. They've got to handle your estate like a prudent investor. Meaning it's all about the estate. It's not about them. Okay. So ethics are critical. And hence why I titled the first one integrity. So the first question you ask is. Can this person be trusted? I know it sounds like such a basic question, but literally I've seen estates, estates, many, many estates, many living trusts, I should say, where it's a it's an after fact, right? A person's getting their trust created. They go to the attorney, they grab all the paperwork, they're going back and forth and back and forth. Now it comes down to the point where they're filling out the paperwork and who do you want to be your trustee? Geez, I don't know. let me go talk to my next door neighbor, Sally. She seems like a nice gal. Sally, how would you like to be the trustee of my estate? sure, no problem. Well, doesn't know what she's getting herself into. The client didn't answer the first question. Can this person be trusted? Second question is will they always act in the beneficiary and the estate's best interest? Right. Again, they got a fiduciary responsibility. So the question I want you to ask yourself, kind of as a personal test when you're thinking about the integrity of the trustee, is this you handed this person your entire financial life today, you gave them the checkbook, they can sign you gave them access to your brokerage accounts, you gave them access to everything. Would you sleep well tonight? There's a little test for you. If the answer is no, move on to your next choice. Because that's literally what this person's gonna have. They're gonna have access to everything. Your life's work is gonna be in their hands. Factor number two, organization. ⁓ I can't stress this one enough. Can this person, I've always told people, and I've told you also many times over the years, I've said, One of the qualities of a great trustee is they're very organized and they have great business acumen. They don't need to be an expert in law, they don't need to be an expert in finances or accounting or anything like that. But they do need to know a little bit about a lot of different things. But when it comes to organization, there's going to be a bunch of paperwork flying back and forth between all the financial institutions, the beneficiaries, maybe the court system if things weren't done correctly. Bottom line, it's going to require a person that is extremely organized. Can they handle paperwork? Can they multitask? Do they understand and can they adhere to deadlines? Right. There's going to be a lot of deadlines that are that are put in their ⁓ in their lap. they good record keepers or do they just grab something and throw it on the kitchen counter? Can they communicate with professionals like myself, with accountants, with attorneys? Do they have the ability to have attention to detail? Because literally An I knot dotted, a T knot crossed, you get my point, can really mess everything up. So being a trustee is a job. And that's the other thing that you must emphasize when you select your trustee. You have to, you let me rephrase this. You don't have to. But the ethical and the right thing to do is to make sure that you talk to them, get their approval, let understand what they are in for. Because what I have found is most people, the first answer out of their mouth is, of course be your trustee, right? I love you. You're my brother. You're my sister. ⁓ You're my best friend, of course I'll do that. I love your kids and so on and so forth, with no regard to the amount of responsibility that they're going to adhere to, and the amount of time that it's going to take. It is a job. And again, depending upon the complexity of the estate, it is more than a full time job. I've shared the stories and I won't bore you with them again. I've had clients that have had to quit their jobs to take care of mom and dad's estate because they were the trustee. And I again can't tell you how many times I've seen it where they didn't even know they were the trustee. Well why? Because the other rule of violation is mom and dad never told, you know, daughter Sally that she's gonna be the trustee. So mom and dad die, they get notified from a from a law firm. hey, guess what, Sally? Your your mom and dad chose you as the trustee. They did what? What does that mean? yeah, you got lot of responsibility. And Sally ends up quitting her job, moving to be closer. Cause a lot of times, of course, kids live out of out of state, sometimes out of country. But this has to get handled. It really does. So it is a job. And that's why when I get to l ⁓ little bit a later point, you know, the compensation, like I said. Do not make the mistake. Do not make the mistake that you don't compensate your trustee because they're sacrificing a lot of their time. right, when I come back, factor number three on how to choose your trustee, which is financial responsibility. Back to the John Sanchez Show on News Talk 780K, which again a solid session today in the market. We finished with a gain of 150 on the Dow to a close of 52,658.29% rise. NASDAQ up 162.62%. SP up 29 points.38%. All right, we're gonna get back to our topic today: how to make one of the most important decisions in your life. Choosing your trustee. if you want to learn more about our state planning process with the company I created, Specialized Trust, just go to our website, specialized trust.com. ⁓ You can see all the different programs that we offer, meaning different estate plans. You can see our two-hour process. That's right, from start to finish. It takes us only two hours to create an entire estate plan for you a fraction of what local attorneys charge. And it's a very enjoyable process. I promise you that. ⁓ Look our reviews. they're outstanding. They're absolutely outstanding. But my job to educate you, not to convince you that you need a trust. If you have an existing trust, my job is also enlighten you on things you need to be thinking about. Because let me tell you folks, I'm seeing a lot of scary things out there. Estates plans written by some high-end law firms here locally that are terrible, just absolutely terrible. just did one today. Just reviewed one today, that we're trying to decide if we need to restate it. The notary signed the the will, the pour over a will, the notary signed it one month the client signed it. That just created an invalid document. And our software picked up on that. Those are the things that I'm seeing. So if you have an existing trust, give me a call. Go to our website, click out the let's get started form. I'll give you a 30-minute discovery call. We'll talk about it, take a look. Again, we have the ability to take your existing trust, put it into our software. We have four large language models that will evaluate your entire trust, all of the components, your medical directive, your financial power of attorney, your living trust. That will everything and create a summary report saying this is how you designed everything. Is this how you still want it? But more importantly, it will also lay out problems that the software finds. Like I said, this document trust was just restated a couple years ago. And now it's invalid because the attorney made a mistake, major mistake. So this is what we do. This is why I'm so passionate about specialized trusts. And I I want to take care of all of you. So ⁓ To start the process, schedule the discovery meeting with me, whether you're wondering if you needed a a living trust or you have an existing one. This again, go to the website, specialized trust.com, ⁓ right corner, click let's get started. You'll fill out a very simple four five line intake form, and that'll get you into our system. And we will immediately schedule a ⁓ discovery meeting with you, a video call. You don't need to leave your home or anything like that. And then we go from there. All right, so get back to educating you. Again, one of the important decisions, choosing your trustee. You know, I I may have been a miss a excuse me, ⁓ a little bit, assuming that many of you know what a trustee does. So I want to just tell you before I I continue on the 10 you need to have with a trustee. Okay. So once again, as I said earlier, a trustee is legally responsible for carrying out your instructions that you've listed in your trust. And they are legally responsible for acting in the best interest of the beneficiaries. Okay? But what do they do? So here's a list I made up for you. collect and protect the trust assets. They investments prudently, as I said. They pay bills, debts, taxes, and final expenses. They keep financial records. They file the required tax returns for the trust. They distribute assets to the trust documents, not their personal opinion. They follow the trust's instructions exactly. They communicate with beneficiaries in keeping them reasonably informed. They treat all beneficiaries fairly and impartially. They preserve the value of the trust estates assets. They professionals when needed, CPAs, attorneys, financial advisors, real estate agents, like we said with ⁓ we did with Corey yesterday on the show. They sell or transfer assets if required by the trust. They manage property until the beneficiaries are entitled to receive it. protect minors or disabled beneficiaries by following the trust distribution rules. They the trust if legal issues arise. They avoid of interest and they avoid self-dealing. They maintain confidentiality the trust matters. They keep the trust assets separate from personal assets and ultimately winding up the trust and making the final distributions. Folks, that's just a partial list. That's how important this job is. And again, it's not an honor to say, yes, I'll be your trustee. It is a job. Now let's go to factor number three, the quality you want in your trustee. Financial responsibility. got to be able to do budgeting. They have to be able to understand taxes. I'm sure they don't need to be an accountant or a bookkeeper, but able to communicate with the tax professionals. They need to understand the investments. I I'll give you again, real life example. Let's say you elect, you decide the if you want to be, know. Be a nice guy, nice gal. And you say yes ⁓ to your neighbor, yeah, I'll be your trustee. And let's say they have a, I don't know, decent sized portfolio, a million dollars plus or so. And let's say they had, I don't know, two kids, Frank and Sally. I'm stuck on Sally's name today. Well, as this estate is being settled and so on and so forth, go to the trustee and say, Hey, you know what? I need some money to live. Do have the capability of again understanding the trust where you can give them some money? Potentially, maybe not. But what about the investment side? And I've seen this, here's a real life example. The trust got tied up, or not the trust, they they th this couple had a will, so it really got drug out in probate court. But what ends up happening is Murphy's Law, right? You just lost your last parent. You and your sibling, for example, are the beneficiaries of the estate. And let's say again it's a million dollar brokerage account, and you want your money, or at least some of it. But here comes Murphy's Law. Stock market begins to plummet. That million dollar account just loses ten percent. It's now down to nine hundred thousand. Loses another 10%, another 15%. falling like a rock. And every day, you as the beneficiary are watching your inheritance, your mom and dad's hard work go down the toilet. Now, a good trustee would get on the phone with us or whoever the financial advisor is and talk about a plan of action. But if they don't know what to do, guess what? And our hands is the advisor, our hands are tied. until we certain documents that we have to receive, then we can still manage the account. But there is a time period where the advisor can't do anything until we're officially notified. And again, I've had it before we weren't notified for months. I I've one, the worst case, it was two years. We didn't know that the client had passed away. The husband ⁓ never told that the wife had passed away. I'm like, y you gotta let us know. But as a trustee, You gotta be able handle the investment side of things. Understand a statement. Be able to talk to the broker, so on and so forth. You also need to be a good decision maker, right? There are decisions that have to be made, especially in the initial stages after the person dies. You know, multiple decisions, sometimes daily, but definitely during the first couple months. Lots of decisions have to be made. So the question I want you to ask yourself as you're thinking about who the trustee is going to be is would you hire this person to manage your own money today? Do they have the knowledge, the expertise, the business acumen to do it? If the answer is no, move on to your next choice. Factor number four, skills. They ⁓ keep beneficiaries informed. I've seen it way too often where the trustee, especially it's not a family member, it's someone that, you know, again, just a friend of mom and dad's, whomever it may be, and they have no communication with the beneficiaries. Again, imagine being your the children of that estate, and you're wondering, where's my money? My money going up? Is my money going down? When do I get it? Do I owe taxes? Do I yeah? A million different questions. And if you're sitting there closed lip, because you're not, you know, you can't even send an email, not the right person. So a trustee, a good trustee, a great trustee must keep those beneficiaries informed. They also must be a good negotiator because in many cases, no matter how well a trust is written, but especially if one is not written, there's a good probability there's going to be some disagreements, right? You can't cover everything in a living trust. There's just many other things that are not out there. So they've got to be able to communicate and manage disagreements. They to have the ability to work with attorneys, CPAs, as I said, financial advisors. So the question there is: can this person that you're selecting as your trustee, can they bring people together? Or do have the personality to create more conflict? I've seen that happen also. They just can't get along with anybody. And they're like, hey, the trustee of this. Your mom and dad name me as the trustee. And by gosh, it's gonna be my rules or no rules at all. They'll want that person. Number five, availability. Do they have the time to commit to being a trustee? I said, this is a situation that can require like a full time job if it's a complicated estate. How far away do they live? Think about this. If you've chosen your trustee that lives in Topeka, Kansas, and your estate's here in Reno, do you think that person's gonna jump on a plane every time they're needed? No. Can they communicate other ways? Potentially, but there are going to be some situations where they've got to be here. Do they have the time to do that? How far away do they live? So many times that's one of the major criteria. Choose someone that's local. Are they in good health? I've seen it where people choose Aunt Sally or grandma. I've seen that one. You don't want to do that, right? You got to think about does this person, you know, they going to be around long enough? So what's their age? Are they healthy enough that if they do have to travel or they've got to sit for three or four hours in meetings with professionals, can they do that? Just like hiring an employee. So will they realistically have the time? Will they realistically have the energy to properly serve your state? All right, I'll come back with numbers six through ten. I'm gonna hustle on these ones. Welcome back to the John Sanchez show on News Talk 780KOH that commercial just reminding me of something I need to remind you more often. Again, if you missed any of our show, you can find it on YouTube, Apple's iTunes well Apple Podcasts now. I keep wanting to say iTunes. It's not iTunes anymore. It's Apple Podcasts, and of course on Spotify. So we're everywhere, all over social media. So if you missed anything, by all means you can always pick it up. Tell your friends across the country about the John Sanchez show. All right, we've been talking about how to make one of the most important financial decisions in your life, and that is choosing your trustee. So very important. Let's go to factor number seven. Do they understand financial matters? Do they understand legal documents? Do they understand taxes, business ownership, real estate? Pretty thing. So think about this. Look at all the qualities that I've laid out to you, and I'm not even done with my list that you need to have in a great trustee. But it's okay if they don't know everything. What they need to understand is: are they willing to ask for help from various professionals? That's all we need. We again, you don't need to be an expert in law or finances or ⁓ along those lines. They have to make sure they don't have a big enough ego that they think they know everything. I've been down that path before. It's no fun. Factor number eight: emotional stability. Yeah. Can they handle grief? This is a tough situation. Can they make difficult decisions? they remain objective? Can they separate emotion from responsibilities? Now, I want to pause here on this point because this is very important. Let's say you name your child as trustee. Logical choice, right? Most of us trust our kids and you have confidence in them, and they're going to be a good fiduciary, and so on and so forth. But what if your passing took a fin ⁓ took an emotional toll on them? Could they truly carry out your wishes? That's what you have to ask again of one of your many questions. Can this person emotionally handle the estate? If the answer is no, move on to your next one. Now, as I've said in my eight points here, there's a lot of things that a trustee must be able to do. And it's again part of your decision of who you choose. But maybe you come to the point where you go, you know what? I don't have anybody in my life that checks all those boxes. What's my other alternative? Your other alternative is a professional trustee, better known as a trust company. We have some pretty good ones here in town. I've had discussions with them. They're good. They're fair. How do they get paid? Usually it's a percent of the estate. But what a professional corporate tr what what a professional trustee does there is no emotional side of it. You name them, you nominate them as it's called, in your in your trust, that they are to handle all of your financial decisions and again the disposition of the estate. There's no fighting among your kids or your relatives. They are a professional. They don't get emotionally involved, like if you named one your friends or ⁓ family members your trustee. It's Black and white. There's no gray area. So if you think I don't have anybody in my life, or man, if I name my son, my daughter's gonna get mad, or whatever this the the situation is, please consider a professional trustee. Yes, it costs you a little bit of money, but once again, depending upon the value of your state the peace of mind that you want, it may very well be worth it. And again, I can give you some great referrals. So I want you to think about the following questions as I wrap up. Who have you chosen for your trustee? With all the 10 points that I've mentioned to you, do you check the boxes for all those? If not, remember, you can come back. That's the joy of a revocable living trust. Things can be changed. Anything can be changed while you're still alive. So if you if this person or persons that you've you've chosen as your ⁓ don't check the boxes, you can definitely do it. Okay. And I wanna I want to add one other thing. Sometimes people will name co-trustees. very careful of doing this. Like they'll name you got two kids. I'm going to name both of them as 50% co-trustees. It can get very complicated because they have to come to a consensus agreement of whatever decision is. It's usually much cleaner to just name one person. Okay. So I want to wrap things up with this. Know who this is. It's one of the most important decisions, again, that you will ever make. Because your trustee isn't simply managing your money, more importantly, they are protecting your family. They're carrying out your legacy. So please, please, please choose your trustee wisely. And again, if you can be of ⁓ if we can be of any assistance, give us a call at specialized trust, 775-260-3200. thirty eight seventy five or send me an email jon at specialized trust dot com and God bless have a great afternoon.