Wills, Powers of Attorney & Estate Planning | E004
Full Transcript:
Jason Pereira: Hello, and thank you for joining me for the Wisdom of Wealth, a show where we help educate Canadians about fundamental financial literacy topics to help you make better and more informed decisions, and to know when and where to reach out for help. I'm Jason Pereira and I have the privilege of being your host. Today on the Wisdom of Wealth, we're going to talk about something that affects the lives of all Canadians; estate planning.
Jason Pereira: Estate planning is just a technical term for what happens to your stuff when you die. Because it has to do with dying, many people avoid the subject as much as they possibly can because they don't want to think about it. In fact, surveys show that just about half of Canadians don't even have a will, and those who do, the majority haven't updated in the last 10 years. Let me urge you; if you are one of these people, please do something. The most heartbreaking experiences of my career involve seeing the families of deceased people resenting their dead loved ones because they didn't take the time to organize their affairs before they died. I don't know about you, but I want to remember fondly by the people I love and not resent them.
Jason Pereira: If you die without a will, it's known as dying intestate. When that happens, everything you have gets distributed according to the rules set out by the government. For some, this is fine, but for others this can be a real problem. For instance, most people assume that everything would go to their spouse, but in Ontario it's not the case. The first $200,000 goes to a spouse, but after that your spouse got to split the rest of the assets with your kids and can end up with only one third of your assets. Also, the government would get involved and protect the kids' rights to their assets. In some cases, this situation can endanger the surviving spouse's ability to support themselves, but situations this can be easily avoided with some basic planning.
Jason Pereira: When you die, everything falls into one of three categories; joint, designated, or estate. Joint assets are things you own with someone else, typically a spouse. When you die, the ownership passes on to the other owner. If it is a spouse, they can inherit and take over your share. If those assets have grown in value, there are taxes to be paid, but if it does go to a spouse, they can put off that tax bill until they die. But for everybody else, the taxes are due. Other costs that you can avoid with joint ownership, is probate. This is a fee that's charged by the courts for processing your will. Because joint assets are outside of the will, they don't attract this cost. The fees vary from province to province, but Ontario, they're up to 1.5% of the estate. Because of this, many people choose to try to put everything they can to joint ownership even with their kids. I caution you, be very careful here, and get qualified with advice when doing this. Doing so can expose your assets to your kids' creditors, divorcing spouses, and even lead to unintended results when you die. In fact, I almost never recommend this for my clients.
Jason Pereira: The second category is designated assets. These are assets and accounts that let you name a beneficiary. When you die, these assets transfer to the beneficiary without probate and outside the will. There are only a handful of assets you can do this with; RRSPs, RRIFs, pensions, TFSAs, and insurance policies. In the case of RRSPs, RIFs and pensions, they can transfer to a spouse with no taxation, but when that spouse dies, it's taxed as income. One catcher, you have to name a person as a beneficiary, otherwise these assets get paid to the estate and are subject to probate.
Jason Pereira: Everything else you own makes up what's known as your estate. These are the assets that you need to leave a will to take care of. So, what's a will? Simply put, it's a series of instructions and wishes for what you want to happen to what you own when you die. It also names the people who will play up to one of four different roles in the management of your estate. The first person that you need to name is an executor or estate trustee. This can be one or more people, or even a trust company. The executor is the person who is in charge of making sure that your wishes are followed. This is a lot of work. They have to identify the deceased's assets, pay off debts, file and pay taxes, cancel memberships, return IDs to the government, and then finally distribute all the assets to the beneficiaries. It's not so much an honor as it is a job, and it's a job that comes with liability. Executives can be penalized or even sued for not handling things properly. Because of this, it also comes with compensation that's paid for by the estate.
Jason Pereira: The second group of people listed are beneficiaries. These are the people who will get your wealth and your stuff. There are a few things you need to consider when naming beneficiaries. You should take into consideration personal need, fairness, and maintaining family harmony for those you leave behind. The third group of people you could end up naming in your will are the guardians. This is important if you have minor children, as these are the people who are choosing to raise them should you pass away. One important thing to note is that this is not fully official. It's simply your wish. If you pass away, your named guardians will have to apply to the courts to obtain official guardianship. Your wishes in your will weigh heavily in this decision, but should those guardians not be suitable, the court could ignore those to protect the welfare of the children.
Jason Pereira: The last role to be named in your will is that of trustee or trustees? When you leave assets to people in your will, you can leave them either outright or into a trust, be managed by a trustee on behalf of that beneficiary. You may choose to do this for various reasons. If you have a beneficiary who's a minor or disabled or just irresponsible with money, having someone else manage those funds could be a better option than leaving them outright. While wills take care of your affairs when you die, what about if you're alive and can't make decisions for yourself? That's where powers of attorney come in. These are two different documents where you can name different people to make decisions for you. The first document is the power of attorney for property. With this, someone can pay your bills and manage money on your behalf. The second is a power of attorney for personal care. This allows someone else to make medical decisions on your behalf.
Jason Pereira: When naming anyone to be part of your estate planning as power of attorney, executor, trustee, guardian, or even beneficiary, it's important that you make smart decisions. Be sure you choose people who are able to handle the responsibilities they're being assigned. Someone who's bad with money may not be a great power of attorney or executor. Make sure that you have the right people in the right roles to ensure success. One other key thing to do as part of your estate planning is to get organized. You can find various estate record- keepers online that provides you with a place to store all your information for your executors in one place. In addition to that, just keeping records of account statements, insurance policies, and other important documents in one place will save your executors a lot of time and aggravation.
Jason Pereira: So, what's all this going to cost you? Well, it depends, but one thing I can promise to you is that it's going to cost a lot less to deal with this before you die than for the people you leave behind after you die. If you have a very simple, simple case, there are very cost effective online legal kits like willful.co that can cost you anywhere between 100 to 250 dollars. But if you have any degree of complexity in your life, this simply won't do. You need to speak to a lawyer. In my experience, a decent estate lawyer will cost you approximately six to seven hundred dollars per person as a starting price for wills and powers of attorney.
Jason Pereira: However, the more complex your case is, the more expensive it gets. If you own a company, foreign assets, require a trust or have any kind of complexity to your case, the cost can get into the thousands or more. But as I said before, the cost of doing things right is far lower than the cost of not planning. Often, this planning pays for itself because lawyers can identify opportunities to reduce your tax obligations. Now, all of what I've discussed today is a touchy subject, and oftentimes it's hard to even get started in dealing with all this. In order to discuss how you can get started and get the ball rolling for you and your family, I've asked my colleague, author and speaker, Tom Deans, to join me.
Jason Pereira: Thank you for joining us today, Dr. Tom Deans, author of Willing Wisdom.
Dr. Tom Deans: Great to be here, Jason.
Jason Pereira: Great to have you. Tom, tell us how the average person gets started in this path of trying to get their estate affairs in order.
Dr. Tom Deans: Well, it's a great place to start because the reality is, 12 and a half million Canadians don't have a will. So, what a great place to start at an interview on the subject of estate planning. Most people don't know where to start.
Jason Pereira: Exactly.
Dr. Tom Deans: They don't know how to start it. It's a scary subject, and there's a lot of superstition, right?
Jason Pereira: I've encountered that many-
Dr. Tom Deans: If I write a-
Jason Pereira: With my own family. I've encountered that.
Dr. Tom Deans: You know that. So if I write a will, talk about a will, go to a lawyer, have a will prepared, and certainly if I sign a will, people think I'm going to die. The reality is we don't know when we're going to die.
Jason Pereira: Exactly.
Dr. Tom Deans: Most people leave this subject way too late. They figure they can ... I don't know, they'll have ample time. Maybe they'll get sick. They'll be in a hospital that'll have time to prepare. Well, the reality is we don't know when we expire.
Jason Pereira: I've literally been at hospital bedside fixing up new wills. It's the absolute worst time to be doing it.
Dr. Tom Deans: Yeah, and I don't know a lawyer who hasn't done a hospital bedside will, and you've got family in the hallway, you've got the lawyer popping in, trying to figure out the list of assets. Everyone's in a heightened emotional state. It is the absolute worst place to be doing what we're talking about today.
Jason Pereira: Absolutely. So, first steps. Someone wants to get their affairs in order because they saw this show and they decided, "You know what? I really need to be not one of these 12 million Canadians who's not organized." First steps. What should they do? Who can they go do for help?
Dr. Tom Deans: My answer to that question may surprise you. A lot of people will think, "Well, go see a lawyer." I would say go see an advisor who has hundreds of clients who has sent them to better lawyers on this subject.
Jason Pereira: Absolutely.
Dr. Tom Deans: There's a lot of lawyers who do this on a part-time basis, and this is an incredibly complex area of the law, so don't go to a lawyer who's doing a divorce at 9:00 AM, real estate at 11, then maybe gets to wills in the afternoon. This is a complex, difficult, and constantly changing area of the law. Go to your advisor. The advisors will have a good list of lawyers who do this full-time. They write wills full-time.
Jason Pereira: Absolutely, and it's important. Always deal with a specialist. I mean, the number of terribly drafted wills that I've seen in my career is shocking and they're not worth the paper they're written on. In fact, sometimes they create more problems than they solve. Besides the lawyer, let's talk about how the advisor can facilitate the estate planning for the client.
Dr. Tom Deans: Well, it's a great question. I think the best place to start is, we've been left with this idea that a will is something that we manufacture in the comfort of our own home, by ourselves. It's a solo journey, a solo conversation. I think that's why a lot of people don't get wills written, because it's so overwhelming and people are embarrassed. It's a full Latin language. Right?
Jason Pereira: Yeah.
Dr. Tom Deans: People don't want to feel they don't know the basics so they leave it alone. Here's what I've written about. I believe that when families can sit down with their advisors and have a family meeting and talk about the orderly transition of assets, whether it's cottages or cars or art ... Doesn't have to be even a lot of money. But when families tackle this in an open, transparent way, they have the most successful estate plans. But how do most Canadians do it? It's, "Surprise!"
Jason Pereira: Yeah.
Dr. Tom Deans: Right? Let's go to-
Jason Pereira: Your parent's dead. Here's what they wanted. "What do you mean that's what they wanted?"
Dr. Tom Deans: And everyone is really in shock going, "Well, why would they leave that to this person and this to this person when it should have been the other way around it?" And then we set up a family ... We often get the families we fear, not the estate plans that we designed. We are so overwhelmed by the emotions that we don't have these conversations. We draft wills in private and we create all sorts of challenges for surviving families. Really, this is where people should start with estate planning. How do I design an estate plan that leaves my family thriving and succeeding when I'm not here. You know how most people start estate plans?
Jason Pereira: Go to the lawyer.
Dr. Tom Deans: They go to the lawyer, they go to the wrong lawyer. They go to a lawyer or they go to an accountant and they say, "I need to do an estate plan. How do I save tax?" Dude, you're not here. Tax is the easy part.
Jason Pereira: Tax is the secondary part.
Dr. Tom Deans: Absolutely.
Jason Pereira: I would say the most important part is leaving your family intact because I'm sure you've heard it, I'm sure you've seen it, and I've seen it countless times. One of the biggest reasons I see families break apart is arguing over what happened in the estate. Right? That can be any number of things. Can be arguing over family heirlooms, and the big one, the big one is the family cottage.
Dr. Tom Deans: Huge,
Jason Pereira: Oh, we're going to share this cottage.
Dr. Tom Deans: Huge.
Jason Pereira: I don't know about you, but I didn't really get along sharing stuff with my brother when I was a kid. I can't imagine us getting along sharing things when we're older. It is a big issue.
Dr. Tom Deans: Yeah, and I would say jewelry is a big second place. Things that are worn close to the body, things with a large emotional content.
Jason Pereira: Absolutely.
Dr. Tom Deans: Watches, broaches, those types of things. It's not about the value; it's about someone else having them.
Jason Pereira: Exactly.
Dr. Tom Deans: And I'll tell you when we die intestate ... You covered that in your introduction. When we die without a will, that provincial formula which chops up a business, family assets according to that formula, those ... How do you chop up a watch?
Jason Pereira: You don't, right? You can't.
Dr. Tom Deans: You can't.
Jason Pereira: There's a dollar value to it and, oh, that watch is worth $50,000. Someone's getting the 50 of the watch, but someone's also getting $50,000.
Dr. Tom Deans: Someone wins, someone loses.
Jason Pereira: Someone wins, someone loses. Someone doesn't get the watch they want.
Dr. Tom Deans: You got it.
Jason Pereira: And then on top of that, is that person even think it's worth $50,000? Those cause arguments, right?
Dr. Tom Deans: It's crazy.
Jason Pereira: So wherever we can facilitate the conversation beforehand, and this is again a very touchy subject, right? People don't like talking about debt. They don't like talking about money with their kids. But if what you care about is your family being thriving and strong and close to each other after you're gone, this is incredibly important.
Dr. Tom Deans: I think it is important and really what I'm writing about is, I think we've been led to believe that wills are really about other people just getting our stuff. In your introduction, you talked about when we go into the lawyer for our will, we come out with two other documents. One's called a power of attorney, which is a document that has a huge import-
Jason Pereira: Huge.
Dr. Tom Deans: ... for people who are alive. It says, if you bump your head, your unconscious, here's who I've assigned to write checks and keep my financial affairs going while I recover.
Jason Pereira: Absolutely.
Dr. Tom Deans: And we do.
Jason Pereira: Yeah.
Dr. Tom Deans: Right? I don't know anyone who's got a power of attorney who doesn't have a will. In other words, we go in for the will, we come out with the power of attorney, financial power of attorney and power of attorney for healthcare. That's another document; estate planning document that's very much about the living.
Jason Pereira: Huge.
Dr. Tom Deans: It says, if God forbid I'm lying in a hospital and my family hears the words irreversible brain damage or vegetative state, they know what to do. They know what to do. What a beautiful gift to give your children, not to have to sit in a grieving room in a hospital and try to figure out when the appropriate time is to plug or unplug. You name a kid that's going to get that right; someone who's going to feel for the rest of their life that they moved too quickly or didn't move fast enough. So when we have these documents and share these documents with our family, not when we're dead, but when we're alive thinking clearly .... And I'll come back to dementia.
Jason Pereira: Yeah, [crosstalk 00:16:10].
Dr. Tom Deans: These are the great gifts that we give our family. For a very, very tiny cost, we give our families great gifts; the gifts of planning.
Jason Pereira: Yep. Like I said, it was the cheaper option to do it now regardless of the cost compared to later on. Let's not even get into the family dynamics issue. I mean, not having this, as you said, I mean, can you imagine if one ... You have some cases where one child is in medicine, the other one's not one. One child fully understands what's going on, the other one does not. There's a conflict over what to do about mom or dad because, "Hey, I know they're never coming out of it." "No, but there's hope." And it's like, "Well, they're not going to." And they get into an argument that causes a rift between them. If you had simply said previously, "These are my wishes," and this person understands that capacity that they know that my wishes are going to match whatever the scenario is because they have a background in it, it's their decision to say yes, right? But I give them that permission.
Jason Pereira: One little thing people don't realize is that, and this is a little tip for all the parents out there, is that when you're a parent, your kid's a minor, you have control over those sorts of things. The second your child turns 18, you lose that control. So I often tell and have my clients, when their kids turn 18, they'll get powers of attorney. They may not need a will because they don't have assets at this point, but they do need powers of attorney for their kids.
Dr. Tom Deans: I think they're great gifts.
Jason Pereira: Absolutely.
Dr. Tom Deans: I think they're great gifts to give our children. When our children turn 18, you're absolutely right, they're young adults. So the law doesn't say, "Well, they're young adults." I say to adult parents all the time, "You want to give yourself a gift? Buy your kids wills, power of attorneys and healthcare directors-
Jason Pereira: [crosstalk 00:17:36]
Dr. Tom Deans: ... when they're 18." Now, it's their job to keep them up-to-date, right? Not yours, but they're adults and it's a great way to make a statement that, "Listen-"
Jason Pereira: You're in charge of your own affairs.
Dr. Tom Deans: "Grow up. Grow up."
Jason Pereira: Yeah, exactly. Basically, let's just imagine a family does the right thing. They sit down and they discuss what's important to everybody, who's getting what, and they come to a general agreement that hopefully they're going to follow later on. I mean, I think that's powerful because it's one thing to hear it from your parents while they're alive. It's easier to understand those were their wishes versus seeing them on a piece of paper that's cold and maybe thinking, "Well, maybe they didn't understand what they were doing," whatever it might be. So basically now that they've had this conversation, what's the next steps in facilitating the entire experience?
Dr. Tom Deans: Well, I'm a big proponent of family meetings. The best quality and feature of a family meeting is everyone hears the same thing at the same time. It's not a parent dying and you have four kids and one says, "You know, just before dad died, he pulled me aside and said he wanted me to have the boat." It's like, "Dude, we had a family meeting. All four of us heard the same thing."
Jason Pereira: We heard the boat's getting sold [crosstalk 00:18:42].
Dr. Tom Deans: We heard the boat is being sold-
Jason Pereira: Exactly.
Dr. Tom Deans: ... and we're going to divide the cash. Again, what a great gift to leave our children; a plan that is transparent, that has been discussed, noodled, written down and understood.
Jason Pereira: Absolutely.
Dr. Tom Deans: This idea of putting surprises at the center of estate planning, I don't understand it.
Jason Pereira: No, no. I don't get it either.
Dr. Tom Deans: I don't understand it.
Jason Pereira: It's like you get shell shocked by what actually happens in it. So, you mentioned and touched upon an important factor; while you can do it. This brings up the issue of capacity. Let's discuss what that is and why it's important in estate planning.
Dr. Tom Deans: Capacity. It's a big issue. One in three Canadians over the age of 65 are presenting some symptoms of dementia. We are living vastly longer than any previous generation on the planet.
Jason Pereira: Absolutely.
Dr. Tom Deans: And, I'm going to say the D word, we're dying differently. We have heart attacks, we get stents, we go for another 20 years. The mortality rate of men, it's the fastest, most improving demographic. But we are languishing. Hospitals and medicine are fantastic for fixing us up and sending us home. There's a big chunk of retirement where we're not swinging a golf club or a tennis racket. We're not swinging anything.
Jason Pereira: That's [crosstalk 00:19:51].
Dr. Tom Deans: We're at home and we're lying down, and we're lying down for a long time, and it's expensive. My last surviving grandmother died at 98. We spent $2.5 million providing really high quality in-home care.
Jason Pereira: Wow.
Dr. Tom Deans: $250,000 a year for our grandmother. Canadians are completely underestimating how long they're going to live, how expensive it will be, and they are ... And because we are living longer, dementia is affecting relationships. It's affecting our finances, and family is having to step up and provide, if not direct care, then the oversight of that care. So, let's go back to where we started. We've got a family that shrouds their finances in secrecy. The next generation kids don't know how much money their parents have or where they want to live, or how they want to live when retirement. Guess who's paying the price for that? It's not the kids.
Jason Pereira: No.
Dr. Tom Deans: It's the people who are controlled by the fear around opening this conversation up inside the family. Give yourself a gift. Sit your kids down and have this conversation. It can be in a restaurant. It can be at a cottage. It doesn't have to be in a boardroom with everyone wearing ties. Make it informal, but make this conversation frequent and consistent, and update your plans.
Jason Pereira: Yep. I've seen it happen. I've had cases where I've been on clients to update their wills because previous ones didn't match and there was a superstition around or whatever it was. And then unfortunately, someone suffers a stroke. There is a capacity issue after that moment, for whatever reason. Bot every stroke leads to capacity, but that one did, and now that will is written in stone. Whatever was there, even if it was wrong, even if it wasn't what they wished anymore, if you leave this money to people they don't even know anymore, it's written in stone because you can't change it anymore. So, it's something that we ought to do when we are, quote unquote "sound mind and body" because otherwise any kind of change is going to be invalid.
Dr. Tom Deans: You know, this subject, Jason, has eluded some of the most successful politicians, business owners, wealthy people.
Jason Pereira: We've had stories recently, right? Celebrities.
Dr. Tom Deans: There's almost a month doesn't go by when a celebrity isn't in the news for messing up their estate. Absolutely messing up their finances, messing up their family. Aretha Franklin, Prince, the list goes on. 1968, Bobby Kennedy, right?
Jason Pereira: [crosstalk 00:21:56]
Dr. Tom Deans: He was assassinated in Los Angeles.
Jason Pereira: And he was a lawyer. He should know better.
Dr. Tom Deans: He was a lawyer. And guess what? He had a will. Good news, he had a will. But his brother was the executor. He was assassinated five years earlier. The will was never updated. He wasn't just a lawyer; he was the attorney general.
Jason Pereira: He was the attorney general of the United States, and he didn't bother updating his will. Ooh, boy.
Dr. Tom Deans: Yeah. So really, even if you're wealthy, even if you're super smart, this is complex, but it doesn't have to be. Those situations were ruled by fear. Overcome the fear, open the conversation up with your family, work with your advisor, and have them lead you to a really good qualified lawyer.
Jason Pereira: Absolutely.
Dr. Tom Deans: And I'll tell you, $205 million. Today, $205 million will be inherited in Canada. Today, tomorrow, every single day in this country for the next 10 years. $755 billion. There is so much money that is being inherited, so much money, and most of it is being inherited chaotically, causing all sorts of distress and conflict because people don't know where to start.
Jason Pereira: It's interesting. Oftentimes we have the conversation surrounding, "Oh, what's this going to cost? I don't like paying lawyers," whatever it is. You know the general [inaudible 00:23:00] about paying lawyers, and I said, "Well, if you don't want to pay the lawyers, you have a choice. You can pay them a little bit now or you can pay them a heck of a lot more when you die."
Dr. Tom Deans: You can pay them a tiny, tiny, tiny bit now to write your will-
Jason Pereira: Exactly.
Dr. Tom Deans: ... or you can do nothing and watch your children lawyer up and grind a million dollar, five million, 50 million dollar estate to zero.
Jason Pereira: I've seen that happen. I've seen ... even knew people in my own life where three years of struggle in court just to be named the executor. Never mind the entire disbursement of the assets or who gets what. It was just a fight over the executor ship because neither side trusted each other.
Dr. Tom Deans: It's outrageous.
Jason Pereira: It is.
Dr. Tom Deans: It's absolutely outrageous.
Jason Pereira: The amount of money blown was incredible.
Dr. Tom Deans: I say to people all the time, if you think divorce is expensive, that's like a dress rehearsal for the really big show.
Jason Pereira: Yeah, for dying without a will. That's for sure.
Dr. Tom Deans: Dying without a will is just insane.
Jason Pereira: Yeah. Especially the more complex your case. I mean, if we talk about blended families, right? Where your second marriage is in there. If you're talking about having a corporation in place. We saw the examples of the super complex ones you mentioned like Prince. Could you imagine? How do you manage Prince's estate without a will? How many different licensing agreements? How many different assets does this man have? Houses. That was just utter negligence, but [crosstalk 00:24:15]-
Dr. Tom Deans: The lawyers will mop the floor with the family's money.
Jason Pereira: That's it. So, if you don't like cutting checks to lawyers, you're going to be spinning in your grave if you don't get a will done in time.
Dr. Tom Deans: I get more phone calls from elderly women who read my book. Again, men statistically pre-decease. I get more phone calls from elderly women, and you know what they tell me?
Jason Pereira: My husband didn't bother putting a will together.
Dr. Tom Deans: Yeah. And you know what they say? They want to bring their husband back from the dead and kill them themselves. They are so angry. They're grieving, but they are so angry that someone didn't take an hour to meet with a lawyer and get the basics in place. There is absolutely no excuse. You know, there's a reason why 12 and a half million Canadians don't have a will. It's a little bit like fraud. When a family member dies without a will, they are so embarrassed by that fact that they don't tell that story frequently. They're so embarrassed that culturally, we continue to die without wills and like fraudsters ... You know why fraudsters continue to practice their craft? Because-
Jason Pereira: Because people don't speak up.
Dr. Tom Deans: ... the people who have been duped by a fraudster are so embarrassed by doing something so simple like not responding to an email, or answering the phone or doing something stupid. They don't tell their stories, and so it continues to go on and on and on. So, part of what I'm trying to do with this book and these public lectures, and-
Jason Pereira: Let's talk about this book.
Dr. Tom Deans: Yeah.
Jason Pereira: The book. What is the message and the story behind the book?
Dr. Tom Deans: Yeah, the message is really to help family start this conversation. That's it. I mean, that's all the book tries to ... It gives seven questions. It offers seven questions that kids can ask their parents, parents can ask their kids, just to start the conversation and say, "Look, it's not about me trying to grab more stuff than my brother and sisters. In fact, all of us want to sit down together and find out, what do you want? How can we serve you when you get older? And how can we put the fricking lawyers out of business?" I mean, not out of business.
Jason Pereira: Well, I actually know a lawyer who specifically started a conference off by saying, "Hey, we're actually planning ourselves out of business," because by making sure that clients have their affairs in order, we are reducing our total lifetime income. But you know what? It's the right thing to do. If you want to be the wrong guy in this part of the equation, go right ahead. But guys like me are going to make sure that guys like you have a hard time making a living.
Dr. Tom Deans: Yep. No, I mean, in fairness to the lawyers, we have 12 and a half million-
Jason Pereira: But they're charging because they have to. It's their work.
Dr. Tom Deans: There's 12 and a half million people without a will at the very moment in time where we're actually inheriting more money through the laws of intestacy, people who don't have wills. I think what's happened is the lawyers can't make money writing wills.
Jason Pereira: They can't.
Dr. Tom Deans: If you sit them down, they are struggling. It's not the old days. So because there's lots of company, you go to Staples and get a will kit for 19 bucks, it'll be largely a disaster.
Jason Pereira: Well, the one I showed you online, you can update as many times as you need to for life, and you can start a single [inaudible 00:27:03] family, 250 bucks.
Dr. Tom Deans: Yeah. The bottom line is there's no excuse.
Jason Pereira: For simple wills.
Dr. Tom Deans: No excuse.
Jason Pereira: Exactly, yeah.
Dr. Tom Deans: Get started. So, I wrote the book to give people the confidence, to give them the basics. It's not an overly technical book at all. In fact, it's a book about four people sitting in a lounge in Las Vegas having coffee and drinks and having a meal.
Jason Pereira: It's very human. It's not-
Dr. Tom Deans: Yeah. We need some humor around this subject. Maybe I'm trying to put the fun back in funeral, but I'm just trying to get people to say, "Look, enough of death using us and abusing our families and destroying our wealth. Let's flip it. Let's use death to bring urgency to this conversation so that families can sit around, have a meal, and celebrate their good fortune. They're disciplined to save for retirement. Let's have that conversation so that money transitions efficiently and un-chaotically, and releases potential in the next generation to start businesses, fund education, take care of healthcare. I mean, that's called legacy and we are so afraid of talking to our family about legacy. I don't understand it, but I'll tell you, when we can overcome that fear of dying and we can have these conversations and get our documents in place and bring transparency to our affairs, man, watch families thrive.
Jason Pereira: I think it's a compounding of stigmas, right? There's a stigma about talking about money in the first place and a stigma about debt. Put those two together and there's a lot of momentum to overcome. But I'll tell you, when you've been through the experience of having a negative experience where someone didn't leave a will, the last thing you ever want to do to your family is put them through that because you've seen the horror show that it can be. Anyway, Dr. Tom Deans, I thank you for joining us. Where can people find you and find your book?
Dr. Tom Deans: Best places is the title of the book, Willing Wisdom. Willingwisdom.com.
Jason Pereira: Okay, perfect. And thank you yet again for joining us for the Wisdom of Wealth, where we hope to improve your financial literacy and help you make better decisions just a little bit every week. I'm Jason Pereira. Until next time, take care.