Hey, Listen Up La Mesa. Listen Up La Mesa. All right. You know me as the Realtor Dad, and when this goofball graced us with her presence three years ago, Alison and I knew that we needed to get our affairs together, and make sure the transfer of custody was the way we wanted it and concrete. We needed an attorney. Well, this guy, I've known him since we were kids, we grew up together. This guy is, it's Kevin Lemieux, aka Lawyer Kevin.
All right everyone. I'm here with Lawyer, Kevin, Kevin Lemieux. Known this guy since we were kids, and like I told you in the intro, Alison and I, once we had Renn, we needed to get our affairs in order and make sure that things happen the way we want it to. So, Kevin, tell me and tell everyone exactly what you did for us.
So, the first step is you need to create a trust. The trust allows you to avoid probate when you die. It also allows you to control your money, custody of your kids like we did with you, who's going to have custody if you and Allison both died, when's Renn going to get the money? How old does she have to be? You don't want a judge making those decisions.
Doesn't a will do that?
A will does, but in California, if you have just a will, your estate still gets probated, which costs a ton of money and it leaves the judge to be the ultimate decider of all of these issues. But, most people want to avoid probate because of the cost. If you have a $600,000 estate, which just means you own a random average home in San Diego, you're going to pay about $50,000 in probate fee.
Exactly what is a trust?
It's an entity. It's a legal entity that controls all of your assets. Okay? So, if you want to control when your kids get their money, you have a trust because a trust has a trustee, someone who's in charge, who will make sure that your wishes are followed. Everything that you write out in a trust in extreme detail gets followed by the trustee.
Is it hard to get a trust established? Like, do you have to jump through a lot of hoops and what does it take?
No. you got to just meet with a lawyer. They give you advice on what type of trust you should have, the types of terms that we put into it, and they draft it up for you. There's nothing else you have to do, other than get it notarized and sign it. I always tell people, if you own a home or you have kids, you should have a trust, either of those two things. It doesn't matter how many properties you put in the trust, how much personal property, bank accounts, all that stuff goes into trust because that's what you want to control when you die. You don't want an 18-year old to get a $1 million from a life insurance policy when she turns 18. Nobody makes good decisions when they're 18. So you want to control that, right? You want to plan for your children's future.
What happens to their child and you know, something happens to the two parents. With a trust, this is going to establish without any reasonable doubt or any doubt that your kid's not going to go into State custody for any amount of time, because that's the last thing anyone would want.
Well, right. And the custody is establishing the will that we draw along with the trust. But the trust controls all the finances. So the trust controls the money, basically child support that you're going to pay to support your child while they're still a minor. Paying for college, all that stuff is in the trust. The will will determine who the child is going to go live with, those sorts of decisions. But it's all together. It's one estate plan.
So, you're a big shot lawyer-
Your Honor, I object.
... and, what other services do you provide, or what what else do you do?
Me, mostly what I do is family law. So, it's the same kind of thing, custody, divorce, all that sort of stuff. But when we're talking about estate planning, this is basically custody orders for when you die. So, it's very similar stuff. But, I spend most of my days in family court. And I do the estate planning as part of my family law practice because I think everybody needs to be prepared. It's funny, nobody thinks they're going to die, but we all do.
We're all going to die.
So, you've got to be prepared. So, that's part of my family law practice, but I also do criminal defense.
So, if anyone wanted to get in touch with you, how could they contact you?
LawyerKevin.com, super easy. You can email me Kevin@LawyerKevin.com the website's easy, LawyerKevin.com.
And, where's your office located?
I'm in Mission Valley on Camino del Rio, South, so central, I go to all the courthouses in San Diego, so give me a shout.
Let's drink a beer.
Listen Up La Mesa.
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