MSG Presents: "Eric On Money"-Don't Leave A Mess Behind: The Estate Planning Playbook w/ Attorney Shakeena Melbourne

In this episode of "MSG Presents: Eric On Money", Eric chops it up with his friend, Attorney Shakeena Melbourne, to break down why estate planning isn’t just for the wealthy—it’s for anyone who wants to protect their legacy and secure their family's future. Shakeena keeps it real as she breaks down the difference between wills and trusts, why avoiding probate is a must, and how to make sure your family doesn’t end up stuck in legal drama when you’re gone.

They get into real-life stories, common mistakes, and why planning ahead means more than just writing a will—it’s about making sure your family stays protected no matter what. If you’re serious about keeping your assets in the family and making sure your loved ones aren’t left with a mess, this episode is for you. Tap in and get the game on how to secure your legacy the right way.

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At Upton Law, PLLC, We Specialize In Business, Bankruptcy, And Real Estate Law.

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Transcript

[00:00:00] So thank you for joining. 

Nice to see. For sure. So you all we have the pleasure of having attorney Melbourne, my friend Shakeena, and she had she along the way, she formed her own law firm. Yes. And I'd love for her to get quickly into the story if you have, if you feel like sharing about this. But I wanted to let the audience know, like.

How it came about that you formed your own firm and run your own firm. Sure. It wasn't an easy journey. I know a little bit of the story. Of course not. So first, you know, they say Go to law school. Go to law school, finish law school. Finish law school. Get a good job when you get outta law school. And I had started working in-house counsel, so I was working as an attorney for a.

And discovered that they were giving a lot of the good work, the stuff you see on tv, that's not the type of law or practice we were doing as in-house. Instead, they were [00:02:00] giving it to what's called outside counsel, which are like private law firms. And I was like, well, I wanna start seeing what that looks like.

What does it look like? The grind, the gutter being in the courthouse. And so I'd leave the law firm, I would leave the bank, I'm sorry, and join the law firm. And so I was at the law firm for a couple of years, and believe it or not, the owner was grooming me. To take over the law firm because he was aging out and I learned more than just the practice of law.

Being in this private law firm, I learned where to bank, how the businesses ran, how to hire and fire staff. What does training look like? What kind of certifications may be needed, such as like minority certified or women certified. What does it mean to go to networking conferences? After a couple of years of being at the firm discovering that, now I kind of understand how to manage a firm.

One of the reasons I [00:03:00] opened my own firm is 'cause the firm I was working at didn't practice all the laws or the areas of law that I had an interest in. Right. And so I wanted to do, so the firm did primarily bankruptcy, but I wanted to do bankruptcy real estate. I wanted to get into expungement, how to get rid of some criminal records, go into estate planning.

Really truly, it was more of the estate planning, believe it or not, because at that time my brother had just exited being active duty as a military personnel, and he's going his veteran status, but he was deployed. And as part of the deployment, they actually received a version of a will. And so he comes out of active duty.

He's now a veteran, and he thinks that he still has a. And I said, well, let's look at it because he would eventually have some things that had changed, whether they're assets that change, addresses has changed, stuff like that. If anything, [00:04:00] we likely need to update your estate planning. And when I looked at the wheel that was created, it didn't really have much in there.

So I start going down this rabbit hole on what does it look like to have an estate plan post military. We would go to find his social worker 'cause he would've received a social, they may not be called social worker, but he received like a, a personnel at the va. We're asking her questions, do they assign particular attorneys once they come out as veterans?

What does that look like? And no one could actually answer the questions. The VA couldn't really answer the question, the one he was assigned to his worker couldn't answer the question. And so I went to my old boss at that time and I said to him. Would you be open to adding a practice area to the law firm tailored to helping these veterans?[00:05:00] 

And that's where he was like, well, he didn't completely say no, but he wasn't that pressed in saying yes. And so for that reason, I was left to basically start affirm to figure out how can I help these veterans? Because at that point it would be my own like malpractice insurance, my own. Things that would be put into place to be able to create a space to help them with estate planning.

Right? And give me an opportunity to go down that rabbit hole of what does that look like? I met with, you know, lawyers that were veterans from prosecutors to criminal defenses who actually were. They're veterans as well, and they had gone into the law. What does that look like? Have you even considered updating your own estate planning now that you're a veteran and you went to law school?

Like did it resonate with you and it led down this? And [00:06:00] yeah. Here I am six years later with a law firm and practicing these different areas of law. You know, now that you revisited that story, I actually remember that now. Mm-hmm. I remember when you were talking to me about that, and you were rarely serious about making sure other veterans were protected.

I remember that very distinctly now. Mm-hmm. Yeah. That's interesting. I know for me, how I kind of got interested in estate planning is from I used to sell insurance years ago, man. I just started looking at, okay, this person bought this policy and that's cool, but there's other stuff that needs to be addressed, I think.

Mm-hmm. Right. I wasn't sure at the time, but it just didn't seem like that was a complete solution. And so, you know, knowing me, I started digging, digging, digging, doing research, and kind of finally I found this concept of estate planning, which the insurance policy I figured out would be part of that.

Mm-hmm. But there was a bigger picture, you know what I mean? So [00:07:00] I was like, wow, I want to know more about what the bigger picture is. Mm-hmm. And it's, and believe it or not, it's not, we hear about it, but most of us truly don't understand it. And a lot of that has to do with the fact that there's mix in mixed information out there.

Absolutely. For most people. The only time estate planning really truly like hits them in the face is if someone passes away and now they have to go through probate and they have to go through finding the assets of this family member. And the distress that comes with that is when they're like, man.

Maybe if my mom had did it this way, maybe if my grandma had did it this way, well I don't want it to be like that for my kids and my family. That's right. So lemme start digging into what does that look like? Because I didn't like the way it made me feel. Absolutely. But for those who have never felt it, it comes off as this [00:08:00] imaginary thing that's somewhere out in the world that I may have heard, but I ain't really sure how it works.

Right imaginary and also so sophistic, sophisticated and complex that it scares people. Like you said, there's a lot of misinformation, so you're going online trying to find out stuff, and it's just too much. You feel like it's just too much to get involved with the process. So a lot of people end up not doing it.

Now, one thing I wanna ask you about, your professional opinion about is this in my own research. It seems that a lot of people feel like everyone has an estate. Mm-hmm. No matter who they are. Do you agree with that statement? Yes. Okay. Can you explain how everyone, anyone has an estate? Correct. Because some people don't think they need to do planning because they.

Because there's so in the law, right? From my, this is my perspective, but in [00:09:00] the law, the law uses a lot of Latin words. There's other languages that are used when we're talking about the law, and so there's a thin line between the word estate and the word asset. So a lot of times people think estate planning means I must have assets in order to plan, and if I don't feel like I have any assets, then there's nothing to plan for.

But I disagree because the question is what do you define as an asset? Most people look at stuff and they see an asset as o owning a home. So if I don't have a home, I must not have. Okay. If I don't have a large bank account, whatever define large defined is, or if I don't have, you know, a luxury vehicle or something, I don't have any assets, but none of that is actually true in my opinion.

Everything is a asset. You might have jewelry, it could be costume, jewelry, but you know, you wanna give that to your [00:10:00] daughter. You might have certain pots Today, you have like LA Crusade pots. Those pots last a hundred years. These are people you'll see people making macaroni and pots that their grandmother had, great grandmother had.

That's an asset exactly that those passed down. It could be furniture, it could be $2 in the bank account. It doesn't matter if it's even $2 in the bank account today. A bank is not gonna just give you the money. So the question becomes, if you don't plan for the $2 in your bank account, the bank gets to keep those funds because no one did anything with it.

Wait, what if it's unclaimed? It's unclaimed. Even if mom was receiving, let's say retirement funds or pension funds or Medicare dollars or something, and all of that is being directly deposited into this bank account. The bank account that was once $2 now might have $2,000 and you didn't do anything to go get [00:11:00] these funds out the account.

Right? An asset could be a computer. What do you do with your business? I wanna give my business to my kids, but none of my kids wanna use it. Well, you can plan for that and put a buy, sell agreement in there so that your kids can know they can sell your business to someone else. All of these things are deemed to be assets that should be planned for.

They have a saying, right? A dead man has no tails. Well, the concept of estate plan is to give a voice to that dead person. I like that. They're no longer voiceless. There is a voice. You know exactly what I wanted. How do you know? Because it's written down on this piece of paper, and I can go in front of a judge if I have to a magistrate.

I can go in front of a receiver, I can go in front of anyone and say, Hey, this paper was signed by Shaina Melbourne that says this is what she wants. You must do it. I'm no longer voiceless. [00:12:00] And that concept is the same with healthcare. It's not just about your money. What happens if I am now sick and can't talk?

Who is supposed to give me a voice? Right? What happens if I am unconscious? It doesn't mean I'm. Where, who, who can help make these decisions? Who knows what I want, what my entire, what my desires are, this piece of paper wheel. And now my family can bring this piece of paper from the designated person and bring this piece of paper to the hospital, to the doctor and say, no, this is what she says she wanted.

If this was to happen. Exactly. And I wanna bring, I wanna reiterate a couple of points, really good points that you made. So one. It's tricky, like you said, because they're using the word asset when, to me, and this is just my professional opinion, I think they should use the word personal property. Yes.

'cause then I think [00:13:00] people, 'cause that's what made me get it, it is like at the time, I ain't had no assets, but I had property, like you said. Mm-hmm. You got things that you want to give your kids and all this other stuff, and that would encompass your asset. Your, your, your real estate and all this other stuff, but yeah, I got a computer.

What am I gonna do with that? The other thing I love that you said is the buy sell agreement. So a lot of people have these small businesses, right? Mm-hmm. You and I are small business owners and they might be thinking, well, I'm just barely scraping by. Ain't no point, we ain't leaving this to my kids.

'cause once I'm gone, the business is gone. Correct? Not true. And that's why I'm glad you brought, because one. You might have accounts receivable out there. I don't care if it's a hundred dollars. Your family should get that. It could be more. And then the second thing about these buy sell agreements, it creates a value for your business now that you're no longer around, right?

Because the buy sell agreement [00:14:00] is essentially and tied to an insurance policy. If you passed away, there's an economic value that it's now created. It goes to your family. Correct. Love that. Yeah. But even still, I, I wanna touch back on something 'cause it started with these military veterans. Right? Well, my brother's biggest thing was he had two sons and he had particular military boots he wanted to give to each son.

That's where this really came from. Mm-hmm. What do you mean? Who would know that? Oh, the beige ones were supposed to go to the younger son and the green one was supposed to go to the older son. No one would know that you are the only person that had this idea in mind that this is how you wanted to distribute your, your personal property.

I really like that. The boys wouldn't have got it because most people, once someone passes away, you know, people come raid the house, take whatever they take in, and then you know, get arrested. Salvation Army, good luck. If [00:15:00] these boys don't want these military boots or aren't fighting for them, no one would've known that the value of these military boots and who you wanted to give them to and why.

And goes back to the same thing with the business. What if your kids don't want it? If I own a restaurant and my kids was with me the entire time, I had the restaurant for 20 plus years, and they like this restaurant stuff is not for me. I have no interest in cooking. I don't have no interest in baking. I don't have no interest in managing it.

What do you do with the restaurant and all the equipment inside? That's right. Who is supposed to agree to sell? Who is supposed to know what these things in here are valued at? Even if they were to be appraised, how much is this stove? Which one of your family members is gonna sit there and be like, oh yeah, I cared this much to go down this rabbit hole and figure this stuff out.

I just told you the kid had no interest. So the kid isn't gonna say, okay, now [00:16:00] I'm gonna get up. Now that you know, mom is gone and figure it out or not. That's right. Yeah, exactly. So you all who are listening to this, we're talking about the essentials of estate planning and as you can see, a lot of it comes down to providing directions at the end of the day, right?

For the things that you've accumulated that you may not think have value, but just understanding like, hey, I have, I do have this property, I do have these assets. Yeah, I need to give some directions in terms of where I want these things to go if I'm not here, including that business now, turning Melbourne also mentioned healthcare, and I think that falls shakina in the same category as personal property in the sense that it's something that is mine.

Yes, it's my health, so why should [00:17:00] I put myself in a situation where I can't make the decisions for my health if something happens? And that's really a good question because most of us, I. Don't realize until the emergency comes. That's the whole problem here when it comes to healthcare. Most of us say, okay, well my job is giving me health insurance so I'm good.

Or I'll figure it out later. Yeah. No one plans for an emergency. You can't plan after the fact and be like, oh man, woulda, coulda, shoulda. Well, it's not a video game. You and then it's assumed because of TV shows and movies that usually if you're getting sick, you somehow get notification in advance. So you felt some kind of way you went to the doctor and.

Now you're the doctor says you need to consider estate planning. And now for the [00:18:00] first time you're addressing it. That works in the timeframe if that's how the scenario works. But if you just have a stroke or you just have a heart attack, you didn't have enough notice in advance to start planning.

That's right. And you can't plan while you're in the emergency. Yeah, and you can't assume everyone knows what your desires are in the middle of your emergency because they are too in, in a neg, in a rough emotional state. That's right. Are they going to remember everything you told them that one, two nights, you know, 10 years ago when you said, if something happened to me, this is how I want it, or No.

And the law still plays a role when it comes to healthcare because. Hipaa. So you have these scenarios where let's say you have this com because it's considered common law marriage or whatever. You in this [00:19:00] relationship for 10 years and you're not married and you are, let's say it's a woman I know all about my man.

Okay? My man wanted like this. My man wanted like this. Okay? Then we get to the hospital and because we're not married. His next is now the kid that nobody has talked to in 10 years or the next, and is the mom who hates you. Wait, what? And now everyone's like, yeah, bypass all of what you think your man said.

Nobody cares. Listen I'm his mama. This is the law now. Right? The law plays a. Yes. Now I'm the next and keen as his mama 'cause he ain't got no kids. And so I don't know what this girl's talking about, but listen, this is my baby and I want it like this. She now wants it like this. And the law allows her to make these final decisions.

Yeah. Not you 10 year girlfriend who got everything and understand all his assets and businesses and personal property is gonna be mom. Look at it [00:20:00] from this point of view. You have the estates of some of our largest entertainers that are still open today on the basis that they didn't have an estate plan.

What you mean? Michael Jackson's estate is still open today. Yes. We all know he died a long time ago. Yep. I read the Franklin Estate is still open today. What do you mean Their estates are still open? You know what makes it even worse? Even Prince's estate is still open today. And you know what sucks, especially about Prince's estate.

'cause I went to, I was able to go to Minnesota and see, is it Minnesota? I think, I dunno. But I've gone to see, and all attorneys are administering his estates. Attorneys who they don't know, the family don't know them. The court has assigned them, and their job is to make money off of the studio slash house that Prince had.

Every month they come in, they [00:21:00] pay all the bills, they get paid to do this. And his next. And Keen is a sister that he hadn't talked to in over 20 years now. I'm glad you brought that up 'cause I was gonna bring this up too. Now I want to tell the viewers, so let's think about Prince. I guess he, we don't know what his state of mind was that he didn't do these things as well as Michael, correct.

Heath and all the other, but on a very simple level, Shaina, what could he have done? Which document would've avoided all of this? You have one or two options. He could have had a will or he could have had a trust. Okay? And there's a line between the two and one of the biggest lines between a will and a trust is really how does it get administered?

A will must be administered through probate court. So you still have a judge that comes in and the judge has to help [00:22:00] get through how to start the estate and how to get it to conclusion. A trust has no court involvement whatsoever. The trust is what is used to tell all your family, friends, whoever you decide to pick, to administer it, what all you want them to do.

You are creating the curriculum, you are creating the job description. You are creating all of the methods and how you want your stuff to be done with the largest voice possible. If that makes sense. I love that. Yeah. Now, so, okay, so will still attached to the probate court living trust is kind of like, it sounds like a business plan for your estate.

Yes, exactly. It's pretty comprehensive. You're telling people what you want done, but the good thing, as you're saying is there's no court involvement. [00:23:00] Correct. And it sounds like this document is even something to just in general, to avoid ever having to deal with the court. 'cause you've already expressed what you want to happen.

You got your attorney now, let me ask you something. So you got your, so since the court is not involved, say you got a trust. So is the attorney that you already engaged going to be the one who makes sure everything plays out the way that you wanted it to? How does that work? So that depends. You as the person with the voice gets to decide that.

So on one side, you always want, if you have a trust, you want to talk through with the person that you have selected. You want them to have a full copy of your trust, but you also wanna have these discussions. All right, so this is where I'm at with it. This is what I'm interested in doing because it's a.

It's a relationship you're building with the pers, the trustee. That's what is the name of the person, is a trustee, okay? And the [00:24:00] trustee's job is to help administer that. Now, the trustee can always also communicate with the attorney that drafted it to make sure both of them on the same page, on what your voice is that you want to be heard after passing away.

Because these are the two people that believe it or not, you sh you would have or should have been having conversations with in addition to providing them copies of the documents. Okay, perfect. Love it. Love it. We're making this simple, you all, so you can go out of this live contact Shaina and get started on these documents.

It doesn't have to be something that's a big deal. I mean, it is, well, I take that back. It is a big deal, but it doesn't have to be a difficult process. Correct. Now, please talk to us about this. I know you're very seasoned. How do I as your client, make this not be a, a lengthy or hard process? Like, what do [00:25:00] you need from me as the client to make this be a, a really efficient and really not consuming process?

So. Easy question, hard answer. Mm-hmm. And the reason I say it's a hard answer is because believe it or not, most people are just literally afraid to death. So what happens is the emotional state is usually what takes the longest for someone to complete the questionnaire. I try to make it as simple as possible.

It is one questionnaire. Okay. Okay. However, the emotional high or low is what takes a while to actually put it all together. For the most part, your, your trustee is usually someone you trust, right? That's trustee, but it's also someone that you may not have ever talked to about where you bank at. [00:26:00] You may not have ever talked to them about if you had a pension at your job or not.

Where's your retirement account? So for some people it's like, oh my gosh, do I wanna tell them all my business? Oh, yeah. Right. See, right. This is the emotional distress, right? Also, you have a questionnaire, but I don't know this attorney like that. You know, you have those sayings. Don't let your right hand know what your left hand see.

These are things that are playing in our mental state when we're trying to configure, okay? But I still wanna at least write down what I got. Right. So the question there is what do you have? Where do you bank? Even if you just put the last four of your account number, it doesn't have to be the whole account because that person, the trustee, has to be able to go into the bank.

They can't just go in the bank and say, oh yeah Shaina had a bank account here. Okay. Do, do you know any of the digits of the bank account? Her social security? I don't, I don't know. I just know [00:27:00] she got an account here. You wanna put the trustee in the best position to also help them too. So you're listing out the bank, even if it's the last four of the bank account number, if you have any real estate.

Where are they? I shouldn't have to go on a rabbit chase because I remember that you said your grandma had a property in Alabama one time and I probably need to go find it. No. What is the address or the property ID number? The parcel Id like make it something of understanding. Yeah, so then when I do go to Alabama, I got this paper, I can at least help the clerk that I'm going to talk to on what I am looking at in order to administer what.

She wanted it. Yeah, that makes perfect sense. And I'm also thinking that, I think with a lot of people, their issue is probably this too. [00:28:00] 'cause I talk about this in my content, like people feeling like, okay, I got an image and now I gotta go to this attorney. Where publicly it seems like I got all this stuff, but now she's asking me to fill out this questionnaire and I don't really have much of what it might seem like.

I have. What advice would you have for people to get past that and get this done? Think about it like this. If you were getting a loan, a mortgage, a business loan, a personal loan, a mortgage, or a business loan, they would ask you for a personal financial statement, right? What is your net worth? It's the same concept.

When you're planning your estate, planning, you in that personal financial statement, you still have to tell yourself the truth. If you went on one of those apps, what's my net worth? You would still have to create a truth. They're gonna ask you the same questions. [00:29:00] What's your bank accounts? Do you have any real estate?

Do you have any life insurance policies? Do you have any of these things that will determine what your net worth is. And it actually sounds like this would be easier because you're not, like, in those situations, if you're going for a loan, you're going to get a yes or a no, correct. This is not a yes or no situation.

This is, here's what I want to happen. So psychologically, if you, if we, you can get past the. Emotional part that we are talking about is probably easier than trying to go get a loan or something like that because yeah, this is for the future. This is for the future. It's not a immediate, oh, nah, you can't have it.

Or yeah, you can have it type situation. Exactly. That's a great response. I love that. Okay, so if you, if somebody's just joining this video kind of late, we're talking about the essentials of estate planning. We're wind it down here. We have [00:30:00] defined what an estate is. We, we both agree that it's. Personal property is a better word, but hey.

Yeah, you could use assets if you want to. That's fine. Shakina attorney Melbourne has explained that this is really about avoiding probate. It's about directions. You want to give directions to your loved ones about what you want to happen if you're no longer here. Attorney Melbourne has explained we want to be as specific as possible, so empower your attorney.

Help them help you. If something happens, don't just say, I got a property in Alabama. Tell 'em the address, the pin number. Give as much information as you can. Be clear about who you want to be, the people handling your situation and small business owners. Make sure that you don't discount your business again, you can use insurance to fund.

Sale of this or the transfer this to your children. But [00:31:00] even, and I'm glad Shakina brought this up, even within that, you got personal property in your business that needs to be decision needs to be made. Your computers, you got a restaurant, the stoves, the forks, the knives, like whatever you have, all of these things are yours.

If you give the directions, go to the appropriate person. I'm sorry. I don't even want you to go on from there. One of the biggest, most common things that I've come across since the pandemic is dad had a business, even if he don't have a business no more, dad had a business and dad had a business checking account.

Can I get the money out of dad's business checking account? No, you cannot. Wait, what? No, you cannot, but it's $10,000 in there. Yeah, I know. And you can't get it. What do you mean? I can't get it? [00:32:00] If dad didn't have a wheel, you have to go to probate court. Right? Probate court is based on what is in dad's name.

That business is not in dad's name. A business has its own Social security number, or Federal taxi ID number. It has its own name and it functions on its own. That is not Dad. Let's, let's get into this before we go too far. We gotta get into this 'cause I, this is one of my questions for you. Just, you said it perfectly.

Okay, so Dad has the business account. Yes, but dad did list me as a beneficiary on the account, but dad does not otherwise have an estate plan. What's gonna happen? He did list me now. So dad list you on the account for his personal checking account or for the business checking account? Business business.

It still the, so if you, if you have two people [00:33:00] on the business account, then the person who's still alive would have access to the account because they would be a authorized user or there would be considered a joint account holder. Well, so dad wouldn't have an issue, so, well what if they were just, well, lemme, I think we gotta get into this, 'cause I've seen this issue before, so, okay.

I'm not talking about an authorized user, I understand that part, but what if they just listed you as a beneficiary on the account? Yeah, it's a love hate relationship because the beneficiary. Only works. Okay. Wait, before I get into that one, hold on. Let's go back to the scenario. If, if Dad is the only person on the account, then we'll address what happens if there's someone else.

If dad is the only person on the business account, dad passes away. Dad's probate does not touch the business bank account. So if I go into [00:34:00] the bank. I provide paperwork to the bank. Hey, I open a probate estate. Here is my paperwork. Dad has a business account. I need to get into it. The bank is going to say, you cannot unless you have a court order from the probate court that permits you to have access to his business in order to get in that business account.

Otherwise, the bank will not give you a dollar or access or bank statements or anything to that business account. 'cause that business stands alone from dad. That's if they weren't listed as a beneficiary. Correct. Right. Okay. Got you. So you at a minimum, you gotta be, I'm gonna tell you why I asked that because mm-hmm.

I've been in this situation where people are like, why do I need an estate plan? Because I got an insurance policy where I got all my beneficiaries listed out. I got beneficiaries on my 401k, all my financial accounts. What would your [00:35:00] response be to that? That's still a different scenario. Mm-hmm. So.

Estate planning require like a, a business job is going to require that you put a beneficiary to your life insurance, put a beneficiary on your pension, put a beneficiary towards your health insurance as long as there's a beneficiary. Believe it or not, those are things that will not go through probate court.

Okay? Because someone is already assigned. Gotcha. Probate is when there's no one assigned. Okay. And now the court is assigning a personal representative and to come in to help administer because no one was assigned the job. Okay? So that's great. So you all hear that. So you could potentially get around having a comprehensive estate plan if you've properly [00:36:00] identified your beneficiaries for your financial accounts.

But the problem that you'll run into is obviously that's not covering your health and anything that you have outside of that. Correct? Yeah. Okay. That's good. Now, all of this is technically defined as an estate plan, though. Okay. Even though beneficiaries, okay, that is correct. Gotcha. Putting a beneficiary in your life insurance, putting a beneficiary now at your job, they may not call it estate planning, right, because they just make you fill out the forms, right?

So they're gonna say, okay, you have these life insurance benefits, just put right here who you wanna be the beneficiary. They may not explain it, but that is technically a start to the estate plan. Man, I'm so glad you said that. Because I actually teach people that, and I don't think it's understood. So it's like some of you all that are watching this, you already been doing some estate [00:37:00] planning.

Correct. If you got all that stuff right on your insurance, you're like, Hey, I want this person. Here's their social security number. You're already in the game, so that should make you feel a little bit better. Now you wanna be thinking about, okay, here's the stuff I did cover. What else needs to be covered and protected?

Exactly what is the rest of it? Right? Right. And that's where things really become, okay, am I doing a will or a trust is, what do I do with the rest of it? Because your job isn't gonna ask you, oh, do you have a second job? Do you have a second business on the side? They're not gonna ask you that. They're not gonna ask you about, you know, if you own a home and what do you plan on doing with your home?

Or if you don't own a home, let's say you just have a car, now you have some car companies that are asking you to have a beneficiary. When you finance a vehicle in case something was to happen to you, some [00:38:00] gap insurances are now asking that if something happens to you, will we have this extra coverage on the car or not?

So we're getting them in pieces, but we don't just realize the big picture or the whole picture until you go in front of the attorney and say, okay, I wanna do an estate plan. And now you're filling out this questionnaire and it's like, well dang. I didn't even realize this was happening, or, oh, well, what do I do with these other things that no one had ever asked me about?

Right. That totally makes sense. Now, the last question I want to ask you, and I want to thank you again for coming to talk to us today and I'll, I'll add this into the beginning of the presentation later, but obviously this is not attorney Melbourne providing any legal advice. To anyone. No one is a client of hers in this broadcast.

This is purely educational, so hopefully you'll get an education from this. We're gonna talk in a few [00:39:00] minutes about how to reach out to attorney Melbourne to become a client, but you not quite there yet. But my last question, Shakina, is this when we talk about the, and you've talked about some of this stuff, but when we talk about what's left.

What are some of the other things that people need to be thinking about as part of their estate plan? The most interesting thing I've seen is, so a couple of things. One, a power of attorney. A power of attorney only works when the person is alive. I don't know if people truly understand the value of a power of attorney or understand that the power of attorney no longer is in existence Upon that.

Hmm. Okay. So you can't go into a courthouse after the person passed away and say, oh, I had a power of attorney. It doesn't exist. It becomes voided. Right? The other thing is, [00:40:00] I would suggest this, there's a true difference between a beneficiary on a, an account, and a joint account holder. Those are actually two different things.

A beneficiary means if something happens to me, someone is selected to have access to this bank account, but their name is not on the bank account on a day-to-day basis. They're not depositing money into the account and they're not withdrawing money out of the account. They're here if something happens.

That is a different process than in a. Joint account holder means that they can deposit money in the account and they can withdraw money out of the account. Okay? The reason I say to be cautious of that is because I also practice bankruptcy, right? A lot of stuff that people are attempting to do on their own, as their own version of estate planning can also hinder them in [00:41:00] the future.

So here's an example. I'm getting older and I wanna put my daughter on my house just in case something happened to me. She is now considered a joint owner to the home. Daughter gets into financial trouble. Daughter is getting sued. She gets into a car accident, she gets sued. The person wins $10,000.

They're coming after that house because. I'm a joint account holder. I also own the home. Now the debt is on the asset, even though I was just using it for estate planning purposes. Same thing with a bank account. Daughter's doing fine, you know, in case I get old. And I want my daughter to be on my account if something happens.

Well, daughter gets in trouble with IRS. [00:42:00] IRS wants to put Olivia on every bank account associated with daughter's name. That now includes my bank account too because she's a joint account holder, so IRS can now come into my bank account and take money outta my account. Even though daughter never put no money in it, never withdrew any money out of it.

It's now considered one of her assets. Wow, and this is something that comes up all the time. Because people are trying to create estate planning themselves, doing it a different way and not understanding that there's ramifications the way that you're doing it. A will or a trust will remove all of these possibilities I'm describing.

Yet still, it's common practice that people will put people on their accounts as joint account holders, joint property owners, and now there's these ramifications. That's heavy. That's heavy. Mm-hmm. [00:43:00] Yeah. That is, and it makes sense as you explain it. But that's not something that obviously would be common knowledge.

Like No, most people don't know that. You don't know until you fall on your face and it's too late. She files bankruptcy and now the chapter seven chapter bankruptcy trustee is trying to take your house. Yeah. And you're like, how's this possible? Well, you put her name on there. Right? So it's not an asset.

That's heavy. Yeah, we had to cut that into a clip and get that out there like I know people don't know that. So yeah, you have dropped some tremendous jewels today. I know you got other stuff to do today, but I just want to thank you again for talking to us. I'm hoping we can get you back to talk specifically about bankruptcy.

I know you talked about it on our podcast, on my podcast, money Section X. That was one of our biggest episodes, so that was super dope. I. How can people work with Attorney Shakina Melbourne? Ooh, [00:44:00] no. So the law firm's website is Upton Law, PLLC, and someone can call the firm or go on the website and actually book an appointment to do a free consultation.

Okay. We're on every social media platform. So from the TikTok to the Instagram, YouTube channel our goal is really how do we best educate the people that are in need. Before we even retain them as a client, I was always told the best client to have is one that's educated. Not only do it help reduce the question, but it gives an additional peace of mind and create more of a trust.

If I get to know who I'm opening up my vulnerabilities to, who am I sharing the stuff that I don't wanna talk to anyone else about with, and how do we build that? Together, right? And so [00:45:00] that's the goal with the social media platforms as well as the website. We do blog posts and stuff, newsletters as well, of what new laws are coming out.

Will this affect you, your industry, what you're working through or going through to help build the education of our clientele? So love it. So Upton Law, you can find Shakina Mel, attorney, Shaina, Melbourne, all over social media. She has some very interesting and engaging posts. And I'm gonna tell you something, Shaina is my friend.

And I'm not just saying it this because she's my friend, but here's the reason why I feel like you need to reach out. It's because she actually cares. And I've been dealing with attorneys for most of my life in different capacity. Some good, some bad. But all don't care. I can tell you that right now. And so she cares about the work.

She's not just filling out paperwork. If you go to her for something like this, she's gonna make sure it gets done properly. And she actually will, once she gets to know you, she'll be able to care about your situation [00:46:00] beyond just writing something and checking a box. Yeah. So keep that in mind. Like you want your attorney to care and also be professional and attorney Melbourne is all of that.

So yes, thank you again. We gonna sign off next time We'll get the live stream, right? I gotta go.