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Mark Cornwall: What About Retail Wealth Spent on Estate Planning?
Recession? What recession? Since my wife and I have the advantage of living downtown, I can tell those of you who were not walking up State Street between 7 p.m. and 8 p.m. Saturday looking for a good restaurant, after an early movie, that every good restaurant between Haley and Victoria streets — and some not so good — were packed. Not just packed, but with a half-hour wait. We couldn’t even find seats at the bar until we hit Trattoria Vittoria, where we found two open chairs at the bar.
Looking around at the local patrons, everyone looked of baby-boomer age, until a troop of about 20 handsomely dressed high school-age kids came in to fill the long table reserved in the back. Was it prom night?
I have no problem telling you that the business of estate planning as an attorney has all but fallen off the face of the Earth. Business is dead. (No pun intended.)
I know this not only from personal experience, but from every attorney specializing in estate planning. This includes estates of more than $10 million and of less than $1 million. Folks are bogged down in the fear of our economy. The last thing they are thinking about is dying and distribution of their estate, and the first thing they are thinking about is whether they have an estate. This makes them vulnerable.
It reminded me of the seminar I went to in Sacramento a couple of weeks ago titled, “The Law and Elder Abuse: Identification and Prevention.” The California State Bar, and particularly the estate and trust, and elder abuse specialization sections. They are on a mission to crack down on the con men and women who are easily manipulating the senior citizens in our society by preying on their fears, thereby committing financial abuse.
These specialists provide interesting facts that led to the quest, and examples of endless ways the elderly are manipulated by sellers’ statements used to frighten or tempt their better judgment into financial abuse, such as being taught to “tell them you can protect their life savings from nursing home and Medicaid seizure of assets. They don’t know what that is, but it sounds scary” (Wall Street Journal, July 2, 2002, as quoted from the “Annuity University”).
The bar claims that statistically, those among us in those restaurants who are 50-plus years of age have 70 percent of all the retail wealth. That’s the great thing about getting older. But for this recession, all the hard work you put in the past 40 years has started to pay off and you have had enough time to accumulate wealth to some degree. So apparently, we can all still go out to eat at nice places on Saturday night.
The bad part is that as we start getting even older, our DNA is programmed to make us boomers holding 70 percent of the retail wealth vulnerable to all kinds of lies and promises by others who want that money, and some of us are more prone to believe the “wolf in sheep’s clothing,” stating, “I’m a registered Medi-Cal specialist” when there is no such thing. Another example is the truth behind “reverse mortgages.”
Elder law affects all the people who are closest to us — all of the most precious people in our lives. This means your mother and father, grandmother and grandfather, and everyone else in the family circle, including neighbors and close friends. And, yes, it will someday include you.
All of the elderly deserve respect and are entitled to be treated with dignity. For that reason, the practice of elder law has a much more personal side to it than any other field of legal expertise. In fact, the state bar is encouraging those attorneys that have had the training I received in Sacramento to give seminars to groups of baby boomers and elderly seniors in homes, to spread the caution of “finance abuse” using a video, PowerPoint production, pamphlets and other literature endorsed by the California State Bar. Many things are not as they appear.
If you know of such a group that would benefit from such a presentation, please call me at 805.845.7558 or e-mail me as shown below. I will, in turn, contact the state bar and a representative will coordinate with you and me to set things up. It is extremely informative for anyone looking for advice on how to approach getting their needs fulfilled the right way, and secure their future before it really is too late. The laws are about to change dramatically at the end of the year.
— No opinion herein is a “marketed opinion” and no information provided herein can be used to avoid tax penalties for which the taxpayer would otherwise be responsible. Mark S. Cornwall has lived in Santa Barbara for more than 30 years and practiced law here for 25 years. He is accepting new clients. His book, Estate Planning: The Heroes Way for Baby Boomers, can be purchased via his Web site, www.MarkCornwall.com; Amazon.com; or locally at Chaucer’s and Borders bookstores. To schedule an appointment, contact him at .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) or 805.845.7558.
» wrote on 11.11.09 @ 10:27 PM
I think there is no talking baby boomers into spending their retail dollars on estate planning. Who can blame them? Nobody knows what next year’s estate tax law will be. As long as it is $3.5 million exempt for the rest of the year, who cares? Your articles are always informative, but until we know what the future holds it all seeems like a waist of time. Unless, of course, someone dies in the next few months.
» wrote on 11.12.09 @ 08:03 AM
Estate planning is by no means dead. Many of the lawyers I train are doing better than ever in their practices, facing less competition for services as lawyers who don’t know how to market or service their clients go out of business, and differentiating themselves utilizing a totally new business model that clients love.
Estate planning has nothing to do with the estate tax for the vast majority of Americans. It’s about making life as easy as possible for the people we love, getting our financial and legal lives in order and knowing we have someone to turn to before making important decisions. Those things every American need regardless of the estate tax exemption.
Alexis Martin Neely
» wrote on 11.12.09 @ 08:16 AM
Thank you, Mark, for the heads-up on this form of elder abuse. I am also concerned about the well-being of seniors and am wary of the scammers who want to take advantage of them. The California Department of Consumer Affairs has an informative website at http://www.dca.ca.gov/consumer/links_consumerorgs.shtml. My website, 50somethinginfo.com, also provides resources to combat all scams.
» wrote on 11.12.09 @ 12:57 PM
Hello Mark,
Great article and very timely. I am surprised when I am asked to list a “Probate Sale” property, which could easily have qualified for a revocable trust; not to avoid estate taxes (as many people believe) but to make the sale of a single real estate asset simple and less costly. Keep informing the public.
By the way, you might be surprised to know how many of those local boomers do NOT have good retirement assets, particularly after the recent economic downturn…unless of course you have a pension and benefits from the government! Carla Reeves, Realtor
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