Speaker 1: Yea ripped up news needed by, so you don't have
Speaker 1: come runing just as fast as we can. Shooter's gonna
Speaker 1: help come.
Speaker 2: Man.
Speaker 3: This is the Troubleshooter Show now, Tom Martine.
Speaker 4: Hey, Tom Martino here, Welcome to the show. Three oh
Speaker 4: three seven one three talk seven one three eight two
Speaker 4: five five.
Speaker 5: We're here to talk about.
Speaker 4: Anything near and dear to your heart and your pocketbook,
Speaker 4: the things that tick you off and the things that
Speaker 4: make you tick.
Speaker 5: Welcome, one and all.
Speaker 4: We are streaming on YouTube, as we do every day
Speaker 4: with my YouTube morons.
Speaker 5: You can be a moron too.
Speaker 4: If you go to YouTube, you just look up the
Speaker 4: Troubleshooter Show or Troubleshooter Network and you'll find us. It's
Speaker 4: also you can search referral list. So welcome my morons,
Speaker 4: one and all. And also they want me to and
Speaker 4: I don't know how to say this, but we have
Speaker 4: a Discord going on and Tim always asked me to
Speaker 4: promote that discord, and I just need to know how
Speaker 4: I send people to Discord. I'm not sure, but we
Speaker 4: do have a Troubleshooter group at Discord and we invite
Speaker 4: you to join that. So today we have a guest
Speaker 4: that's important about estate planning. But we're also going to
Speaker 4: touch base with our accountants on last minute tax things.
Speaker 4: A lot of people are extending. Nothing wrong with that.
Speaker 4: Extensions are somewhat automatic, but you don't extend the time
Speaker 4: to pay. Ever, remember that you never extend the time
Speaker 4: to pay. So give us a call one and all
Speaker 4: three oh three, seven to one to three talk three
Speaker 4: oh three, seven to one, three eight, two five five,
Speaker 4: and we'll be happy to talk.
Speaker 5: To you about your problem.
Speaker 4: You can always call three oh three Martino as well,
Speaker 4: three oh three six two seven eight four sixty six,
Speaker 4: and you can call that twenty four to seven and
Speaker 4: we'll get you on the air. You know, I was
Speaker 4: shocked to hear that Lebron James and Stephen Curry are
Speaker 4: no longer the top selling jerseys in the NBA. This
Speaker 4: is just a side note, you know. I'll be honestly,
Speaker 4: I'm a fairweather fan. I just got interested in the
Speaker 4: Nuggets recently. I used to be interested in him years ago,
Speaker 4: and then of course with the Joker and the team
Speaker 4: they have now, I got reinterested. And uh, where do
Speaker 4: you think Jokick the Joker falls in jersey sales and
Speaker 4: the number one Laker, Luca Luca Donzik he is the
Speaker 4: numb number one, or Don Kick Don Kick, he's the
Speaker 4: number one Jersey seller. And Stephen Curry's number two. Then
Speaker 4: Lebron James. But these other guys, I'm not really a
Speaker 4: big NBA guy, but Jokick is number ten. So you
Speaker 4: have one, two and three, which is Luca, Seph Curry,
Speaker 4: Lebron James. Then you have Jason Tatum, of course he's
Speaker 4: great with Boston. And then you have Jalen Brunson and
Speaker 4: Victor went Banan Yama, what the hell I mean anyway, Then.
Speaker 5: Then you have then you have.
Speaker 4: Yeah Shay I believe his name is, and then you
Speaker 4: I don't know how to pronounce the name. And then
Speaker 4: you have Nicola Jokick and he's number ten.
Speaker 5: So I was just uh.
Speaker 4: I was just shocked because Lebron James for because the
Speaker 4: name's school, the Jersey School.
Speaker 5: I was shocked to hear that.
Speaker 4: And speaking of sports, the only time I become interested.
Speaker 5: In golf is during the Masters.
Speaker 4: And by the way, if you're trying to call in,
Speaker 4: our phones are temporarily down, just temporarily, but we'll let
Speaker 4: you know when they're up and running.
Speaker 5: We're having some phone issues.
Speaker 4: So anyway, when we're talking about the Masters, you had.
Speaker 5: This what was that?
Speaker 4: The Susan Lucci of Masters. He's been at the Masters
Speaker 4: for years and years and years and years and just
Speaker 4: one and I'm telling you it was really fun to watch.
Speaker 4: And the reason I bring up the Masters is not
Speaker 4: because of the Masters, but because of because of this
Speaker 4: woman who lives next door or near the golf course.
Speaker 4: And people are selling their homes to the Masters, or
Speaker 4: to this golf course, or to whoever the developer is.
Speaker 4: They're selling their homes because they want to expand the
Speaker 4: Massters property. But a ninety year old, ninety two year
Speaker 4: old woman who her home is near Augusta National and
Speaker 4: they want to expand the golf course. They have offered
Speaker 4: her more than one million dollars for a tiny brick
Speaker 4: bungalow that I think she bought for ten to twelve grand.
Speaker 4: She will not sell, she says, I'm sorry, I will
Speaker 4: not sell. The home is actually valued at about three
Speaker 4: hundred and she bought it probably for around twelve it
Speaker 4: says ten to twelve. And she's ninety two and is
Speaker 4: turning down one million dollars or more than one million dollars.
Speaker 4: So that's Elizabeth Thacker. She says, I don't want to
Speaker 4: sell my home. I know that the Masters is a
Speaker 4: good thing and they want to expect, but I don't
Speaker 4: want to leave my home. I don't want to sell
Speaker 4: my home. She's lived in it for years. It's less
Speaker 4: than a mile away. But they're buying up all the
Speaker 4: property around them, and.
Speaker 5: Of course there are a lot.
Speaker 4: Of holdouts for money, and they offered her more than
Speaker 4: a million dollars.
Speaker 5: It's a little three bedroom house.
Speaker 4: She raised all her children there and says, no too
Speaker 4: many memories there, and my husband died here. Money ain't everything,
Speaker 4: she said, we really don't want to go. So that's
Speaker 4: the story. That's why I mentioned the Masters I have
Speaker 4: with me today. I'm going to bring them up here
Speaker 4: if you're streaming a guest and we'll talk about a
Speaker 4: state planning. Dan McKenzie's with us and Dan has co
Speaker 4: plans dot Co and Kachina. Let me know when the
Speaker 4: phones are up and running. We do want to talk
Speaker 4: about a lot of things. The facts here. Oh they're
Speaker 4: up there. Okay, the phones are now working. If you're
Speaker 4: trying to get through, you can get through now. At
Speaker 4: three ozho three seven to one three talk three oh
Speaker 4: three seven one three eight two five five. Now that's
Speaker 4: the iHeart number. That's good every day during the show.
Speaker 4: And then three oh three Martino is good twenty four
Speaker 4: to seven, three oh three six two seven eight four
Speaker 4: sixty six. I just happen to have some facts I
Speaker 4: put away some texts. I say, facts that shows in age,
Speaker 4: right my text. Somebody wants to know, does in a
Speaker 4: state have to file a tax return?
Speaker 5: That that's really I never even thought of that. So
Speaker 5: they do.
Speaker 6: Yeah, if they're earning income.
Speaker 4: Sure, okay, But if the if someone dies that year,
Speaker 4: let's say they died in twenty four, in September or October,
Speaker 4: you know, August or whatever, do they does that dead
Speaker 4: person have to file does the estate file for that
Speaker 4: dead person? For the deceased person, they file a tax return.
Speaker 7: Yeah, so there can be two because yeah, you can
Speaker 7: file for the income they earned while they're still alive,
Speaker 7: and then if they're still learning income afterwards, it's okay.
Speaker 4: So if the estate's aren't even have that separate, but
Speaker 4: they do file a tax return for the year they died,
Speaker 4: and the personal representative does that yep, And when you
Speaker 4: do this return, if taxes are owed, the estate literally
Speaker 4: has to pay the taxes. So the two sure things
Speaker 4: death and taxes, and taxes can actually follow you after death,
Speaker 4: your estate will have to pay for what you made
Speaker 4: in the year you died.
Speaker 5: Okay, So now the estate pays.
Speaker 4: Now the estate has some income and some passive investments,
Speaker 4: and they're trying to settle the estate. Now we move
Speaker 4: into twenty twenty five, So this year the estate makes money.
Speaker 4: What happens before April fifteenth, twenty twenty six.
Speaker 6: Yeah, I mean the estate will have if it.
Speaker 5: Has is it the estate of xy of Johnson.
Speaker 6: It's a different Yeah, it's a different return than the ten.
Speaker 5: Forty it's do you do those I do not.
Speaker 6: Some attorneys do, but we usually refer CPAs to do it.
Speaker 5: Okay.
Speaker 4: So as long as the estate is open and earning income,
Speaker 4: it must pay correct.
Speaker 5: Okay.
Speaker 4: Now the other thing, and by the way, three oh
Speaker 4: three seven to one three talk. I know some people
Speaker 4: were trying to get in and they texted me said
Speaker 4: they couldn't three oh three seven one three eight two
Speaker 4: five five.
Speaker 5: The phones are now working. So when.
Speaker 4: Assets are distributed, I always tell people you can gift
Speaker 4: as much as you want to your people right now,
Speaker 4: you can. You can leave money to your people. You
Speaker 4: don't pay the people who receive it pay no tax?
Speaker 5: Is that right?
Speaker 8: Right?
Speaker 4: The only time you pay tax on an inheritance, I'm
Speaker 4: told is when tax has not been paid on what
Speaker 4: you're inheriting.
Speaker 5: Does that make sense? Is am I saying that correctly?
Speaker 9: Yeah?
Speaker 6: Retirement accounts?
Speaker 10: Sir?
Speaker 5: So if you if you inherit a retirement account? Yeah?
Speaker 5: Does it be if they had a four oh one
Speaker 5: K and I inherit a four oh one K from
Speaker 5: an estate? Do I now have a four to one k?
Speaker 6: Yes? But it's inherited, and so.
Speaker 5: So what is it?
Speaker 4: Does it become Tom Martino's four oh one k? Or
Speaker 4: is it John Smith who dies four one Kay's?
Speaker 6: It's your inherited four oh one k?
Speaker 4: So what do I do with an inherited four oh
Speaker 4: one K for a one If they didn't pay tax
Speaker 4: on that, that's tax deferred. Do I start taking income
Speaker 4: on that? What do I do with it? Or can
Speaker 4: I just keep it?
Speaker 5: Can I roll it into mine? Okay?
Speaker 4: No? So what do you do? That's one of the
Speaker 4: texts here. I inherited a four oh one K. Actually
Speaker 4: they inherited an ira, but it would be the same,
Speaker 4: wouldn't it.
Speaker 6: It depends on if it's traditional or ofth but yes.
Speaker 4: You know it's traditional, so okay, so I inherit this
Speaker 4: what happens.
Speaker 7: So you have ten years under they Secure Act, which
Speaker 7: was passed in two thousand and seven. So I have
Speaker 7: ten years to do what nineteen to withdraw all the
Speaker 7: funds and.
Speaker 5: I and as I withdraw them.
Speaker 6: Yeah, you're declaring that as income.
Speaker 5: So if I wanted to withdraw.
Speaker 4: Only a very little of it, I can. I don't
Speaker 4: have to do them in ten even payments.
Speaker 7: There is a minimum distribution. It's kind of a silly formula.
Speaker 4: Even if you're an under seventy two, there's a minimum distribution.
Speaker 5: Yeap, And what's the formula? So it's exhausted.
Speaker 7: It's based on your age. Okay, I'm fifty, I've got
Speaker 7: you know, a thirtieth. They're gonna assume I'm gonna look
Speaker 7: to be about eighty two. So I withdraw that for
Speaker 7: the first nine years, and then in the tenth year,
Speaker 7: I gotta take the balance. So there could be some
Speaker 7: strategies in there because I don't want to leave it
Speaker 7: all for the tenth year and potentially bump myself up
Speaker 7: a tax bracket.
Speaker 4: Well, but presumably as you get older, your income's lower,
Speaker 4: so you would want to do it maybe.
Speaker 7: If I'm fifty, If I inherit it when I'm fifty
Speaker 7: and I'm still sixty, I'm probably still earning income.
Speaker 4: Okay, So anyway, you have ten years with inherited qualified
Speaker 4: money to distribute it to yourself and to.
Speaker 5: Pay tax on it.
Speaker 6: Correct.
Speaker 7: Yeah, okay, so except roths. Roths are also you're constrained
Speaker 7: to ten years, but you're not paying tack.
Speaker 4: Can you take the four to one K or the
Speaker 4: IRA in year one and invest it in something else?
Speaker 4: But you have to pay tax on it, but no penalty,
Speaker 4: even if you're under fifty nine oh a half.
Speaker 7: They want you to they want you to write, they
Speaker 7: want you to take that money on pay those taxes.
Speaker 6: There's no penalty. This is that though Kirst new it
Speaker 6: was for his dad.
Speaker 4: So if I'm under fifty nine and a half, I
Speaker 4: take that money anyway, and it's not considered early withdrawn.
Speaker 7: Not a penalty, but you're you know, again, you might
Speaker 7: bump yourself up some tax brackets by taking you know
Speaker 7: several hundred.
Speaker 5: Thousand atat of time. Heather, welcome to the show.
Speaker 4: You're having a problem with a general contractor.
Speaker 5: What's going on, Heather.
Speaker 11: Well, I started with him in February of two thousand
Speaker 11: and twenty two.
Speaker 4: I believe, my goodness, what are you having Just tell
Speaker 4: me what you're having done, and we'll come back and
Speaker 4: give you time to explain the whole thing. What are
Speaker 4: you having done with this contractor?
Speaker 11: I had him remove an old woodstove and put in
Speaker 11: a new one.
Speaker 5: That's all.
Speaker 4: That's that's all, entire, entirety. And it started in twenty
Speaker 4: twenty two.
Speaker 11: Yeah, and and and put in a tile, you know,
Speaker 11: for fire safety on the wall.
Speaker 4: Okay, what is the what is the name of the
Speaker 4: contractor that you hired in twenty twenty two to do
Speaker 4: this woodstove?
Speaker 11: Your business is called Anthony's Chimney Service.
Speaker 5: Anthony's Chimney Service.
Speaker 4: Okay, hold on and we'll come back to you and
Speaker 4: figure out what's going wrong and how we can help you.
Speaker 4: Three oh three seven one three eight two five five.
Speaker 4: This hour brought to you by waterpros dot net the
Speaker 4: absolute best water systems at the lowest prices. Get healthy
Speaker 4: get healthy water for your plumbing, for your body, for
Speaker 4: your drinking, all for under four grand. You get everything
Speaker 4: for thirty nine ninety five, including getting rid of chemicals
Speaker 4: and plastics. Waterpros dot net three oh three eight six
Speaker 4: two five, five five four Go with a sure thing
Speaker 4: Denvers best Roofer Excel Roofing dot com. You don't pay
Speaker 4: a cent until your tenth time for an insurance checkup
Speaker 4: free no obligation. In comparison, call Compass Insurance paying too
Speaker 4: much your coverage at dozens of insurance companies find out
Speaker 4: Now three oh three seven seven to one.
Speaker 5: Help.
Speaker 4: You'll think you're his only customer when you choose Frank
Speaker 4: durand the real estate Man dot com to list your
Speaker 4: home with Remax Alliance three oh three nine two zero
Speaker 4: sixteen twenty two. Hi Tom Martine here three oh three
Speaker 4: seven one three talk seven one three eight two five five.
Speaker 4: So Heather hired the Chimney Service to replace a wood
Speaker 4: stove in twenty twenty two.
Speaker 5: Continue your story, Heather, I.
Speaker 11: Got the I got the year run. It's twenty twenty three,
Speaker 11: but in February, Hey, I the reason they haven't replaced
Speaker 11: is that the wood show I had was large and
Speaker 11: you can't have a large wood stove in a small
Speaker 11: house because it's not safe. Number one, you have to
Speaker 11: run it at a certain temperature for it to be safe.
Speaker 11: And if you run a big stove at that temperature
Speaker 11: in a small house.
Speaker 5: Okay, I get it.
Speaker 4: So you put a smaller So you put a smaller
Speaker 4: woodstove in.
Speaker 11: Is that what you're saying, Yeah, that's what I hired
Speaker 11: him to do, which he did, okay, okay. And he
Speaker 11: was also going to put in the fire protection on
Speaker 11: the walls and on the floor the tile and.
Speaker 4: Okay, got it and like like like a protective tile,
Speaker 4: right and.
Speaker 11: The original balance. He charged me five thousand dollars okay
Speaker 11: for okay, okay, And then he came back. He put
Speaker 11: the stove in. He bought stuff at home depot, which
Speaker 11: I know. The floor tile I looked at it up
Speaker 11: and the cost of dollars forty seven apiece. There are
Speaker 11: a foot square and I intwered my house.
Speaker 5: So why are you questioning, Heather? I have a quick question.
Speaker 4: If this happened in twenty twenty three, why are you
Speaker 4: questioning now what he charged you?
Speaker 11: Because that's not all he charged me.
Speaker 5: Okay, he charged me continue.
Speaker 11: In twenty seventy three. Okay, the five thousand, then yes,
Speaker 11: then he charged me and also two thousand and seven hundred.
Speaker 5: And that was when did he hold on?
Speaker 4: Was that in twenty twenty four or was that still
Speaker 4: in twenty twenty three.
Speaker 11: Twenty twenty three? In July twenty twenty three, he charged
Speaker 11: me another three thousand. In September of twenty twenty three,
Speaker 11: he tried another another.
Speaker 4: Okay, hold on, hold on, hold on, Heather up, I'm confused.
Speaker 4: So the first payment you made, you paid him five grand,
Speaker 4: then he checked charge twenty seven hundred more.
Speaker 11: Twenty seven hundred more in September of that year, and
Speaker 11: then got it. Why why me another three thousand? Then?
Speaker 5: Why did he why Heather?
Speaker 4: Why did he charge you twenty seven hundred in September?
Speaker 4: I want to take one at a time. Why did
Speaker 4: he charge that?
Speaker 11: Let me see, I'm trying to look at the receipts,
Speaker 11: but he gave me.
Speaker 4: Because it seems to me if he put in a
Speaker 4: smaller tie, if you put in a smaller stove and
Speaker 4: put up the protective tile for five grand, what was
Speaker 4: the other twenty seven hundred dollars for?
Speaker 5: Did you have him do more work.
Speaker 11: He also had to stain the the chimney out.
Speaker 4: And you know, so was that the twenty seven hundred?
Speaker 4: What was what? What I need to know on your invoice?
Speaker 4: What was the twenty seven hundred for?
Speaker 8: It was?
Speaker 11: It was his first year for cleaning the chimney and
Speaker 11: bringing the stove down and taking the old stove out.
Speaker 4: And yeah, but wait a minute, you already paid him
Speaker 4: five grand for that.
Speaker 5: So what's the twenty seven hundred for?
Speaker 10: Yeah?
Speaker 11: I know that, and I can't find what ex for?
Speaker 5: Okay, I get it.
Speaker 4: Hold on, I need to I need to ask you
Speaker 4: a question though on this. So for that five grand,
Speaker 4: did he supply the stove or is that just labor?
Speaker 11: He said it was a chimney. It was for the
Speaker 11: chimney and inspection.
Speaker 4: I get it, But I need to know the five
Speaker 4: grand that you paid originally, did it include the stove itself?
Speaker 5: The five grand?
Speaker 11: Yes, that includes the stove.
Speaker 4: Okay, okay, So so twenty seven hundred then he charged
Speaker 4: then he charged something else.
Speaker 11: Yeah, and.
Speaker 5: So in addition to the five and.
Speaker 4: The twenty seven hundred, he charged you another three grand.
Speaker 5: You said, yeah, well.
Speaker 11: He charges one hundred and seventy five dollars an hour.
Speaker 4: Also, but what was the additional Okay, I got the
Speaker 4: five grand. I don't agree with it. I got the
Speaker 4: twenty seven hundred. I don't agree with it. But then
Speaker 4: you said he collected another three thousand dollars?
Speaker 5: What was that for?
Speaker 11: Let's see trink thousand? Original quote? He said, The original
Speaker 11: quote was seventy two and this is in let's see
Speaker 11: April of two thousand, twenty three. Oh, he said that
Speaker 11: was you all call.
Speaker 4: So let me just heather, Heather, we don't want to
Speaker 4: do math on the air. Let me just say this
Speaker 4: in general, you paid this guy over ten grand.
Speaker 11: I paid him almost I paid him fourteen thousand, five
Speaker 11: hundred and fifty dollars altogether. Oh my god, But I
Speaker 11: still don't have the tie about fire protection tile down,
Speaker 11: and I've hired another guy that I totally am completely trust.
Speaker 4: Wait a minute, and what is this guy's name? Is
Speaker 4: guy's name at Anthony's what's his full name?
Speaker 11: I think that his last name is Jones.
Speaker 5: What does it spell that?
Speaker 11: J O N E s.
Speaker 5: Oh Jones? Okay, got it?
Speaker 4: Listen, do you have a phone number for this guy?
Speaker 11: Yes?
Speaker 12: I do?
Speaker 2: You found it you found it, Dmitri, Yeah, I found
Speaker 2: Anthony's Chimney sweeps and website they also yeah, and so yeah,
Speaker 2: I have to speak up a little there. Oh yeah,
Speaker 2: so yeah, I do have their phone number and I
Speaker 2: have their website.
Speaker 5: Could you do me a favor and call him?
Speaker 4: Yeah, you know, Heather, do you have invoices that you
Speaker 4: can send to us?
Speaker 12: They're not there on that yellow.
Speaker 5: Okay, no, I get it, I get it.
Speaker 4: Can you take would you be able to take a
Speaker 4: picture of the front of them, just a rough picture
Speaker 4: with your cell phone, not.
Speaker 5: A rough picture, a high quality picture.
Speaker 4: Well, I mean, just for the for getting started, just yea, yeah,
Speaker 4: I want to Yeah, if hold on her send us
Speaker 4: pictures of those invoices, if she can just snap a
Speaker 4: shot of those.
Speaker 5: You know, we we don't need.
Speaker 4: Okay, when I set a picture, obviously the best quality
Speaker 4: you can get.
Speaker 5: But the bottom line is.
Speaker 4: I just want to verify you did business with the guy,
Speaker 4: and if we can show the amount on there, we'll
Speaker 4: call him and get details. But do that for us
Speaker 4: please three oh three seven one three eight two five five.
Speaker 4: This sounds horrendous. Fourteen thousand dollars and when you think
Speaker 4: about it, she exchanged the stove and she paid for this,
Speaker 4: so that included a stove, chimney inspection and cleaning, and
Speaker 4: some tile. It sounds ridiculous to me, But why now?
Speaker 4: Why is she questioning it now? The last work was
Speaker 4: done in twenty twenty three. We'll find out that. Coming up.
Speaker 4: Frank Duran, the real Estateman dot com, will do an
Speaker 4: analysis of your home right now to see what it
Speaker 4: will sell for without listening it. You don't have to
Speaker 4: commit to listing, and you never have to commit to listening,
Speaker 4: but he'll let you know what you cannot only sell
Speaker 4: it for, but what you will net and what you
Speaker 4: can buy.
Speaker 5: It's all free of charge, complimentary.
Speaker 4: That's three oh three nine two zero sixteen twenty two
Speaker 4: Frank durand the real estate Man dot com Go with
Speaker 4: a sure thing Denver's Best roofer Excel Roofing dot com.
Speaker 4: You don't pay a cent until you're content. Time for
Speaker 4: an insurance check up free, no obligation. In comparison, call
Speaker 4: Compass Insurance paying too much your coverage at dozens of
Speaker 4: insurance companies find out now three oh three seven seven
Speaker 4: one help. You'll think you're his only customer when you
Speaker 4: choose Frank durand the real estate man dot com to
Speaker 4: list your home with Remax Alliance three oh three nine
Speaker 4: two zero sixteen twenty two. Hi Tom Martino, you're troubleshooter
Speaker 4: three oh three seven one three talk three oh three
Speaker 4: seven one three eight two five five.
Speaker 5: So I have a pretty obvious question for Heather.
Speaker 4: Heather, why did you start questioning and calling us now?
Speaker 4: Or have you been thinking about this the whole time.
Speaker 11: I've been thinking about this the whole time. And uh,
Speaker 11: he just never showed up what he was supposed to,
Speaker 11: and he had all kinds of excuses, is including so
Speaker 11: he never finished.
Speaker 4: He never finished the tile, and you had to hire
Speaker 4: someone else.
Speaker 11: Well it's not only that. Yeah, I had to hire
Speaker 11: someone else, and he is an inspector, and he found
Speaker 11: that he didn't put the protective insulator box between the
Speaker 11: inside of the house and the roof, and he cut
Speaker 11: one of the the structural beams and everything was all
Speaker 11: the insulations.
Speaker 5: Okay, I get it. So in other words, not only
Speaker 5: did he not.
Speaker 4: Finish, but he did a lot of wrong things.
Speaker 13: Yes, and he.
Speaker 11: Could have killed me and and anybody else that was
Speaker 11: in my house.
Speaker 4: Now, how much did you pay the second contractor.
Speaker 11: I've only paid him five hundred.
Speaker 4: Oh my goodness, So this guy must be golden. He's
Speaker 4: a good guy.
Speaker 5: Huh. The second guy just wants to help you out.
Speaker 11: Wonderful man.
Speaker 4: Okay, Well, Deputy D I don't know if you heard this,
Speaker 4: but not only did she spend fourteen grand with this guy,
Speaker 4: but the second guy she hired for five hundred bucks,
Speaker 4: who've inspected everything, said there are a ton of problems
Speaker 4: on top of it. So Heather, get off the phone,
Speaker 4: get us that contract, to get us some pictures. Lay
Speaker 4: him on a table and take a picture with your phone.
Speaker 4: Send him to us. Kachina walk her through that. Katie,
Speaker 4: your turn, Katie, I'm Tom Martinez. What's going on with you? And,
Speaker 4: by the way, any estate related questions. I do have
Speaker 4: a couple of texts here you Dan McKenzie's with us
Speaker 4: Mackenzie Law, and I like the way he does business.
Speaker 4: Because it's a smaller firm, you get a lot of
Speaker 4: personal attention. So Katie, tell us what's going on with
Speaker 4: this tenant?
Speaker 5: Landlord?
Speaker 4: Are you the tenant or the landlord the tenant? What's
Speaker 4: going on?
Speaker 12: I've been a tenant at this place for a hold
Speaker 12: twelve days. They are an apartment complex and they are
Speaker 12: infested with cockroaches and bedbugs, and they are lying to
Speaker 12: tenants telling them there's no issue. And then huh, there's
Speaker 12: an issue.
Speaker 4: And well, let me ask you this, katie. What's the
Speaker 4: name of the place. What's the name of the place.
Speaker 4: Let's expose it.
Speaker 12: It's called Hidden Lake Apartment. It's right off the sixty
Speaker 12: eighth in loll.
Speaker 4: Hidden Lake Apartments, sixty eighth in loll Okay. Now when
Speaker 4: you wait, what do you mean they're lying? Tell me
Speaker 4: what you mean by that.
Speaker 12: So I bluntly ask them do you have a bug problem?
Speaker 12: And they said no?
Speaker 5: Wait?
Speaker 4: Wait how many people ask that? You actually asked that?
Speaker 4: Before you rented? You said, by the way, do you
Speaker 4: have a bug problem?
Speaker 8: Yeah?
Speaker 4: Really, I mean I never asked that in my life,
Speaker 4: but you actually asked. You asked specifically if they had
Speaker 4: a bug problem. May I ask why you asked that question?
Speaker 5: That's a weird question to ask.
Speaker 12: Because when you because I've had I've had past trauma,
Speaker 12: I've moved into ah and there's a bug problem. And
Speaker 12: I lived in a place for the last twelve years
Speaker 12: and I'm out here trying to find an apartment, and
Speaker 12: you go through these complexes that have five hundred units.
Speaker 12: So it's a question that you ask when you've had
Speaker 12: that experience.
Speaker 11: Both got it.
Speaker 5: I get it. I get it. And so they said,
Speaker 5: we have no problem?
Speaker 8: Right?
Speaker 4: And how long did it take you? You're there twelve days?
Speaker 5: Tell me how bad is it?
Speaker 12: I haven't I haven't even moved in yet. And in
Speaker 12: my unit, it's not bad.
Speaker 5: In my unit.
Speaker 12: I haven't seen any live bugs. I see only dead ones.
Speaker 12: I was there yesterday. I'm trying to break the lease.
Speaker 12: I can't furnish an apartment.
Speaker 5: Well hold on.
Speaker 4: Though, but why but but you even said, you even
Speaker 4: said you haven't moved in yet, and you're assuming you're
Speaker 4: gonna have a problem, Dmitri, What did you want to say, Katie?
Speaker 2: What kind of bugs did your witness? Are we talking
Speaker 2: about cockroaches or flies or bees? Or one?
Speaker 12: Cockroaches and they're dead?
Speaker 5: Correct?
Speaker 11: Now?
Speaker 4: How do you know that maybe they did that? Because
Speaker 4: maybe they've they fixed the problem?
Speaker 8: Now?
Speaker 9: No?
Speaker 5: Yes, what do you think you never fix a cockroach? Probably?
Speaker 8: Wait? Wait?
Speaker 2: Wait, do you meaning he could never fix York? And
Speaker 2: there are more cockroaches there than stars?
Speaker 5: In the sky. No, but hold on, what do you
Speaker 5: mean you can't fix it?
Speaker 4: Though a building can have an exterminator come in and
Speaker 4: fix the cockroach temporarily.
Speaker 5: What do you mean temporary?
Speaker 2: They live in the walls, they live in the floors,
Speaker 2: the ceilings, the pipe.
Speaker 4: So listen, Katie, you saw several dead cockroaches.
Speaker 5: This is recent. She's only been there twelve days been there,
Speaker 5: she has not even moved in.
Speaker 4: So you see dead bodies, and you went to them
Speaker 4: and said, wait a minute, I'm seeing a lot of
Speaker 4: dead cockroaches. And when you say dead cockroaches, can you
Speaker 4: be specific? How many did you see?
Speaker 5: Really?
Speaker 4: No, seriously, how many dead bodies did you see?
Speaker 12: I've seen too. I've seen too. And when I go
Speaker 12: to them and I'm like, hey, I'm seeing these bugs.
Speaker 12: Well two turns into two hundred in a hurry, and
Speaker 12: they're like, oh yeah, but I'll you don't come every week. Wait,
Speaker 12: they can come to your apartment.
Speaker 5: Oh Katie, but listen, are you jumping the gun here? Listen?
Speaker 4: I'm on your side, but it could you just be
Speaker 4: a little sensitized here, and you saw two of them
Speaker 4: and you're assuming there's a big problem.
Speaker 5: Wait, dimitrio.
Speaker 4: Are you telling me if you saw two you would
Speaker 4: think there's a major problem.
Speaker 2: If you see two, that means there's two thousand more. Oh,
Speaker 2: come on, come on, really.
Speaker 5: Guarantee you that?
Speaker 8: Man?
Speaker 5: I didn't you live in New York too?
Speaker 4: Well, yeah, but we never I didn't live in the
Speaker 4: city city, Yeah I did. Okay, So Katie, I don't
Speaker 4: know where what infested place he lives in, but two
Speaker 4: of them denotes two thousands?
Speaker 5: Ka, I think you're just will they let you out
Speaker 5: of the out of the least she's talking about, Katie.
Speaker 5: I want to ask a couple of questions yesterday, But
Speaker 5: did you do any due diligence?
Speaker 4: Did you knock on doors and ask neighbors if they're
Speaker 4: having a cockroach problem?
Speaker 14: No?
Speaker 12: I didn't. But now that I know that there's this issue,
Speaker 12: the neighbors are saying that there's a problem not only
Speaker 12: with cockroaches.
Speaker 13: But with bud bugs.
Speaker 12: I was in the office yesterday and this woman is
Speaker 12: in the office crying, telling the telling the office lady,
Speaker 12: you know I can't work because I have bedbugs. I
Speaker 12: neither know, saying that my apartment's been treated and I
Speaker 12: can't even work, and they don't care. She's just like, Oh,
Speaker 12: I'm sorry, I don't know what to tell you.
Speaker 4: Okay, Katie, When you asked about getting out of the lease,
Speaker 4: what did they say?
Speaker 12: They said that because in that unit they are not
Speaker 12: seeing any live bugs, it's not considered an infestation, and
Speaker 12: I will have to pay whatever penalty is to get
Speaker 12: out of my lease.
Speaker 5: Okay.
Speaker 4: Hold on, and we'll address this coming up, and maybe
Speaker 4: we'll have somebody make a phone call, okay, and then
Speaker 4: we'll look at your rights here three o three seven
Speaker 4: to one three eight two five five, Sally, we got
Speaker 4: your call too. Hold on, Katie, more coming up. Go
Speaker 4: with a sure thing Denver's best roofer Excel Roofing dot com.
Speaker 5: You don't pay a cent until you're content.
Speaker 4: Time for an insurance check up, free, no obligation comparison
Speaker 4: call Compass Insurance paying too much your coverage at dozens
Speaker 4: of insurance companies find out now three oh three seven
Speaker 4: to seven to one.
Speaker 9: Help.
Speaker 4: You'll think you're his only customer when you choose Frank
Speaker 4: durand the real estate Man dot com to list your
Speaker 4: home with Remax Alliance three oh three nine two zero
Speaker 4: sixteen twenty two.
Speaker 5: Revietionized.
Speaker 4: This set all Tom Martine here three three seven one
Speaker 4: three talks seven one three, eight two five five. We'll
Speaker 4: go back to that tenant landlord issue, trust me, we will.
Speaker 4: But Sally has a question for a state planning. We
Speaker 4: have Dan mackenzie with us. Mackenzie lost Sally, and don't
Speaker 4: go away, Katie. We're not done with you. Oh wait, wait,
Speaker 4: we do have Brad O'Brien. I didn't realize that, so
Speaker 4: let me go to Brad O'Brien. Brad, thank you very much.
Speaker 4: Olslaw dot com Real Estate Law Brad. At what point
Speaker 4: she's moving into a place, she sees two dead cockroaches.
Speaker 4: She figures there must be an infestation, and she talks
Speaker 4: to neighbors who say, yeah, there's a problem with cockroaches,
Speaker 4: bed bugs too, and bed bugs just on the say
Speaker 4: so of the neighbors and her fear.
Speaker 5: Can she get out of this lease?
Speaker 4: She's just been renting for twelve days now, she's in
Speaker 4: the process of moving in. Is it difficult to get
Speaker 4: out on a habitability issue under these circumstances.
Speaker 5: Brad Well.
Speaker 15: The Colorado Warranty habit Abilly Statute allows the tenant to
Speaker 15: get out of the lease.
Speaker 13: But there's several steps that have to be followed. First,
Speaker 13: they have to give.
Speaker 15: The landlord notice of the condition that makes it uninhabitable,
Speaker 15: and then the landlord has a certain amount of time
Speaker 15: to respond to attempt to.
Speaker 13: Remediate, And then and only then can they go to
Speaker 13: court to.
Speaker 5: Sue for a termination of the release.
Speaker 4: Well, if she just tries to get out of it
Speaker 4: now before even moving in, they're going to make the
Speaker 4: argument they didn't have a chance, right right.
Speaker 15: If you start already signed the lease, that's the contract
Speaker 15: which is finding doesn't matter if she hasn't moved in yet.
Speaker 4: Katie, are you hearing this, Katie?
Speaker 5: Katie? Is she still there? To China? Just tell me?
Speaker 4: Okay, So Katie, it sounds like it's going to be
Speaker 4: an uphill battle if you try to get out now.
Speaker 5: But if you moved in, I know it's sees how
Speaker 5: much is the penalty?
Speaker 12: So I spoke to them yesterday and they are willing
Speaker 12: to work with me. He said that he would call
Speaker 12: like the property manager and see what they are willing
Speaker 12: to do. Worst case, it's a sixty day notice, regardless
Speaker 12: of if I want to give them a sixty day
Speaker 12: notice or not. So it's two months worth of rent,
Speaker 12: and then the termination fee is a month worth of rent,
Speaker 12: so like four.
Speaker 4: Grand, So you're talking about three months altogether.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I'm going to email them. If I can give
Speaker 2: Katie's last name, I'll email them and ask them on
Speaker 2: behalf of our show if they're just willing to cancel
Speaker 2: the deal.
Speaker 4: Yeah, hold on, okay, and Brad O'Brien, thank you very much.
Speaker 4: Olslaw dot Com. Brad O'Brien seventy zero three seven zero
Speaker 4: seventy three eighty eight. Now, Sally, hang on with your
Speaker 4: estate question. We have Dan McKenzie with US mackenzie Law
Speaker 4: coming up. We'll answer all of your questions. Don't forget
Speaker 4: three oh three Martino, go with a sure thing Denvers
Speaker 4: Best Roofer Excel Roofing dot com.
Speaker 5: You don't pay a cent until you're content.
Speaker 4: Leave time for an insurance check up free, no obligation
Speaker 4: comparison call Compass Insurance. Pay too much your coverage at
Speaker 4: dozens of insurance companies find out now three oh three
Speaker 4: seven seven to one help. You'll think you're his only
Speaker 4: customer when you choose Frank durand the real estate Man
Speaker 4: dot com to list your home with Remax Alliance three
Speaker 4: oh three nine two zero, sixteen twenty two.
Speaker 1: Yeah, RiPP.
Speaker 6: You needed that's who you don't have?
Speaker 1: Run anxious as can. Shooter's gonna help come.
Speaker 3: Dix is the Troubleshooter Show. No Tom Martinez.
Speaker 5: Hello, Welcome to the show.
Speaker 4: I'm Tom Martino here to help you solve your problems,
Speaker 4: answer your questions, take your complaints as I've been doing
Speaker 4: for forty five years in Denver, more than fifty years
Speaker 4: if you counted all. And we are proud to be
Speaker 4: the longest running radio show with the same host still
Speaker 4: on the air.
Speaker 5: Woo, so welcome.
Speaker 4: Hey. I hope you're enjoying this spring in the Mile
Speaker 4: High And for those listening around the country, you too, right,
Speaker 4: sorry you can't be here it right because I think
Speaker 4: Denver has probably the best weather all around in the world.
Speaker 4: I mean, all things considered. If you had to pick
Speaker 4: one place, well, maybe Hawaii would be a good one too. Anyway,
Speaker 4: Dan McKenzie's with me mackenzie Law and that's coplans dot Co.
Speaker 4: And Sally has a question about in a state.
Speaker 5: Welcome.
Speaker 4: Sally and I have some textas as well about a
Speaker 4: state planning and a state Questions what is your question, Sally?
Speaker 11: My question is what do you do within a state
Speaker 11: attorney who is not returning any calls, emails, tepts to
Speaker 11: the executive?
Speaker 4: Okay, let's back up. Okay, let's back up, Sally. Who's
Speaker 4: the state are we talking about?
Speaker 11: It's my brother.
Speaker 5: And when did he pass away?
Speaker 11: January of twenty twenty four.
Speaker 4: Okay, So your brother passed away in January of twenty
Speaker 4: twenty four.
Speaker 5: And what happened then?
Speaker 4: To give me the steps on this attorney and how
Speaker 4: he got involved.
Speaker 11: Well, this attorney when my brother became ill about six
Speaker 11: months prior to his death, he hired in a state
Speaker 11: attorney and set up the estate for when he passed,
Speaker 11: and he named a lady friend of his.
Speaker 5: So he knew he was dying. Did he have a
Speaker 5: terminal illness? I mean, did he know he was dying?
Speaker 8: Yeah?
Speaker 11: Yes, yes, he had a couple of very serious things
Speaker 11: that have been going on for years and it come
Speaker 11: to that he was eighty three.
Speaker 4: Okay, yeah, okay, So just before he died he contacted
Speaker 4: this attorney, right, and who is the attorney?
Speaker 11: The attorney this is in San Francisco in the Bay Area.
Speaker 4: Yeah, oh okay, Then I don't care. Okay, So he
Speaker 4: contacted this attorney. Now, your brother was living in San Francisco, correct, Okay?
Speaker 4: And what did this attorney do for him or what
Speaker 4: is he not doing?
Speaker 5: Now? Is the estate settled or not?
Speaker 4: The estate is.
Speaker 11: Basically finished. It was all in really good order. It
Speaker 11: was not the least that complicated. And the executor is
Speaker 11: a lady friend of my brothers, who also lives in
Speaker 11: San Francisco, and she's just done a wonderful job and
Speaker 11: she cannot get a hold of this attorney. The attorney
Speaker 11: is a female actually, But why do.
Speaker 5: You have to get a hold of it?
Speaker 4: Why do you have to get a hold of the
Speaker 4: attorney if it's all settled, what is the purpose?
Speaker 11: Well, things need to be settled out that the executor,
Speaker 11: you know, she needs to meet with her. She has documentation.
Speaker 4: So Dan mackenzie, Dan mackenzie is with us an a
Speaker 4: state attorney. So Dan, what has to be done to
Speaker 4: finalize everything? She's saying that you said it was settled,
Speaker 4: like were his assets distributed?
Speaker 11: No, nothing's been distributed.
Speaker 4: Oh I thought you said it had been settled. So
Speaker 4: you mean he died in January of twenty twenty four,
Speaker 4: and nothing has been done.
Speaker 11: Well, things happened done all the tax returns, the two
Speaker 11: you know, different ones. The final one was like in January,
Speaker 11: and the executor she keeps contacting her in all kinds
Speaker 11: of ways you could possibly context.
Speaker 4: Okay, but what tell me how big your brother's estate.
Speaker 9: Was or is a callin a million?
Speaker 5: Okay?
Speaker 4: So nothing has been distributed, but things have been done
Speaker 4: in the background, tax returns and stuff like that. But
Speaker 4: you want to know when is it going to be
Speaker 4: closed out? And you can't get an answer correct? Okay, Dan,
Speaker 4: what are you do in a case like that when
Speaker 4: you have an responsive a state attorney? This sounds has
Speaker 4: probate actually been opened as a case?
Speaker 11: Yeah, yes, it has all everything, to my knowledge and
Speaker 11: to the executor's knowledge, has been.
Speaker 4: But has there been a probate case, an actual court
Speaker 4: case opened in your brother's estate's name.
Speaker 11: That was not necessarily during COVID somebody, a vagrant broke
Speaker 11: into his home while he was out of town and
Speaker 11: set the house on fire. And this guy was happened
Speaker 11: to be a fire starter. He's been locked up a
Speaker 11: number of times.
Speaker 4: What is that?
Speaker 8: Wait?
Speaker 5: Wait, but what does that have to do with my.
Speaker 11: Pater didn't own the house anymore. It's mostly just so
Speaker 11: probate wouldn't have been necessary.
Speaker 4: So the house was burned down. Did he get insurance proceeds?
Speaker 11: He did, Yeah, and it was in San Francisco proper.
Speaker 11: So yeah, you know, I get it.
Speaker 5: I get it.
Speaker 4: So what is there what is there in his estate
Speaker 4: to be distributed?
Speaker 5: Mainly cash?
Speaker 11: Mainly cash?
Speaker 4: Yes, and about a quarter of a million you said
Speaker 4: no a million? Okay, So nothing has been done. Dan, Again,
Speaker 4: we're back to the same question. What do you do
Speaker 4: with an unresponsive there's not a probate court case, there's
Speaker 4: just an estate. What do you do when an attorney
Speaker 4: doesn't answer you?
Speaker 7: And I guess I just said, are is She declined?
Speaker 7: Are you the you're the fiduciar?
Speaker 4: She she is the an heir and he appointed a
Speaker 4: personal representative.
Speaker 6: Okay, yeah.
Speaker 7: I mean it's always tricky because that's not really your attorney.
Speaker 7: So you could hire your own attorney, like you can't.
Speaker 5: Really, she doesn't have standing as an heir.
Speaker 6: To talk to the attorney.
Speaker 7: Not necessarily that attorney is really the attorney for the estate, but.
Speaker 4: The representative she knows the personal representative and the personal
Speaker 4: representative she knows very well, and that personal representative can't
Speaker 4: get a response.
Speaker 7: See, yeah, it's kind of their obligation. So she should
Speaker 7: can talk to the personal representative and ask for that.
Speaker 6: And if she's not getting you know, recent can.
Speaker 4: The personal representative go to the bar association?
Speaker 5: Sure?
Speaker 7: But I mean I guess first, if the personal representative
Speaker 7: feels like they're not getting responses, you can always you
Speaker 7: can always fire your attorney.
Speaker 6: That is always something you can do.
Speaker 7: So if that, I mean, it really is on the
Speaker 7: personal representative to get this done.
Speaker 5: Well.
Speaker 11: And I know that, and she knows that, and the
Speaker 11: other heirs who are my three sons and I have
Speaker 11: She's asked us for help, she's kept us and formed
Speaker 11: this whole time over a year.
Speaker 5: Yeah, I get it.
Speaker 11: But I googled how long does it take for the
Speaker 11: California Barter is fun? They said six months or more. Well,
Speaker 11: that's putting it out too far. And we are aware.
Speaker 16: Here's my question.
Speaker 13: We are aware we could.
Speaker 11: Fire this person and get a new attorney, which is
Speaker 11: what we're looking into. But my question is this other attorney,
Speaker 11: Mike is holding some documents. How do we even get
Speaker 11: that away from her? Because she won't even respond to
Speaker 11: text to emails to nothing.
Speaker 5: You know what, I'll bet you.
Speaker 4: I'll bet you I could come up with wording that
Speaker 4: the personal representative could send that would get a reaction.
Speaker 4: If you know that that attorney is getting texts. The
Speaker 4: personal representative can say you had a fiduciary responsibility to
Speaker 4: me and to the estate, and you have been lax
Speaker 4: in your response to me. I am going to the
Speaker 4: Bars Asociation and the Oversight Committee, and I'm complaining about you.
Speaker 4: If I do not hear from you in two days,
Speaker 4: that's what I would do. Now, Dan, Is that silly
Speaker 4: for me to say that? Or would an attorney respond
Speaker 4: to that?
Speaker 11: I don't want to interrupt, but that's exactly what happened.
Speaker 11: Several weeks ago, was the middle of March, and my
Speaker 11: one of my sons.
Speaker 13: Was a businessman.
Speaker 11: I'm very good at writing. He wrote a letter for
Speaker 11: the representative to make sign and.
Speaker 5: It was not and it was in strong wording like that,
Speaker 5: and it.
Speaker 11: Was exactly that we gave. She gave her till death
Speaker 11: eighteenth of March to respond, which was.
Speaker 5: And the attorney. Are we sure the attorney's alive?
Speaker 10: You know what?
Speaker 4: You know what hold on a second. You know what,
Speaker 4: We're going to call the attorney. We're going to call
Speaker 4: the attorney and say, look, I know you can't talk
Speaker 4: about this case, but you better get in touch with
Speaker 4: your clients because they're making noise and we're going.
Speaker 5: To help them lodge an official.
Speaker 4: Complaint against you if you do not contact them. I'll
Speaker 4: bet you that gets a response from a radio show.
Speaker 4: You want to make a bet we can get a response.
Speaker 11: I don't know.
Speaker 5: Well, here's what I want you to do, Sally. Here,
Speaker 5: I'm going to tell you what to do.
Speaker 4: I want you to hang up and call the personal
Speaker 4: representative and say, look, these people from the Tom Martineau
Speaker 4: radio show, a consumer advocacy show. They're willing to contact
Speaker 4: the attorney and light a fire. Okay, we can't get
Speaker 4: information and she can't breach any confidentiality, but she sure
Speaker 4: as hell will know we're telling the truth when we
Speaker 4: give the name of the estate and the name of
Speaker 4: the representative and say, look, you don't have to talk
Speaker 4: to us at all, but you better get in touch
Speaker 4: with your client or we're gonna make a case out
Speaker 4: of this. So you tell so do me a favor, Sally,
Speaker 4: contact us back and then let us know if you
Speaker 4: wanted us to take it to the next level. Okay,
Speaker 4: that's what that's what I want you to do. Three
Speaker 4: oho three seven one three talk seven one three eight
Speaker 4: two five five. Fix At twenty four to seven will
Speaker 4: do the deep clean of your air conditioner to get
Speaker 4: it ready. It's a refurbishment thirty nine bucks. You'll never
Speaker 4: get better. In fact, I just called fix It at
Speaker 4: my house for a water heater.
Speaker 5: They're great people.
Speaker 4: You can call them for anything plumbing, heating, cooling, electric
Speaker 4: and drains seven to zero, five two six, thirty nine,
Speaker 4: thirty nine. Go with a sure thing Denver's best roofer
Speaker 4: Excel Roofing dot com.
Speaker 5: You don't pay a cent until you're content.
Speaker 4: Time for an insurance check up free, No obligation can
Speaker 4: be Garrison call Compass Insurance paying too much your coverage
Speaker 4: at dozens of insurance companies find out Now three oh
Speaker 4: three seven seven to one help. You'll think you're his
Speaker 4: only customer when you choose Frank durand the real estate
Speaker 4: Man dot com to list your home with Remax Alliance
Speaker 4: three oh three nine two zero sixteen twenty two.
Speaker 5: Hey, I'm Tom Martino.
Speaker 4: You're a troubleshooter three O three seven one three talk
Speaker 4: seven one three eight two five five. Jason has an issue.
Speaker 5: With a trailer park. Jason, what's going on?
Speaker 4: Hey?
Speaker 17: Tom?
Speaker 18: How are you?
Speaker 5: Good man?
Speaker 17: I was helping a buddy six a leak up in
Speaker 17: Glenwood Springs at a trailer park.
Speaker 4: And now is this buddy? Is this buddy?
Speaker 5: Hold on?
Speaker 4: Is this buddy renting a trailer there? Or does he
Speaker 4: own his own trailer there?
Speaker 17: They they own the park, him and his family, oh
Speaker 17: owned the trailer park.
Speaker 18: And the old.
Speaker 17: Abandoned trailer park. And they think the waterline froze underneath.
Speaker 5: It and broke.
Speaker 17: And so I went up there with him to help.
Speaker 13: Him fix it.
Speaker 18: And then he lived in Florida, So she took.
Speaker 17: Off and didn't help, went back to Florida, and I
Speaker 17: drove back up to Glenwood Springs and dug it up
Speaker 17: and capped the line and fixed a water hydrant and
Speaker 17: did some other work around the trailer parks. I was
Speaker 17: up there for two weeks, and I asked them for
Speaker 17: my money when I left.
Speaker 4: Wait a minute, you said, this is a friend, right,
Speaker 4: a buddy, This is a buddy, yeah.
Speaker 18: From high school?
Speaker 5: And so you.
Speaker 4: Helped him, and how much did he agree to pay you?
Speaker 4: Was this like a buddy thing or did he agree.
Speaker 5: To pay you?
Speaker 17: He did in a text, he agreed to pay me
Speaker 17: fifty dollars an hour. And like I said, I was
Speaker 17: up there for two weeks. And then like towards the
Speaker 17: end of the job, it got weird because I hired
Speaker 17: a couple of guys that actually lived at the trailer
Speaker 17: park to help me dig, because.
Speaker 5: Yeah, but did you have did you have permission to
Speaker 5: do that?
Speaker 13: Yes?
Speaker 17: And they paid, They paid the guys, but they still
Speaker 17: haven't paid me. And his cousins, who is the manager
Speaker 17: of the trailer park, keeps telling you the checks and
Speaker 17: the mail, and I wait.
Speaker 4: How much are you owed? How much Jason? How much
Speaker 4: are you owed altogether?
Speaker 17: So what I was owed and what I told him
Speaker 17: to pay me are two different amounts. I just wanted
Speaker 17: to get paid. I told him to just pay.
Speaker 5: Me for fifty hours. How much fifty hours times fifty.
Speaker 17: Times fifty So yeah, twenty five hundred bought it. But
Speaker 17: I was up there for two weeks, hotels, food.
Speaker 19: Stuff like that.
Speaker 17: I was living in my truck and I was paying
Speaker 17: for it.
Speaker 5: Have you ever talked personally to your buddy. I have.
Speaker 17: And so so, like when it came time to get paid,
Speaker 17: he's like, so, how much do you want to get paid?
Speaker 17: And I was like, well, I told you we can
Speaker 17: figure this out at the end of the thing. But
Speaker 17: you told me fifty dollars and I told you I
Speaker 17: was fine with you. Yeah, it was an hour.
Speaker 5: Yeah.
Speaker 17: Then when they're like, well, how many hours did you work?
Speaker 17: Did you work more hours than your guys or less
Speaker 17: hours because the guys worked forty seven And I said, well,
Speaker 17: I was there almost a week before.
Speaker 9: I did a lot more work I had.
Speaker 5: Yeah, but it doesn't matter.
Speaker 4: You're only charging twenty You're only charging twenty five hundred.
Speaker 4: When you told him that, did he agree to it?
Speaker 17: Yes?
Speaker 13: Oh well, and you know.
Speaker 17: This is like and like I said, I got text
Speaker 17: and they got pictures of Jason.
Speaker 4: Yes, when was the last time you were on that job?
Speaker 4: I'm asking for a very specific purpose. When was the
Speaker 4: last time you were at that job?
Speaker 11: Right?
Speaker 5: Good?
Speaker 17: Two three weeks ago? And that's why I'm calling, because
Speaker 17: I don't know if you need them or.
Speaker 4: If you absolutely positively, you absolutely positively need to put
Speaker 4: a lien.
Speaker 17: On that okay.
Speaker 4: So and if you if you don't know how to
Speaker 4: do it, you hire an attorney to do it. You
Speaker 4: need to put a lien on it. First, you have
Speaker 4: to warn them you're putting a lien. Then you do
Speaker 4: a lien, you file an attent to lean, or you
Speaker 4: notify them of an intent to lean, and then you
Speaker 4: lean it. And there's a very specific time period. I
Speaker 4: suggest you hire an attorney to do it. It's worth
Speaker 4: it for and I wouldn't go for just the twenty
Speaker 4: five hundred. I would go for the full amount unless
Speaker 4: you have that in writing somewhere on the twenty five hundred.
Speaker 4: I would tell him, hey, you know I'm leaning you
Speaker 4: and this is how much I want. Now you can
Speaker 4: always settle after that, but you must do a lean.
Speaker 5: And what county is this?
Speaker 3: Uh?
Speaker 5: What is it?
Speaker 17: MESA?
Speaker 18: But I okay, well, I think, okay.
Speaker 4: Well when would any attorney in the state can file
Speaker 4: a lien on that. But you need to find someone
Speaker 4: to do that immediately. Do not wait, because you only
Speaker 4: have a certain amount of time from the end of
Speaker 4: the job to do your intent and then to do
Speaker 4: your lean.
Speaker 17: Okay, Can I asked you one more favor or one
Speaker 17: more sure you think?
Speaker 5: Go ahead? No, go ahead? What is your question?
Speaker 17: Do you think you guys should call and try and
Speaker 17: light a fire.
Speaker 5: Under the Oh? Yeah, yeah we could do that.
Speaker 4: Who do we hey, Kachina, who do we have on
Speaker 4: duty today? I don't want to overload the deputy d here?
Speaker 20: Oop Dollar and Deputy Chopper?
Speaker 4: Oh okay, sorry, so Chopper you're in the studio, Yes, sir?
Speaker 5: Who else is in the studio?
Speaker 20: Deputy Dollar?
Speaker 21: I'm here?
Speaker 4: Tom okay, cool, okay, cool, let's do that. Let's let's
Speaker 4: let's call and see if we can light a fire,
Speaker 4: so to speak. Thank you Jason for calling three oh
Speaker 4: three seven one three A two five five.
Speaker 5: Dan McKenzie's with us.
Speaker 4: I have a quick question for Dan or actually Dimitri,
Speaker 4: you have one? What is it? Yeah?
Speaker 2: So you know, over my lifetime, I've learned a lot
Speaker 2: about how to do stuff right by also learning how
Speaker 2: not to do it?
Speaker 5: So what is wrong with this possible scenario?
Speaker 2: Instead of hiring someone like you to write up my will,
Speaker 2: why wouldn't I just simply write up everything I I
Speaker 2: want to have happened, including whom I want to have
Speaker 2: what not half the letter notarized and give it to
Speaker 2: my beneficiaries, possibly with a small stack of signed blank
Speaker 2: checks to all of my accounts. Now, I'm not suggesting
Speaker 2: this is the proper way to do it. I realized
Speaker 2: this is the improper way to do it. But I'm
Speaker 2: wondering why it's improper, because I think that will help
Speaker 2: me understand the reason to do it properly.
Speaker 7: I mean, are your beneficiaries authorized to sign? You said
Speaker 7: the checks are signed? Yeah, I mean obviously signed by you. Yeah,
Speaker 7: pre signed blank checks.
Speaker 2: And I'll say, look, when I die in this letter,
Speaker 2: I want you to have all of these accounts hold
Speaker 2: the blank checks just right.
Speaker 5: When are you going to give me that check? Anyway?
Speaker 7: So the probate process is an orderly process for making
Speaker 7: sure everybody has the information and knows what's going on,
Speaker 7: and somebody's in charge and has a responsibility.
Speaker 4: I mean, this is I would say that's a weird
Speaker 4: way of doing it, but there would be nothing wrong
Speaker 4: with him doing that, right, I'm and it's kind of weird.
Speaker 7: Yeah, you're there's no way that will is gonna be
Speaker 7: any good. It's gonna have ambiguities in it. It's gonna
Speaker 7: miss stuff that you don't.
Speaker 5: But what about the blank checks.
Speaker 4: If I had a check from Dmitri signed and he dies,
Speaker 4: and I know he has fifty grandies that I could have,
Speaker 4: what would prevent me of writing a check on that can?
Speaker 6: When you just write a bigger.
Speaker 4: Check, we well, because I don't want it to bounce.
Speaker 6: You're I mean, you're creating a fertile I don't want.
Speaker 5: It to bounce.
Speaker 4: Okay, So would anyone protest if I if a day
Speaker 4: after he dies a check shows up at the bank,
Speaker 4: would they honor it?
Speaker 5: Well, they would honor it, right because they have no
Speaker 5: idea that I die.
Speaker 6: Yeah, Okay, So now you're committing fraud?
Speaker 5: What that's fraudulent to.
Speaker 6: Cash a check for somebody who's dead and not tell
Speaker 6: him they're dead?
Speaker 5: Really sure, you're you're taking.
Speaker 7: Money out of a dead person's again, I mean immediately
Speaker 7: that bank is going to lock that account of.
Speaker 4: Okay, Okay, all right, it's not proper, okay, and in
Speaker 4: a nutshell, But.
Speaker 2: What about I understand is improper. But I'm just wonder
Speaker 2: why it's improper. Improper?
Speaker 4: So, well, it's not like it's not a not an
Speaker 4: ideal way to distribute his assets. He wants to know
Speaker 4: you're looking for a quick and easy way.
Speaker 2: To distribute assets with two beneficiaries, my my nephew and
Speaker 2: my niece.
Speaker 6: Why not just put designated beneficiaries on the account. I
Speaker 6: already did that, Okay.
Speaker 5: Okay, death on on what do they call it? Death?
Speaker 5: Called a beneficiary and all the answer that the automatic automa.
Speaker 5: That then you've done it already.
Speaker 4: If you put them as as do on death for
Speaker 4: them payable on death certificate and for your two very
Speaker 4: nephew and niece, that's done.
Speaker 5: You You did it.
Speaker 6: Your will is not going to control that at all.
Speaker 4: Right, another thing you can do, and there's a you know,
Speaker 4: there's all kinds of tricky things you can do.
Speaker 5: It's better to do it the right way. But payable
Speaker 5: on death.
Speaker 4: Uh, certificates on accounts are really easy.
Speaker 5: And by the way, I do intend to do it correctly.
Speaker 5: But that is asistence you already he did. Payable on death,
Speaker 5: that's correct.
Speaker 2: That is the rest of my stuff, For example, the
Speaker 2: sale of my business, and I already know a company
Speaker 2: that wants to buy it for a fair price, and
Speaker 2: I want them to pay my beneficiary for that company.
Speaker 5: And the only other asset I have is my home,
Speaker 5: and I know what that is?
Speaker 6: I mean, how do they know who your beneficiary?
Speaker 5: You have to have a will. Now you could have.
Speaker 4: This is getting a little complicated, but you could have
Speaker 4: an LLC. It's a poor man's trust that owns that stuff.
Speaker 4: And you could make your niece and nephew members of
Speaker 4: the LLC and you can have your membership interest go
Speaker 4: to them upon your death, so it literally doesn't hit
Speaker 4: your estate. They have an LLC and it's simply I
Speaker 4: call it a poor man's trust.
Speaker 5: But dan is that considered weird?
Speaker 7: I mean, I don't know if it's a poor man's trust.
Speaker 7: The benefit of a trust is it puts one person
Speaker 7: in charge. Right In an LLC, you know, you just
Speaker 7: got to set it up correctly and clear. Here's how
Speaker 7: we deal with conflicts. Yeah, because a trust is going
Speaker 7: to make happen.
Speaker 4: An LLC operating agreement can do everything you want, really
Speaker 4: an LLC and survive your death because on your death,
Speaker 4: your ownership goes to the survivors. I've done LLC operating
Speaker 4: agreements like that, where you know, with with my wife
Speaker 4: or with someone who when I die, they get it
Speaker 4: all and then there is no there is no probate,
Speaker 4: there is no, a state. It just is an LLC,
Speaker 4: and that LLC is an entity unto itself like a
Speaker 4: trust is. But what Dan said is correct. In a
Speaker 4: trust you can be very specific about distributions and who's
Speaker 4: in charge and who makes decisions, and then so in
Speaker 4: an LLC, and I don't know why I call it
Speaker 4: a poor man's trust, I just figure it's cheaper to
Speaker 4: do than a trust.
Speaker 7: Dan, Yes, No, I mean I've used LLCs for situations
Speaker 7: one of your callers, actually, if you remember the guy
Speaker 7: who had the farm and all the dead right, yeah,
Speaker 7: on it to do that?
Speaker 8: All right?
Speaker 4: So we got more coming up on the Troubleshooter Show'm
Speaker 4: running a little late, so we'll be back right after this.
Speaker 4: Go with a sure thing Denver's Best rufer excel roofing
Speaker 4: dot com. You don't pay a cent until you're content.
Speaker 4: Time for an insurance check up free, no obligation. In comparison,
Speaker 4: call Compass insurance paying too much your coverage at dozens
Speaker 4: of insurance companies find out now three all three seven
Speaker 4: seven to one help. You'll think you're his only customer
Speaker 4: when you choose Frank durand the Real estate Man dot
Speaker 4: com to list your home with Remax Alliance three All
Speaker 4: three nine two zero sixteen twenty two. Tom Martino here
Speaker 4: three All three seven one three Talk Darryl and my
Speaker 4: other brother Daryl.
Speaker 5: Remember that. I'll never forget that anyway. Darryl. What's going on?
Speaker 5: Man with DMV.
Speaker 9: Yeah, it's Darryl, Daryl and my brother Larry.
Speaker 22: That.
Speaker 5: Oh okay, that's right.
Speaker 4: This is Larry, This is I'm Darryl and this is
Speaker 4: my other brother Darryl.
Speaker 5: Right, So what's going on, Darryl?
Speaker 19: So the other day I went to renew my license
Speaker 19: in Fort Morgan at the department or Motor Vehicle and
Speaker 19: they had an armed guard standing at the door, wouldn't
Speaker 19: let me in because you have to make one an
Speaker 19: appointment online. And I said, I'm here and.
Speaker 5: There's nobody in this room.
Speaker 19: Nobody and you got three people working over there, didn't matter.
Speaker 5: You got to make an appointment online.
Speaker 4: Well, hold on, couldn't you make it? Couldn't you have
Speaker 4: taken out your phone and made an appointment?
Speaker 5: Yeah?
Speaker 19: If I wanted to wait another forty five days, what.
Speaker 5: Wait a minute?
Speaker 4: So they didn't have any appointments open online. But you
Speaker 4: were there and no one was there, and they wouldn't
Speaker 4: let you in.
Speaker 19: There's an armed guard at the door, wouldn't let me in.
Speaker 9: And there wasn't a soul in the room. Nobody.
Speaker 19: So I went out and stand it on my phone.
Speaker 19: Forty five days later, I can get an appointment. But
Speaker 19: my question is, COVID is over, it's done.
Speaker 9: It's a thing of the past, right.
Speaker 19: Why do you have to have poyment online?
Speaker 5: Why?
Speaker 4: Why? But here's what I don't understand. How long was
Speaker 4: that place empty when you were there?
Speaker 5: Well?
Speaker 19: I didn't wait around, tom, but I you know it
Speaker 19: was I didn't wait to see if people were coming in.
Speaker 19: I just made the statement, I said, there's nobody in here. Well,
Speaker 19: we have appointments coming. Okay, they might be coming, but
Speaker 19: I'm standing here right now, and you've got it.
Speaker 9: And you could have had it done in the glass
Speaker 9: not working. You got three.
Speaker 4: People, right, that is so, and you could have probably
Speaker 4: been in and out of there and what ten minutes?
Speaker 5: What you know? Really?
Speaker 19: Yeah? So why?
Speaker 8: Why?
Speaker 9: Who makes these rules?
Speaker 19: Is that a state thing?
Speaker 9: Is that a governor?
Speaker 19: Who does that?
Speaker 5: You know what? That's a good question. I don't know.
Speaker 5: I actually don't know who. I mean.
Speaker 4: DMV would ultimately be the governor. But he's not going
Speaker 4: to address it, you know. I mean the only time
Speaker 4: he'll address it is that California does something and he'll
Speaker 4: copy it. But I don't really know what to tell you.
Speaker 4: I mean, who's the head of DMV? Did you did
Speaker 4: you try complaining to a supervisor?
Speaker 19: Well, they wouldn't even let me in the door. And
Speaker 19: I what, you know, what I was really shocked about
Speaker 19: is an arm guard?
Speaker 5: Really?
Speaker 19: I mean, I get it.
Speaker 4: I don't I don't get I don't get what's going on.
Speaker 4: I don't think they're all like that. Do they all
Speaker 4: require appointments?
Speaker 19: Do you know every single on everyone I went on
Speaker 19: the DMV website, you can't get an appointment for less
Speaker 19: than twenty or thirty days out.
Speaker 4: Well, you know, but in a way, if you think
Speaker 4: about it in a way, hold on, I understand, I
Speaker 4: understand your frustration, But if you think about it, I
Speaker 4: used to hate going to DMV and waiting in those lines.
Speaker 4: And I don't know if there's anything wrong with an
Speaker 4: appointment system, it just so happens that you didn't know
Speaker 4: about it, so you showed up there. I mean, I listen,
Speaker 4: I understand you're upset, and you want to get the
Speaker 4: word out right. But I think in reality though, is
Speaker 4: what would like is your license going to expire in
Speaker 4: the meantime?
Speaker 23: Yes, so, I don't know, man, there's not one office
Speaker 23: you can make an appointment with.
Speaker 5: What were you going to say?
Speaker 2: D So the appointment thing has been in effect for
Speaker 2: at least five years.
Speaker 5: Now, well, no, five years? Yeah?
Speaker 6: Yeah.
Speaker 2: I renewed my license about three years ago and it
Speaker 2: was appointment only, and for me it was, you know,
Speaker 2: about a month out like our caller says. But what
Speaker 2: I liked about it is when I walked in, they
Speaker 2: were ready to take care of me.
Speaker 5: I like that in two minutes.
Speaker 19: I like this, wait a month?
Speaker 5: I mean, well, it's once again you've waited a.
Speaker 9: Month to get in there.
Speaker 5: All right, let me summarize it this way.
Speaker 4: But you really didn't wait. I mean you're you're not
Speaker 4: like waiting in line.
Speaker 2: I mean yeah, once again, DMV is providing the punchline
Speaker 2: to every joke we've ever heard about DMV.
Speaker 5: All right.
Speaker 4: And if you looked at that one cartoon they had
Speaker 4: the DMV workers where snails or sloths?
Speaker 5: They were sloths, that's right, not snails.
Speaker 2: It's it's part of the government system and unless you're
Speaker 2: going to run for office and change it, then we
Speaker 2: just got to work within the system.
Speaker 5: Now, BO, Deputy Bow has a suggestion. BO, what were
Speaker 5: you going to say? Is Deputy Bow there? Or Bo,
Speaker 5: do you have a suggestion? Yes? Now I can go ahead.
Speaker 13: Yes, the caller needs to get go on the DMV
Speaker 13: Department of Revenue website and get a hold of a
Speaker 13: lady named Heidi Humphreys. She's the director of the DMV
Speaker 13: for license plates and driver's licenses. I had a big issue.
Speaker 18: With the title. I wrote her a letter or are
Speaker 18: you think you.
Speaker 13: Can call her? And she's can cut through the red
Speaker 13: tape and get it, you.
Speaker 19: Know, help.
Speaker 4: But she's not going to make a special exception and
Speaker 4: make an appointment for him.
Speaker 5: I mean, it's not going to help him with his issue.
Speaker 8: They won't.
Speaker 13: But for all of our listeners, the DMV needs to.
Speaker 18: Change because going there is like going to a third
Speaker 18: world country.
Speaker 13: I get it. I was intimidated with the guy with.
Speaker 18: The pistol on his tip, you know, and you're right.
Speaker 13: You go in there, there's forty empty seats and you just.
Speaker 18: You know, you can't get in there for an appointment.
Speaker 13: Some people just don't know how to make.
Speaker 18: An appointment online.
Speaker 13: But just you know, she's the lady that can make
Speaker 13: changes at the DMV.
Speaker 9: Not for this, but for you know.
Speaker 18: We're paying the time their salaries. You know, there needs
Speaker 18: to be changes.
Speaker 13: And I feel for this. I had a similar problem.
Speaker 13: And okay, it takes to go in there and get
Speaker 13: a duplicate driver's license. It's ridiculous, you know.
Speaker 4: But but okay, we say it's ridiculous. But what I'm
Speaker 4: saying is making an appointment. When you're waiting those three weeks,
Speaker 4: you're not waiting, You're doing your life. It's I'd rather
Speaker 4: have it that way than waiting three hours at the
Speaker 4: DMV office. I mean I used to go there and
Speaker 4: sometimes you would you take that ticket and you sit
Speaker 4: down and you're waiting hours. I don't see the big
Speaker 4: problem with making an appointment. I think the biggest problem
Speaker 4: was Daryl did not know it, so he showed up there.
Speaker 4: But had he known it that it was by appointment
Speaker 4: only then he could have accomplished what he wanted. I mean, bo,
Speaker 4: do you see a problem with appointments?
Speaker 5: I don't go with a sure thing.
Speaker 4: Denver's Best Roofer Excel roofing dot com. You don't pay
Speaker 4: a cent until you're content. Time for an insurance check
Speaker 4: up free, no obligation. In comparison, call Compass Insurance paying
Speaker 4: too much your coverage at dozens of insurance companies find
Speaker 4: out now three O three seven to seven to one help.
Speaker 4: You'll think you're his only customer when you choose Frank
Speaker 4: durand the real estate Man dot com to list your
Speaker 4: home with Remax Alliance three oh three nine two zero
Speaker 4: sixteen twenty two. Hey, I'm Tom Martino, your troubleshooter three
Speaker 4: O three seven one three talk seven one three eight
Speaker 4: two five five talking to Cliff, Cliff.
Speaker 5: What's going on with you? Cliff? What's happening?
Speaker 9: You may have seen some of these car washes around town.
Speaker 9: Take five. I think they also have oil chain services.
Speaker 5: It's called take five.
Speaker 9: Take five. Yeah. I signed up for a monthly subscription
Speaker 9: and my wife had signed up for a monthly subscription
Speaker 9: to their car washes.
Speaker 5: And how do they work?
Speaker 9: Discovered? Well, so you pay, you pay a flat rate.
Speaker 9: So it's either sixteen twenty two or I think maybe
Speaker 9: twenty seven dollars tiered different service levels.
Speaker 4: All right, hold on, I want to hear about this, cliff,
Speaker 4: hang on, I want to I want to hear about
Speaker 4: how this works.
Speaker 5: We're running out of Tom.
Speaker 4: I'll take you right up after the first So hang on,
Speaker 4: I'm Tom Martino. Take five car Wash. What's wrong with him?
Speaker 4: We'll find out coming up. Go with a sure thing
Speaker 4: Denver's Best roofer Excel Roofing dot com.
Speaker 5: You don't pay a cent until you're content.
Speaker 4: Time for an insurance check up free, no obligation comparison
Speaker 4: call Compass Insurance paying too much your coverage at dozens
Speaker 4: of insurance companies find out now three all three seven
Speaker 4: seven to one.
Speaker 5: Help.
Speaker 4: You'll think you're his only customer when you choose Frank
Speaker 4: durand the real estate Man dot com to list your
Speaker 4: home with Remax Alliance three oh three nine two zero
Speaker 4: sixteen twenty two.
Speaker 1: Rip you need so you don't have runs? Can shoot us? Help?
Speaker 1: Come man, this.
Speaker 5: Is the Troubleshooter Show.
Speaker 4: No Tom Martino, Hey Tom Martino here, welcome to the show.
Speaker 4: Three three seven one three eight two five five.
Speaker 5: Let's get right to the phones. Now.
Speaker 4: I read about Take five Car Wash. Uh, they're buying
Speaker 4: up a lot of independent car washes around town. They're
Speaker 4: offering this monthly subscription unlimited car washes. Cliff said that
Speaker 4: he did a monthly subscription and what about it, Cliff,
Speaker 4: tell me about it?
Speaker 9: Okay, So I had one and my wife had one.
Speaker 17: For me.
Speaker 9: It works great, it's a business expense. I drive a lot,
Speaker 9: so I watched my car a lot. It's very handy.
Speaker 18: My wife not so much, and decided that she was going.
Speaker 9: To cancel her subscription. So she canceled with him. They said,
Speaker 9: no problem, Well, you know, we'll just stop charging you
Speaker 9: the monthly on it. Everything's cool. The next month they
Speaker 9: charged her again, so she went back and talked to
Speaker 9: them and they said, oh, well that was just a
Speaker 9: clerical mistake. Don't worry about it. We'll take care of it. Well,
Speaker 9: she's pretty What do you.
Speaker 4: Mean take care of it? Did they say they would
Speaker 4: give it credit? What do you mean take care of it?
Speaker 9: We'll credit you back. Yeah, we'll give you a credit,
Speaker 9: and they did. But she called the credit card company
Speaker 9: and said, I want to permanently stop them from taking
Speaker 9: this money. They've done it once. I have a feeling
Speaker 9: they're going to continue to do it, and they have.
Speaker 9: In fact, they've tried twenty eight times to take the
Speaker 9: money out, and that wasn't enough. They even tried under
Speaker 9: other names. They tried, I believe, under auto wash and
Speaker 9: some other stuff to get the amount of her previous
Speaker 9: subscribe that and it's it's it's just annoying that the
Speaker 9: only way we can really wait a.
Speaker 5: Minute, how many times? How many times have they tried?
Speaker 9: Twenty eight?
Speaker 5: Now, why are they doing that?
Speaker 9: I guess they're either morons or they're crooked.
Speaker 5: I don't don't insult my don't insult my YouTube morons, No, no, no.
Speaker 4: No, but they're they're creepy. Yeah, man, what what the hell.
Speaker 5: Is going on?
Speaker 4: Did you call, by the way, did you call them
Speaker 4: and ask about it?
Speaker 9: Yeah, my wife did, and they said, oh, I'm sorry,
Speaker 9: we can't help you with any of that. Their customer service,
Speaker 9: we can't help you with any of that. You're going
Speaker 9: to have to call your credit card company. Well, the
Speaker 9: credit card company isn't issuing the but.
Speaker 4: How does What I don't understand is how do they
Speaker 4: keep It's such an easy thing to stop charging, So
Speaker 4: that means Cliff, if you ever want to stop, they're
Speaker 4: going to just keep charging you.
Speaker 9: I have a feeling that that is going to be
Speaker 9: the issue that I run into when I if I
Speaker 9: decide to.
Speaker 4: Stop now, now, by the way, how much is the
Speaker 4: monthly R card? How much is the monthly no no,
Speaker 4: by the way, yeah.
Speaker 9: Sixteen dollars?
Speaker 4: And and how many times do you get there to
Speaker 4: do a wash?
Speaker 9: I'll probably go there twice a week.
Speaker 5: That's pretty cool.
Speaker 9: So it's a very good deal. Even on the now
Speaker 9: once up the twenty two dollars, in the twenty five
Speaker 9: or whatever it is, they're still good deals for the
Speaker 9: volume that I use it.
Speaker 5: Wow. Okay.
Speaker 4: In any case, Cliff, if you you know, if you
Speaker 4: we might want to call there and just say why
Speaker 4: do they keep doing it? I mean, it's just kind
Speaker 4: of amazing that they keep doing that. But I'm glad
Speaker 4: you're getting the word out. People need to keep track
Speaker 4: of that. I imagine people are getting auto dinged all
Speaker 4: the time. My son just did a charge this morning
Speaker 4: and it went through on three places Apple, one credit
Speaker 4: card and his debit card.
Speaker 5: Three times for the same thing.
Speaker 4: I wonder if we ever really start examining these credit cards,
Speaker 4: how much we're paying for that we shouldn't be paying for.
Speaker 4: Thanks Cliff, appreciate the call. Three oh three seven one
Speaker 4: three talk seven one three eight two five five.
Speaker 5: Is Deputy D on the phone even though he's here? No,
Speaker 5: he's not.
Speaker 4: He has a follow up coming up. Okay, we'll wait
Speaker 4: for him. Three oh three seven one three eight two
Speaker 4: five five. So I do have some texts I want
Speaker 4: to get to. Somebody wants to know.
Speaker 5: Oh.
Speaker 4: Somebody says the DMV is a step up from the
Speaker 4: Colorado Payback program.
Speaker 5: I gave up a claim I.
Speaker 4: Had filed when I had an appointment to meet with
Speaker 4: an action person. You don't have to do that for
Speaker 4: the Colorado payback anyway. They say Colorado has become a
Speaker 4: third ringk state. Here's the bottom line.
Speaker 5: Though.
Speaker 4: Somebody else said you can renew online you never have
Speaker 4: to go in ever. Now is that true? Can you
Speaker 4: renew online a complete driver's license?
Speaker 5: Why did I have to go in?
Speaker 4: I think I had to go in because I believe
Speaker 4: they make you go in.
Speaker 5: Every other time. Yeah, every other time, because you need
Speaker 5: to update your photo.
Speaker 4: So you can get by twice with the same photo.
Speaker 4: And how long is the license good for five years?
Speaker 3: Five?
Speaker 5: I thank you?
Speaker 4: So then every ten years you have to go in.
Speaker 5: Correct. That's not bad. That's not bad. The best. Okay,
Speaker 5: somebody wants to know.
Speaker 4: Oh, we got to get our tax guy on because
Speaker 4: today is tax day and somebody wants to know about
Speaker 4: extensions and money owed. So get Eric on whenever you can. Kachina,
Speaker 4: we want to use him. And also I have a
Speaker 4: question for Mike Wink of bankruptcy attorney want we have
Speaker 4: some questions for him. And then we have an update
Speaker 4: from Deputy d on the salvage title somebody called about.
Speaker 4: And then we have our guest Dan mackenzie to talk
Speaker 4: about a state law. So anything you want to talk about,
Speaker 4: give us a call. Somebody else says Tom, I want
Speaker 4: to know about putting windows on my home. Your real
Speaker 4: estate person says, you don't get the real value out
Speaker 4: of that when you put.
Speaker 5: Windows in your home.
Speaker 4: What they meant was it doesn't necessarily add to the
Speaker 4: price of the home that you're asking. It may be
Speaker 4: an attractive thing and help your house sell, but it
Speaker 4: doesn't really increase the price.
Speaker 5: So is it valuable?
Speaker 4: Well, yes, and no, you don't get penny for penny
Speaker 4: money back. Sometimes it's better to leave allowances open.
Speaker 5: Is Eric up right now?
Speaker 4: I have I do have a question for him, Eric,
Speaker 4: Ryan Atlasfirms dot com.
Speaker 5: Hey Eric, thanks for being here. We have a quick question.
Speaker 4: The first one is I have six thousand dollars I
Speaker 4: owe seventy five hundred.
Speaker 5: What do I do when I file my taxes?
Speaker 22: I would just pay the sixty five hundred, pay the
Speaker 22: six thousand bucks in a month down the road, they'll
Speaker 22: get a letter back saying you still owe fifteen hundred bucks.
Speaker 22: Do you want to do an installment agreement or not?
Speaker 22: So it's pretty mellow.
Speaker 4: Okay, So you don't have to make a note. You
Speaker 4: just send in what you can.
Speaker 22: Yeah, and they Automatthew will sit back and response a
Speaker 22: month later.
Speaker 4: Now, will this monthly payment be what they say it is?
Speaker 4: Or do they negotiate it? Like, how do they come
Speaker 4: up with a monthly installment?
Speaker 22: It's actually become very fusible these days. They'll say, let
Speaker 22: us know what period you want to pay over. It
Speaker 22: could even be up to three years, so a lot
Speaker 22: of latitude you get to decide.
Speaker 4: And in today's world of interest rates, what are you
Speaker 4: paying in interest rates?
Speaker 22: It's probably going to be at least a ten percent
Speaker 22: rate on it, So just consider it a ten percent
Speaker 22: loan from the irs.
Speaker 4: Okay, but that's if you think about it, that's almost
Speaker 4: better than putting on a credit card.
Speaker 22: What do you think, Well, it's true, I guess if
Speaker 22: somebody has a high interest credit cards, it's not the
Speaker 22: end of the world. So it is a pretty easy
Speaker 22: way to take the heat off and pay over time,
Speaker 22: as long as it's not substantial. It was like ten
Speaker 22: twenty thousand dollars. There could also be additional five or
Speaker 22: ten percent late payment fees on it, so it could
Speaker 22: be almost okay wash with credit cards.
Speaker 4: Someone else says that they have to file an extension
Speaker 4: and they know they're going to owe money, but they
Speaker 4: don't have the money right now, but they will have it.
Speaker 4: Should they wait to file.
Speaker 5: The extension or do the extension?
Speaker 4: And then what do they do in a case like
Speaker 4: that with they know they're going to owe.
Speaker 22: Money, they definitely, no matter what, need to file the extension,
Speaker 22: because what happens is if you don't file the extension,
Speaker 22: then when they go to pay, there's not only the
Speaker 22: interest and late payment penalties, there's the late filing penalties,
Speaker 22: which can be ugly, like two and a half percent
Speaker 22: a month.
Speaker 5: Oh my goodness.
Speaker 4: So if they file an extension and don't have the money.
Speaker 4: Do they put a note in there? Do they ask
Speaker 4: for an installment?
Speaker 5: What do they do?
Speaker 22: Just file it? It could be electronically. There's nothing else
Speaker 22: to do. You just file it and that gets them
Speaker 22: on record at least having requested the six month extension.
Speaker 4: But what about the money owed? Will they contact you?
Speaker 22: Yeah, they'll get a let. Well, if you're just filed
Speaker 22: an extension and having a filed, they don't know what
Speaker 22: you owe or not. They'll have to wait until you
Speaker 22: actually file.
Speaker 4: Okay, will you get a penalty then if you didn't
Speaker 4: pay on the fifteenth?
Speaker 5: Definitely?
Speaker 4: Oh you will? And is is that really uh? Is
Speaker 4: that a pretty heavy penalty for not paying on time?
Speaker 22: Yeah, it's a combination of the eight percent interest plus
Speaker 22: I think it might be one percent per month late
Speaker 22: payment penalty, So it's a blend of interest and penalty,
Speaker 22: so that.
Speaker 5: Could be twenty percent a year. Wow.
Speaker 22: Yeah, it could definitely get up to that if you're
Speaker 22: not paying.
Speaker 24: As long as you file an extension, at least that
Speaker 24: gives you a valid extension, so you don't get that
Speaker 24: two percent per month late filing fe But it really
Speaker 24: can easily get up to fifteen and twenty percent.
Speaker 22: So the answer is okay, here you can to get
Speaker 22: on a program and do it over a short period.
Speaker 5: Okay, I got a couple more.
Speaker 4: If you can hang on, I got to take a
Speaker 4: break three on three seven one three talks seven one
Speaker 4: three eight two five five.
Speaker 5: If you have any tax.
Speaker 4: Questions, we're answering some of them by text right now.
Speaker 4: We also Dan mackenzie for a state law and then
Speaker 4: Deputy d has a follow up on that salvage title
Speaker 4: we talked about the woman was convinced she had a
Speaker 4: wrecked car and wasn't told. We'll talk about that and
Speaker 4: more coming up on the Troubleshooter Show. Renew Home Innovations
Speaker 4: has the most beautiful showers you'll ever imagine. They convert
Speaker 4: your shub, the tower, the shower and tub into a
Speaker 4: beautiful walking shower with porcelain walls. That's one of the
Speaker 4: options they have, beautiful sheet porcelain. It looks like a
Speaker 4: million bucks and no maintenance, beauty and definitely it'll stand out.
Speaker 4: Renew home Innovations dot Com a couple of days to
Speaker 4: get it done, and then you have all kinds of
Speaker 4: repayment options. Renew Home Innovations dot com three oh three
Speaker 4: nine zero four to two thousand, go with a sure
Speaker 4: thing Denver's best roofer Excel Roofing dot com. You don't
Speaker 4: pay a cent until you're content. Time for an insurance
Speaker 4: checkup free, no obligation. In comparison, call Compass Insurance paying
Speaker 4: too much your coverage at dozens of insurance companies find
Speaker 4: out now three all three seven seven to one.
Speaker 5: Help.
Speaker 4: You'll think you're his only customer when you choose Frank
Speaker 4: durand the real estate Man dot com to list your
Speaker 4: home with Remax Alliance three all three nine two zero
Speaker 4: sixteen twenty two. Hi Tom Martino, you're a troubleshooter three
Speaker 4: oh three seven one three talk seven one three eight
Speaker 4: two five five.
Speaker 5: Today is tax Day.
Speaker 4: We're addressing just a few things on that with Eric
Speaker 4: Reinemer from Atlasfirms dot com. There are a series of
Speaker 4: accounting offices that serve small businesses and clients, not just business,
Speaker 4: but they're great. They've been doing my work for years
Speaker 4: and years and years, and our troubleshooter network as well.
Speaker 4: So Eric, somebody is calling or texting about it's a
Speaker 4: woman wants to know about innocent spouse. Whatever the heck.
Speaker 4: That means her husband left her. She says, their finances
Speaker 4: are in shambles, but she had little to do with it,
Speaker 4: and she suspects there's going to be problems because he
Speaker 4: hasn't been indicating with her about taxes and it's the deadline.
Speaker 4: What is that? What the heck is innocent spouse? Is
Speaker 4: that something that is an actual term?
Speaker 22: Yeah, so that's a real thing. When a spouse has
Speaker 22: let's say her husband got into deep dudo with unreported
Speaker 22: incomer was one hundred grand, she has the ability to
Speaker 22: file a request for you know, you know, spouse protection
Speaker 22: from the liabilities of her husband. So it is a
Speaker 22: thing because it comes up more and more.
Speaker 4: Okay, And so do they actually then say to the
Speaker 4: husband or wife, yes, you're not responsible for this.
Speaker 22: Well, there's the process for have to file, and you know,
Speaker 22: you have to file and explain the facts and circumstances
Speaker 22: to make sure it really is his income not hers,
Speaker 22: And there's a whole process you have to go through.
Speaker 13: Yeah, okay.
Speaker 4: Now someone says here, I've heard they hired a bunch
Speaker 4: of new IRS agents. Then I heard Doze laid off
Speaker 4: a bunch of IRS agents. So what is the situation
Speaker 4: with the IRS, are they being more aggressive or less aggressive?
Speaker 4: And manpower wise, will there be less auditing?
Speaker 22: I'd have to say it's pretty clear there's going to
Speaker 22: be less auditing because first they hired an extra ten
Speaker 22: thousand people based on a build of the past three
Speaker 22: years ago. But now with those in there, people are
Speaker 22: getting laid off, just like all the other agencies that
Speaker 22: are laying off the probationary new people. And we're even
Speaker 22: dealing with the IRS and some clients situations and the
Speaker 22: they're just saying, yeah, we're losing more people every day.
Speaker 22: So it's pretty clear their staff is being trimmed down,
Speaker 22: and you can only presume there's going to be less
Speaker 22: people around to even pursue the normal audit procedures. That's
Speaker 22: kind of natural evolution here.
Speaker 4: Okay, so Eric, what would you say being tax day
Speaker 4: is the biggest mistake we make as taxpayers? Is it
Speaker 4: not filing? I mean that would be the obvious one.
Speaker 4: What else?
Speaker 5: Not paying? What are some of the common mistakes?
Speaker 22: Yes, so here, I looked it up while we're offline.
Speaker 22: The key thing is if you don't pay Number one,
Speaker 22: if you don't have the money, you still on a
Speaker 22: file anyway, because what happens is the failure to pay
Speaker 22: the money accrus at five percent per month on top
Speaker 22: of the interest, but the failure to file by not
Speaker 22: even filing an extension is five percent per month up
Speaker 22: to twenty five percent. So you can get in a
Speaker 22: world of hurt if you don't at least efficiently say
Speaker 22: you want to extend that at least gives you six
Speaker 22: months the worst. Really backing up Tom, the biggest issue
Speaker 22: is a person that knowing the situation coming into the year,
Speaker 22: and like they say, the more you plan, the more
Speaker 22: money you're going to save. And people just need to
Speaker 22: be proactive and be thinking about things before they get
Speaker 22: up against the deadline, just see what their options are.
Speaker 4: And speaking of deadlines, we're speaking with Atlasfirms dot Com,
Speaker 4: the accounting firm we've used as our experts for years.
Speaker 4: So Eric, speaking of deadlines, the extension gives you a
Speaker 4: deadline to.
Speaker 22: When six month, well for the person returns is six
Speaker 22: months from today, which is October fifteenth.
Speaker 8: And a lot of people.
Speaker 22: Have businesses which we're due on March fifteenth and get
Speaker 22: extended until September fifteenth.
Speaker 4: Okay, and that's and so then that's the final deadline,
Speaker 4: right yep. And so people you've heard it here Atlas Firm,
Speaker 4: and if you need an accounting firm, there's certainly a
Speaker 4: good one. Three oh three seven one. Thank you very much, Eric.
Speaker 4: We appreciate the last minute information and tips for the
Speaker 4: questions we've had. Thank you very much for being on. Okay, deb,
Speaker 4: what's going on with their air conditioner? Welcome Deb? Oh
Speaker 4: she's gone. Okay anyway, we have more coming up on
Speaker 4: the Troubleshooter Show three oh three seven to one three
Speaker 4: talks seven one three.
Speaker 5: Eight two five five.
Speaker 4: Deputy D has a follow up on a salvage title
Speaker 4: D without going into the solution, what was her original
Speaker 4: contention when Amy called the show?
Speaker 2: Amy bought a car from a dealership up in Golden
Speaker 2: and it immediately broke down. And the Amy's allegation was
Speaker 2: that they sold her a car with a salvage title
Speaker 2: without telling her because she found information to that on
Speaker 2: a report she pulled from some service called Bumper. And
Speaker 2: the update that I'll provide when you're ready in fall,
Speaker 2: my conversations with Rod Greer from jfr At.
Speaker 5: Associates and he's not involved in he's.
Speaker 2: Not involved in it. But he's our expert on guns cars. Okay,
Speaker 2: and he ran that title through two services that they use.
Speaker 5: Okay, good, and I have some answers. All right.
Speaker 4: We got more coming up on the Troubleshooter Show. Three
Speaker 4: oh three seven one three eight two five five one
Speaker 4: Clear Choice Garage Doors for all of your garage door needs.
Speaker 4: Give us a call at one Clear Choice Doors dot Com.
Speaker 4: That's twenty four to seven service for emergency situations, Broken
Speaker 4: springs services.
Speaker 5: They have all of their.
Speaker 4: Prices on their website one clear Choice Doors dot Com.
Speaker 4: Go with a sure thing Denver's best roofer Excel Roofing
Speaker 4: dot com.
Speaker 5: You don't pay a cent until you're content.
Speaker 4: Time for an insurance check up free, no obligation comparison
Speaker 4: call Compass Insurance paying too much your coverage at dozens
Speaker 4: of insurance companies find out now three oh three seven
Speaker 4: seven to one help. You'll think you're his only customer
Speaker 4: when you choose Frank durand the Real Estate Man dot
Speaker 4: com to list your home with Remax Alliance three oh
Speaker 4: three nine two zero sixteen twenty two. Hi Tom Artine here,
Speaker 4: Welcome three all three seven one three talk seven one
Speaker 4: three eight two five five.
Speaker 5: I'm gonna go to Michael Wink right now.
Speaker 4: Mike Wink is an attorney that does bankruptcies Wink Law
Speaker 4: Firm dot com. And I had some questions here, Mike.
Speaker 4: Somebody wanted to say, or someone did say.
Speaker 5: By text that they don't.
Speaker 4: Want to do a bankruptcy but they might have to.
Speaker 4: And they wanted to know what is a good technique
Speaker 4: for negotiating lump sum settlements or do they not listen?
Speaker 4: Do credit cards listen? Do medical people listen? What's the
Speaker 4: best way to go about that?
Speaker 8: Sure, we represent people in bankruptcy and in settling debt
Speaker 8: outside of bankruptcy very frequently. Those are two primary areas
Speaker 8: of practice. To settle, you have to go into default.
Speaker 8: So as long as you're paying the debt, they're never
Speaker 8: going to negotiate, like you might get a break on
Speaker 8: interest or something, but they're not going to take less
Speaker 8: than the balance to settle it in full. Typically that's
Speaker 8: about with a credit card, you're talking about five months
Speaker 8: or so in the default, they'll start accepting a pretty
Speaker 8: significant fraction of the balance, oh, typically about half. And
Speaker 8: it's good to have cash for lum sum settlements because
Speaker 8: lump sums of cash buy down debt better than payment plans.
Speaker 8: So in other words, if you say I'll pay you
Speaker 8: fifty percent, but I need a year to pay, well,
Speaker 8: you're you're probably gonna have to pay more than fifty percent.
Speaker 8: But whereas if you could pay that balance that fifty
Speaker 8: percent amount by the end of the month, the creditor
Speaker 8: is much more likely to take some kind of discount
Speaker 8: like that. There's a little more variability in medical bills.
Speaker 8: Sometimes they've already discounted the bill and it makes it
Speaker 8: harder to get more discounts. And then sometimes you can
Speaker 8: get even a bigger discount, especially if you can show
Speaker 8: economic hardship on your clients. So a lot of times
Speaker 8: creditors will inquire about that, but certain hospitals and things
Speaker 8: will really listen to that. I don't find credit card
Speaker 8: companies particularly moved by somebody else I heard.
Speaker 4: I heard medical bills were easier to settle than credit cards.
Speaker 10: Now, well, like I.
Speaker 8: Said, I think, I think it's just more variability. So,
Speaker 8: you know, we've achieved percentages on large medical debts that
Speaker 8: I don't we've ever achieved on like bank that. In
Speaker 8: other words, you know, we've done ten percent fifteen percent
Speaker 8: on certain medical debts. So in that way, the greater
Speaker 8: savings is possible. But like I said, sometimes I feel
Speaker 8: like by the time we get involved, the bill has
Speaker 8: been discounted already and it's when from that point it
Speaker 8: can be difficult to get more discount off of it.
Speaker 4: How do you charge for your negotiating service?
Speaker 13: Right?
Speaker 8: Yeah, Typically we charge a percentage of the debt. Ten
Speaker 8: percent of the debt is our typical charge. And by
Speaker 8: the way, the primary competitors in the industry, like National
Speaker 8: Debt Release, the sort of national players that do debt settlement,
Speaker 8: they charge like twenty five percent, so you can.
Speaker 4: Really get So when you say ten percent of the debt,
Speaker 4: when you say ten percent of the debt, do you
Speaker 4: mean ten percent of the final amount or ten percent
Speaker 4: of the face value.
Speaker 8: Pre settlement balances? Yeah, so it's ten percent of the balance,
Speaker 8: So were they of the settlement. So you end up
Speaker 8: paying about sixty percent with our fees and the settlement amounts.
Speaker 5: Okay, I get it.
Speaker 4: So if someone owes ten grand, your charge is a thousand?
Speaker 5: Am I reading that right? Yeah?
Speaker 4: And then and then you reduce it to whatever you
Speaker 4: can and then you try to reduce it as much
Speaker 4: as possible.
Speaker 8: Right, And there's some flexibility on our percentage. So if
Speaker 8: somebody has like an eighty thousand dollars debt, we're not
Speaker 8: necessarily going to charge of make grand on that. We
Speaker 8: can we can do a discount.
Speaker 5: But okay, I get it.
Speaker 8: Type of that that you know the amount, okay.
Speaker 4: And Mike, do you find being a bankruptcy attorney they
Speaker 4: know that going in when you're negotiating.
Speaker 8: Yes, a lot of times they do. I mean they
Speaker 8: know what we do. We file out of bankruptcies. So
Speaker 8: I think we can help debtors credibly threaten bankruptcy when
Speaker 8: we're trying to settle. And so okay, yeah, I think
Speaker 8: it helps to have a bank you have.
Speaker 4: Do you have some collectors or some creditors that just
Speaker 4: never negotiate, Like, are there just pains in the butt?
Speaker 8: Not really, there's some I wouldn't say they never negotiate,
Speaker 8: but there's some like say Discover. Discover often insist on
Speaker 8: sixty to seventy percent, whereas other banks, you know, you
Speaker 8: can get to a lower amount. So it's not that
Speaker 8: they don't negotiate at all, it's just said some are tougher
Speaker 8: to get better savings from than others.
Speaker 4: Okay, And I just got this text saying that she's
Speaker 4: she was unemployed, but she was going she had signed
Speaker 4: up for a community college and then had a diagnosis
Speaker 4: and she thought she was very ill and went through
Speaker 4: a period of time where she was with surgeries. She
Speaker 4: never contacted the school, she never went back to the school,
Speaker 4: and now the community it's a Rapo community college, is
Speaker 4: asking for full payment of all of those courses. Did
Speaker 4: you ever negotiate educational debt like that for hardship?
Speaker 8: Absolutely? And by the way, that debt, as long as
Speaker 8: it's not a student loan, which it sounds like it's
Speaker 8: unpaid tuition, which is technically not a student loan, right,
Speaker 8: that debt is discharge well in bankruptcy, so that gives
Speaker 8: you more leverage to negotiate a settlement. It's much harder
Speaker 8: to sell student loan.
Speaker 5: Okay.
Speaker 4: Have you dealt with educational facilities before institutions and are
Speaker 4: they easy to deal with?
Speaker 8: I wouldn't say easy to deal with. We have dealt
Speaker 8: with them before. I'm confident that we could get some
Speaker 8: shavings that would fall into the further you get away
Speaker 8: from bank that the more variability in the outcome you
Speaker 8: might see, which is a double edged sword. Right, there's
Speaker 8: opportunity there. You might get a great settlement, but you
Speaker 8: know they could be a little stickier too.
Speaker 4: Okay, And do they take a look at the financial strength?
Speaker 4: Do they like, do they investigate who's doing the negotiating,
Speaker 4: not you as an attorney, but the person. Do they
Speaker 4: know anything about the person or do they ask information
Speaker 4: about them?
Speaker 8: They do sometimes ask information. I think they do sometimes
Speaker 8: know information. I'm not sure, especially if the dead is older.
Speaker 8: I'm not sure. Like all of the methods of skip
Speaker 8: tracing in ways that they can find out about what
Speaker 8: debtors have at home. But a lot of times we
Speaker 8: share information, especially when we think it's beneficial towards getting.
Speaker 4: Into a Yeah, like if it's a if it's a
Speaker 4: young person who's hardly working, and there's a prayer they're
Speaker 4: going to.
Speaker 5: Get paid, it seems to me they might be more
Speaker 5: apt to want to negotiate.
Speaker 8: Yeah. I think I always tell people that rather than
Speaker 8: fighting on the merits of the debt, focusing in on
Speaker 8: the debtors inability to pay, I think is the most
Speaker 8: compelling negotiating text. Okay, when you're trying to settle that,
Speaker 8: and it sounds like like, for example, I'm this particular
Speaker 8: you know person she was ill. I think is what
Speaker 8: you said was unable to go. I mean, all of
Speaker 8: that would definitely incorporate into the negotiation.
Speaker 5: Thank you.
Speaker 4: And Dimitri has a question, Deputy d go ahead, Thank you, Tom,
Speaker 4: mister wink.
Speaker 2: In the context of default of credit card accounts, as
Speaker 2: you know, those are pretty quickly sold off to junk
Speaker 2: debt buyers such as Midland Funding or LV and V
Speaker 2: another revolting bottom feeders like that, What are the odds
Speaker 2: of renegotiating whatever they're trying to collect on a pre
Speaker 2: litigation basis.
Speaker 5: Are they pretty open to that?
Speaker 2: And if so, roughly what percentage of the face value
Speaker 2: of the original debt do they accept for let's say
Speaker 2: a four or five years ago defaulted credit card.
Speaker 5: Talking about people who buy up the bad debt.
Speaker 2: Yeah, there are multi billion dollar companies that bottom feed
Speaker 2: in this industry, LV and VS Are they of them?
Speaker 5: Are they easy to deal with? Mike?
Speaker 8: Yeah, we deal with them all the time, and much
Speaker 8: like the bank, some are easier to deal with than others.
Speaker 8: But I tell people that collections is where deals get
Speaker 8: done a lot of you know, a lot of times
Speaker 8: the bank doesn't offer much and then it goes to
Speaker 8: collections and that's when you can get your best deals.
Speaker 8: And that's that are older three to five years. Those
Speaker 8: are right for film, right, they're right.
Speaker 13: For settlement or how much.
Speaker 8: I would say you're in that forty to fifty percent range.
Speaker 8: The risk is what's risk that goes out if they
Speaker 8: sue you, which is different than a like a debt buyer.
Speaker 8: But if they hire a local attorney, now they're going
Speaker 8: to suit you, and then the cost of the settlement
Speaker 8: goes up. So you know, I would say on average
Speaker 8: we're in the fifty percent range. Oftentimes we get it
Speaker 8: settled before a lawsuit. We're really doing better than fifty percent.
Speaker 8: But once the lawsuit hits, you're in the sixty to
Speaker 8: eighty percent range typically to settle the lawsuit.
Speaker 2: Mister Weak, I've I've learned that they buy this debt
Speaker 2: for literally two or three cents on the dollar.
Speaker 5: Is there any truth to that?
Speaker 8: You know, I don't know what they pay. I don't
Speaker 8: know what they pay, But like I said, I know
Speaker 8: the collections are a good time to negotiate, and even
Speaker 8: when the credit. When the bank says they're going to
Speaker 8: send it to collections, I think that's a good time
Speaker 8: to negotiate because they're about to pay loss. So you know, okay,
Speaker 8: let's more how low we can go before they do that?
Speaker 4: Yeah, because if they know they're going to sell to
Speaker 4: a collector for pennies, they might want to just do
Speaker 4: a better settlement with you guys, right, correct.
Speaker 8: And sometimes they hire a collector, so sometimes they're selling
Speaker 8: the debt and sometimes they're going out of pocket to
Speaker 8: have a collection agent work on the loan, both of
Speaker 8: which are good opportunities. And I think both of which
Speaker 8: if you can catch them where they pay that or
Speaker 8: they take that loss, again, it's a good time to try.
Speaker 4: Have you ever been able to avert enough debt and
Speaker 4: settle enough debt that someone who came to you with
Speaker 4: a bankruptcy ended up not having to do a bankruptcy?
Speaker 8: Absolutely? Now, I want to be clear that you know,
Speaker 8: if my view is if bankruptcy is your best bet,
Speaker 8: that's what you should do. Right, So I'm not okay now,
Speaker 8: And sometimes it's a close call, right. Bankruptcy can require
Speaker 8: people to be paid debt, sometimes a lot of debt
Speaker 8: and so it's those people who we end up encouraging
Speaker 8: to settle debt because it's cheaper. And you know, we've
Speaker 8: had people that'll, you know, old one hundred and fifty
Speaker 8: grand for people two hundred thousand dollars a debt. And
Speaker 8: the challenge then, though, is coming up with the cash
Speaker 8: to get the settlements in before the lawsuits lawsuits start coming?
Speaker 4: Do the do the creditors ever want to know where
Speaker 4: the lump sum is coming from?
Speaker 10: Yeah, they ask, and you know, so, I mean, I
Speaker 10: mean that and of them that are good, Like if
Speaker 10: it comes from a retirement account for example, that's a
Speaker 10: protected source that they're never going to get otherwise.
Speaker 8: Or hell, what if.
Speaker 4: It's coming from a friend. What if it's yeah, from
Speaker 4: from the family, Like do they look at that as
Speaker 4: a weakness maybe the family will pay more or do
Speaker 4: they look at that as we better take what we
Speaker 4: can get.
Speaker 8: It depends, you know, on the circumstance. It really depends.
Speaker 8: But I find, okay, the most but I find the
Speaker 8: most effective tactic is radio silence until four periods of
Speaker 8: time and then you come and negotiate and if there's
Speaker 8: not something good, back to radio silence for you know,
Speaker 8: three to four months and then you come come back at.
Speaker 4: Them all right, Thank you, Michael Wink. It's Wink Law
Speaker 4: Firm dot com. Seven to zero five to two three
Speaker 4: zero six two zero seven to zero five two three
Speaker 4: zero six to zero.
Speaker 5: We have more coming up.
Speaker 4: Go with a sure thing Denver's best roofer Excel Roofing
Speaker 4: dot com.
Speaker 5: You don't pay a cent until you're content.
Speaker 4: Time for an insurance check up free no obligation comparison
Speaker 4: call Compass Insurance paying too much your coverage at dozens
Speaker 4: of insurance companies find out now three oh three seven
Speaker 4: to seven to one.
Speaker 5: Help.
Speaker 4: You'll think you're his only customer when you choose Frank
Speaker 4: durand the real estate Man dot com to list your
Speaker 4: home with Remax Alliance three all three nine two zero
Speaker 4: sixteen twenty two. Hi Tom Martino, your troubleshooter three A
Speaker 4: three seven to one three talk seven one three eight
Speaker 4: two five five. So Deputy Dimitri has a follow up.
Speaker 4: So a woman calls up about her car and says
Speaker 4: she thinks she has a salvage title. She was never
Speaker 4: it was never disclosed to her, and she found that out.
Speaker 4: How how did she find out or what did she say,
Speaker 4: led to her discovery.
Speaker 2: Well, she ran a vehicle report on some service that
Speaker 2: none of us have ever heard called bumper Per. Yeah,
Speaker 2: and Bumper maintains that this is either a salvage or
Speaker 2: a branded title vehicle. So, as you know, we had
Speaker 2: Kevin Culkin from Shearon Argitech ran a Carfax and the Carfax,
Speaker 2: which is a very reputable company that we're all familiar with,
Speaker 2: doesn't have any indication of either salvage or branded title.
Speaker 5: So break that tie.
Speaker 2: I went to JFR and Associates, and as you know,
Speaker 2: we have a great contact over there named Rod Greer,
Speaker 2: and I wanted to get his advice on it. I
Speaker 2: sent them photographs of both front and back of the
Speaker 2: title and Rada JFR ran it through two of the
Speaker 2: services they use. He ran it through Carfax again in
Speaker 2: another service called auto check, and he told me that
Speaker 2: based on the results of those two checks, it's a
Speaker 2: clean title.
Speaker 5: There is no indication of branding. I guess you.
Speaker 4: Thought because co part was the one that sold it
Speaker 4: to her. Yeah, cot excuse me, Coparts sold it to
Speaker 4: the dealer.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and so she suspected that, well that must have
Speaker 2: been an insurance resh Yeah, which is you know, which
Speaker 2: is a reasonable assumption because co Parts sells insurance re recks. However,
Speaker 2: according to Copart's website, they also claimed that their premier
Speaker 2: auction site for what they call clean title cars. So
Speaker 2: that's not an indication automatic indication of a salvage vehicle,
Speaker 2: but these two serve is. The JFI Access said that,
Speaker 2: hey it's a clean title. Of course, that still leaves
Speaker 2: the possibility of that title having been washed.
Speaker 4: And remember when you called the dealer, they weren't very No,
Speaker 4: they were very unsophisticated.
Speaker 2: It's unsophisticated about how they handled it. They just didn't
Speaker 2: ever want to talk about it.
Speaker 4: But if they have nothing to sounded suspicious to me
Speaker 4: when you called them and they wouldn't even talk about it.
Speaker 5: Yeah, that's that. That's why I was suspicious.
Speaker 2: So my suspicion was based on the fact that they
Speaker 2: refuse to discuss this matter with me.
Speaker 4: Anyway, Kevin Caulkin inspected the car and verified the engine
Speaker 4: is bad.
Speaker 5: Shot done, it's shot. She's gonna need a new engine.
Speaker 5: She's going to need a new car.
Speaker 4: Okay, I'm Tom, Oh yeah, because it's not worth investing. Probably,
Speaker 4: So I'm Tom Martinez. We have more coming up on
Speaker 4: The Troubleshooter Show. Three O three seven to one three
Speaker 4: talk get your calls in three oh three seven one.
Speaker 5: Three eight two five five.
Speaker 4: Go with a sure thing Denver's best roofer Excel Roofing
Speaker 4: dot com.
Speaker 5: You don't pay a cent until you're content on top
Speaker 5: of it.
Speaker 4: Time for an insurance check up free, no obligation comparison
Speaker 4: call Compass Insurance paying too much your coverage at dozens
Speaker 4: of insurance companies find out now three all three seven
Speaker 4: seven one help. You'll think you're his only customer when
Speaker 4: you choose Frank durand the real estate Man dot com
Speaker 4: to list your home with Remax Alliance three all three
Speaker 4: nine two zero sixteen twenty two Ripped you need who
Speaker 4: you don't have?
Speaker 1: Run anxious as fast as we can show shooters gonna help.
Speaker 1: Come man, This is.
Speaker 3: The Troubleshooter Show.
Speaker 20: Now, Tom Martinez, Welcome to the Troubleshooter Show.
Speaker 16: Hello, this is Kuccina Colore, which I am not really
Speaker 16: my name, but some of you know me by that.
Speaker 16: So we're going to go ahead and do a quick
Speaker 16: check in with the deputies here. Let's talk to you,
Speaker 16: Deputy Dollar, what are you working on.
Speaker 21: Yeah, I've got a couple of cases, one with the
Speaker 21: Small Business Administration docking our callers social Security payments like
Speaker 21: two hundred bucks a month. So dealing with everything has
Speaker 21: been kind of Dealing with the government is always slow
Speaker 21: going at best.
Speaker 20: And what about you, mister Deputy Chopper, Well.
Speaker 25: Kelly, I'm only working on that call from up there
Speaker 25: in glen Wood. The guy that went up and worked
Speaker 25: on a trailer and did a lot of digging and
Speaker 25: other stuff. He's trying to get his money. One side
Speaker 25: is saying he didn't send an invoice. He's saying he
Speaker 25: talked to her and the price. So I'm just trying
Speaker 25: to settle them both down and hopefully get some money
Speaker 25: sent to the plumber, as we would say.
Speaker 16: And that was from earlier today, right, Yeah, we we
Speaker 16: tried to get to things as quick as we can.
Speaker 5: Absolutely not like the show.
Speaker 20: Right now, Well, we are here, so hang on for me.
Speaker 5: Hello, you're here, am I on the air? I hear you,
Speaker 5: I hear you. Okay, good, so we're back on. I
Speaker 5: don't know what the hell happened, guys, Sorry about that.
Speaker 4: So three oh three seven one three talk seven one
Speaker 4: three eight two five something went haywire with our remote.
Speaker 4: But is everybody up and running now? Dmitri you're there,
Speaker 4: just give me an indication from the board. If I'm
Speaker 4: on the air, just give me an indication yes or no.
Speaker 5: Thank you.
Speaker 4: Dan McKenzie's with us our guest ceoplans dot Co. I'm
Speaker 4: sorry for the technical difficulty we had. Thank you Kelly
Speaker 4: for trying to fill in there. Dan mackenzie, I'm having
Speaker 4: some questions since you're here about a state law. Let
Speaker 4: me go to my texts that have been piling up.
Speaker 4: Number One, people want to know can they do and
Speaker 4: we get this question all the time. If they do
Speaker 4: their own will, is it valid? Let's talk about the
Speaker 4: pitfalls of that. And first of all, what do they
Speaker 4: mean by their own will? Are they talking about the
Speaker 4: online kind? Do you think or do you think they're
Speaker 4: talking about.
Speaker 5: The kind that they just write.
Speaker 7: I mean it could be either. I assume their time
Speaker 7: out the online kind. But I always tell people like, look,
Speaker 7: you can take out a cocktail napkin and write your
Speaker 7: will on it.
Speaker 5: I mean it's if you can. It's so if you
Speaker 5: write a will, yeah it's valid.
Speaker 7: Yeah, I mean there's certain things that have to have
Speaker 7: you there.
Speaker 6: It has to be in your handwriting.
Speaker 7: So you have the cocktail napkin and you write in
Speaker 7: your handwrite in and you sign and date it like
Speaker 7: that is a will if it says like this is
Speaker 7: my will and I leave this stuff to these people
Speaker 7: like the cocktail gets that we've had post it notes
Speaker 7: submitted to court.
Speaker 5: You've had post it notes? Yeah, all right?
Speaker 4: Now what about the online wills? What do you think
Speaker 4: about those that do it yourself?
Speaker 7: I mean, they just have to be drafted in a
Speaker 7: way that just covers, you know, ninety percent, so you know,
Speaker 7: I can have no special.
Speaker 4: Provis like what are the mistakes that you somebody would
Speaker 4: make with an online will or with their own will.
Speaker 6: It's just so simple, you know.
Speaker 7: I never have clients who tell me like, there's no
Speaker 7: other concerns other than getting stuff outright to adults, and
Speaker 7: that's what those wills are generally drafted to do. We
Speaker 7: certainly have that circumstance come up. But people just don't know,
Speaker 7: they don't know what they don't know, and they don't
Speaker 7: know what their options are for leading stuff to people
Speaker 7: who maybe need some supervision or some protection or whatever else.
Speaker 7: They don't realize, like married couples, like, you know, you
Speaker 7: got to think through what happens if one of us
Speaker 7: dies before the other, because that's probably what's going to happen.
Speaker 7: And in a lot of cases people are doing their
Speaker 7: own wills are just figuring, well, the spouse is going
Speaker 7: to get it, it's gonna be out right, and they're
Speaker 7: just going to be able to have full opportunity.
Speaker 6: To change the plan. And in a blended family, they
Speaker 6: made a total disaster.
Speaker 4: All right, So bottom line is this, then if you
Speaker 4: do your own will, there's just so many mistakes, as
Speaker 4: the main mistake would be if you leave something out
Speaker 4: or if you don't cover all contingency, someone could challenge it.
Speaker 7: Right, Yeah, you got to realize you got to understand
Speaker 7: who could challenge us and why. And I mean if
Speaker 7: you get back to Dmitri's example of earlier in the
Speaker 7: in the show where he said, like, look, if you
Speaker 7: put desnated beneficiaries on stuff or yeah, any titles could you.
Speaker 4: Literally then for goal will, if everything you had was beneficiary.
Speaker 7: May you probably still have personal cree the you can't
Speaker 7: really beneficiary. But yes, we've had clients who we've had
Speaker 7: counseled through they're like I'm going to use the desney
Speaker 7: of beneficiaries to pretty much do all of this.
Speaker 4: So a beneficiary would be for each bank account, a
Speaker 4: beneficiary would be for insurance, a beneficiary would be for
Speaker 4: an annuity, a beneficiary would be for your iras even
Speaker 4: do you have are there are the beneficiary designations for
Speaker 4: iras and roths and all of those.
Speaker 6: Yeah, those pretty reliably.
Speaker 4: So if you did all of that, do you do
Speaker 4: it in the will as well, or do you do
Speaker 4: one or the others.
Speaker 7: You just need to understand that if you can say
Speaker 7: whatever you want in the will, but if you've designated
Speaker 7: with a beneficiary, it's not going to be controlled by
Speaker 7: the will that's in front of the will.
Speaker 5: So the beneficiaries you name come first.
Speaker 4: So if you had beneficiaries named and then went had
Speaker 4: a will done, you have to remember to go back
Speaker 4: to the beneficiary designations and remove them.
Speaker 6: You have to coordinate that.
Speaker 7: And some people want like they you know, the will
Speaker 7: will look like, hey, you disinherited your son, Well, no
Speaker 7: I didn't. He's the beneficiary on the life insurance policy,
Speaker 7: so he's not named of the will, right, So sometimes
Speaker 7: things like that can come up. But yeah, you need
Speaker 7: to make sure that you've coordinated that and up there.
Speaker 4: So beneficiary designations people actually come first before they hit
Speaker 4: your estate. So if you said in your will, I
Speaker 4: want my kid to have my cash, and your kid
Speaker 4: is not named as the beneficiary, but your wife is,
Speaker 4: and and let's say it's a second marriage or something,
Speaker 4: and she's a pod, she gets that money before it
Speaker 4: hits the estate, so your son never sees it.
Speaker 5: Could the son contest it?
Speaker 7: You can contest beneficiary designation, It's just like you can
Speaker 7: contest a will for like, uh, incapacity or undue influence.
Speaker 7: That's harder because those pass outside of a court process, right,
Speaker 7: so there's no case going on.
Speaker 4: So everything outside the will is considered first. If you
Speaker 4: made private agreements, yeah, if you have.
Speaker 7: A joint tendancy, that's one way to do it. If
Speaker 7: you have a Dosney beneficiary, it's another way to do it.
Speaker 7: A trust agreement we talked.
Speaker 4: About ls, so you could possibly have an estate with
Speaker 4: much of your stuff never hitting these state people.
Speaker 7: A huge percentage of wills do nothing. In married couples,
Speaker 7: a lot of times, you know, everything is either jointly
Speaker 7: titled or desneated beneficiaries between the two of them, and
Speaker 7: one person passes away and everything goes even if that
Speaker 7: person's will says they should go to my kids, all right.
Speaker 4: Three h three seven one three eight UO five five D.
Speaker 4: Welcome to the show. What's going on?
Speaker 5: D Hi?
Speaker 14: My name is and I am trying to get a
Speaker 14: proposals from contractors to do landscaping and a retaining wall.
Speaker 13: From the house.
Speaker 14: And I've got a proposal back from a landscape scape landscaper,
Speaker 14: and I always hear from you not to really give
Speaker 14: money up front, and what.
Speaker 4: He is don't give money upfront. Don't give money up
Speaker 4: front for nothing.
Speaker 14: Ever, That's what I'm understanding from listening to you in
Speaker 14: the past. He is asking for a total of eighty
Speaker 14: four hundred, and the day that they he would start,
Speaker 14: he would need three thousand and about halfway through another
Speaker 14: three thousand, and then when he is done the remaining
Speaker 14: two thousand and then I would keep four hundred to
Speaker 14: make sure everything is complete to our set.
Speaker 5: Have four hundred d D. Hold on a second.
Speaker 4: The initial the initial eighty four hundred, what is it for?
Speaker 14: It would be to remove sidewalk and let's see remove
Speaker 14: a six FYT for thirty five sidewalk.
Speaker 4: No, no, no, no, that is not that. No, no,
Speaker 4: that's that's not true. That's not true at all. The
Speaker 4: eighty four hundred initially is for what he didn't He
Speaker 4: didn't remove a sidewalk.
Speaker 5: Yet, what is the eighty.
Speaker 14: Four hundred four the complete job?
Speaker 4: No, that that's not either. D. Let me give you
Speaker 4: an example. If I said, D, I need eighty four
Speaker 4: hundred up front because I'm going to have these supplies
Speaker 4: delivered to your home, or I have to come up
Speaker 4: with a plan, and the architect is charging twenty four hundred,
Speaker 4: and then I have another sixty two hundred or six
Speaker 4: thousand dollars going here or there. I'm asking what is
Speaker 4: the eighty four hundred ear marked four?
Speaker 14: Well, that's a good question.
Speaker 5: It's nothing.
Speaker 4: This person wants eighty four hundred dollars for nothing. That's
Speaker 4: a red flag to me. Nothing. You don't give someone
Speaker 4: eighty four hundred dollars to show up and then he
Speaker 4: wants three grand when he gets there. Does that sound
Speaker 4: to you like a good way of doing business?
Speaker 14: No, it doesn't. And that's why I'm contacting you, because
Speaker 14: I've got I'm going to go ahead and respond, but
Speaker 14: I kind of wanted to make sure that I am
Speaker 14: correct because I listen to you and I do hear that.
Speaker 5: So now here's what you're gonna hear. D. Here's what happens.
Speaker 4: A lot of these people are going to tell you
Speaker 4: that to get your place in line, they want to
Speaker 4: make sure you're serious, so they want you to put
Speaker 4: up some money. Eighty four is a ridiculous amount.
Speaker 5: You hang on. I'm gonna go over what you should do.
Speaker 4: In this case. Plus, we have a question, ed, What
Speaker 4: is your question? D. I'll come right back to you. Ed,
Speaker 4: what's your question? We'll answer it after the break.
Speaker 5: Okay, what is your question?
Speaker 8: Ed?
Speaker 19: Oh yeah, my brother is going to a divorce and
Speaker 19: he put me on his will as his beneficiary.
Speaker 22: But he has three properties with his wife, all right.
Speaker 8: As soon to be ex wife.
Speaker 9: Would that take care of the properties? To media take
Speaker 9: it over the well?
Speaker 4: Now that's a very good question, because you gotta listen,
Speaker 4: the divorce decree is going to have a lot to
Speaker 4: say about it before he dies. So hang on, we'll
Speaker 4: come to that and more coming up on the Troubleshooter Show.
Speaker 4: Go with a Sure Thing Denver's Best Roofer Excel Roofing
Speaker 4: dot com. You don't pay a cent until you're content
Speaker 4: time for an insurance check up. No obligation. In comparison,
Speaker 4: call Compass Insurance paying too much your coverage at dozens
Speaker 4: of insurance companies find out Now three oh three seven
Speaker 4: seven one help. You'll think you're his only customer when
Speaker 4: you choose Frank Durand the real estate man dot com
Speaker 4: to list your home with Remax Alliance three oh three
Speaker 4: nine two zero sixteen twenty two. So I'm talking to
Speaker 4: D and D says she contacted a landscaper who wants
Speaker 4: eighty four hundred dollars up front.
Speaker 5: Here's what I talked to.
Speaker 4: When I talk to contractors and they want money upfront,
Speaker 4: I ask them why. And if they say it's for materials,
Speaker 4: I say I'll pay for materials when they're delivered. If
Speaker 4: they say it's for plans, I'll say, show me the
Speaker 4: plans and I will pay for them. If they say, well,
Speaker 4: I just want to make sure you don't cancel, then
Speaker 4: I'm going to say I don't want to. I want
Speaker 4: to make sure you're not going to cancel. So what
Speaker 4: says I give you eighty four hundred and you cancel
Speaker 4: and keep my money, or you get hit by a truck.
Speaker 5: I'm not paying for your signature.
Speaker 4: I'm not paying for you to promise to come to
Speaker 4: my house, and I'm not going to wait three weeks for.
Speaker 5: You to show up.
Speaker 4: When you show up, if you're hurting for money, I'll
Speaker 4: pay you for that day's work. I'll even pay you
Speaker 4: for a couple days in advance. What I won't give
Speaker 4: you is eighty four hundred dollars for nothing. So this
Speaker 4: guy wants eighty four hundred dollars for nothing, then what
Speaker 4: does he want?
Speaker 19: Hi?
Speaker 14: Tom with you.
Speaker 5: Hello, That's why I'm asking you the question day.
Speaker 4: So the eighty four hundred dollars upfront, what else is
Speaker 4: expected of you after the eighty four hundred?
Speaker 14: Let me clarify. He said the day that he starts,
Speaker 14: he will need three thousand dollars, and then when he's
Speaker 14: halfway through, he'll need another three thousand, and then when
Speaker 14: he is done, he would need the two thousand. So
Speaker 14: it's that is just to clarify that.
Speaker 4: Well, no, wait a second, So you're saying the eighty
Speaker 4: four hundred is the total job. Yes, okay, well that's
Speaker 4: a whole different story. So he doesn't want eighty four
Speaker 4: hundred upfront. He wants three thousand when he starts.
Speaker 14: Yes and halfway, I.
Speaker 5: Have no problem with that. Three I have no problem
Speaker 5: with that. Okay, none, no problem. You're paying as you go,
Speaker 5: your d You're paying as.
Speaker 6: You go, right, okay?
Speaker 14: Uh huh.
Speaker 17: Yes.
Speaker 4: So if he shows up and wants three grand, I mean,
Speaker 4: you know, there's a slight chance even then you give
Speaker 4: three grand and the guy then goes to another job
Speaker 4: the next day, and you know, and they rob Peter
Speaker 4: to pay Paul. But I don't mind paying when someone
Speaker 4: shows up an installment. I don't mind it at all.
Speaker 4: Are there materials included in that three grand? Or is
Speaker 4: it just labor?
Speaker 14: He hasn't set it. Sounds like that's for materials and labor.
Speaker 5: Good. I have no problem with it.
Speaker 14: Yeah, I hit the contract you sent me is a
Speaker 14: bit weak, I don't you know. Like I said, it's
Speaker 14: a bit weak. But I wanted to find out how
Speaker 14: you felt about the three thousands.
Speaker 4: How did you find Let me ask you a bigger
Speaker 4: Let me ask you a bigger question. How'd you find
Speaker 4: the contractor?
Speaker 14: You know it was through a mailer and I looked
Speaker 14: him up online?
Speaker 4: Wrong answer, wrong, answer. Sorry, wrong answer. You got a
Speaker 4: man and that's how you picked him. Did you do
Speaker 4: any did you do any checking on this guy?
Speaker 11: I did?
Speaker 14: I did?
Speaker 19: Wait?
Speaker 5: Wait, what kind of checking? D? What kind of checking
Speaker 5: did you do on them? I?
Speaker 14: What I did? I went online to see some reviews.
Speaker 14: I asked him when he came to the house to
Speaker 14: give me some you know, reviews and past work. I'm
Speaker 14: not totally sold, but D, I'm calling.
Speaker 4: So did he give you did he give you references
Speaker 4: from past jobs?
Speaker 2: No?
Speaker 5: Okay, So how did you exactly check him out?
Speaker 8: So?
Speaker 4: All I heard so far is that you read reviews online.
Speaker 11: That's all I've done.
Speaker 4: To be honest, I would want to talk to three clients,
Speaker 4: three of them, and I would want to talk to
Speaker 4: them in detail about the work that he did and
Speaker 4: if there were any problem. Go with a sure thing
Speaker 4: Denver's Best Roofer Excel roofing dot com.
Speaker 5: You don't pay a cent until you're content.
Speaker 4: Time for an insurance check up free, no obligation comparison
Speaker 4: call Compass Insurance paying too much your coverage at dozens
Speaker 4: of insurance companies find out now three all three seven
Speaker 4: to seven to one help. You'll think you're his only
Speaker 4: customer when you choose Frank durand the real estate man
Speaker 4: dot Com to list your home with Remax Alliance three
Speaker 4: all three nine two zero sixteen twenty two. Hi Tom Martino,
Speaker 4: you're a troubleshooter three all three seven to one three
Speaker 4: talks seven one three eight two five five. Hey, so listen,
Speaker 4: I had some technical difficulty earlier in the show, and
Speaker 4: I had the Knix's YouTube early and all that, and
Speaker 4: I apologize to everybody, And here's the deal. You know,
Speaker 4: once in a while that happens with broadband and networks
Speaker 4: and all of that crap. So I'm just gonna ask
Speaker 4: Dragon that he not report me to management, because uh,
Speaker 4: I think I'm on my last leg right now as
Speaker 4: it is.
Speaker 5: Can I have yours?
Speaker 4: Thank you, Dragon, because I know that you would never
Speaker 4: report Brownie if.
Speaker 5: He had a technical difficulty.
Speaker 4: But yeah, So anyway, Dragon's main gig is with Brownie.
Speaker 4: I say his main gig because it is, but he
Speaker 4: graces us for two hours of the show, and every
Speaker 4: once in a while we have our technical difficulties. Of course,
Speaker 4: I'm a prima donna who does the show from home
Speaker 4: in his home studio, so every once in a while.
Speaker 5: It happens.
Speaker 4: I have Dan mackenzie as my guest and by the way,
Speaker 4: he does a state planning wills and trusts.
Speaker 5: I want to talk.
Speaker 4: Somebody asks Tom tell us more about LLC's now, Dan,
Speaker 4: I don't want to steer people the wrong way, but
Speaker 4: LLC's for families, I think sometimes can take the place
Speaker 4: of a trust. Can you elaborate on that on LLC
Speaker 4: is an entity, it's a corporation.
Speaker 7: Really, it's more like a business with a number of
Speaker 7: people run it, whereas a trust has a trustee and
Speaker 7: the trustee is in charge of things, and that might
Speaker 7: not work for some situations. The most common situation that
Speaker 7: we use LLCs for in estate planning is actually like
Speaker 7: abusination properties. Actually, oh yeah, beyond businesses. So like let's
Speaker 7: say you've got a family vacation property. You've got you know,
Speaker 7: multiple people in the next generation. Okay, I want to
Speaker 7: use that, like rather than putting.
Speaker 5: One trustee in charge, okay.
Speaker 7: They're all kind of on a board of directors together.
Speaker 7: And then there's rules in there about how do we
Speaker 7: decide who gets to use it when? What if somebody
Speaker 7: wants to be bought out because they live in Florida
Speaker 7: and those properties in Brecknry.
Speaker 4: Okay, so someone said, how specific can you let me
Speaker 4: let me find it?
Speaker 5: I'm trying to remember it.
Speaker 4: How specific can you get with a trust as to
Speaker 4: what happens to the asset through the life of your heirs? Like,
Speaker 4: can you control the damn thing till the day? I mean,
Speaker 4: can you after you die maintain control of the stuff?
Speaker 6: Yeah? Yeah, that is often a purpose.
Speaker 7: You've got to be a little bit care I always
Speaker 7: tell people you got to decide do you want to
Speaker 7: be real vague or do you want to be real specific?
Speaker 6: And there's pros and cons to both.
Speaker 4: Now, if someone is very specific, like this home is
Speaker 4: to be kept in the family, and this is that
Speaker 4: and the other thing, and this artwork is to be
Speaker 4: hung here, I mean, can you get like that?
Speaker 7: Yeah, I don't know about the artwork exam no, no,
Speaker 7: but but yeah, certainly, yes you can. But it's like,
Speaker 7: you know, the problem with being real specific is you're
Speaker 7: gonna probably have some unintended consequences.
Speaker 5: Again, it's like, that's what I want to ask.
Speaker 4: Then can a trustee change the trust for the good.
Speaker 5: Of the errors?
Speaker 7: They can have a private agreement in a lot of
Speaker 7: circumstances where they can agree to change the terms.
Speaker 6: That no, the trusty cannot unilaterally change the terms.
Speaker 4: So you mean to tell me you have that much
Speaker 4: power after death when it is put into a trust,
Speaker 4: it is it is a contract.
Speaker 6: Pretty much, Yeah, because it was.
Speaker 5: So it's kind of like maintaining control after you die.
Speaker 7: Yeah, there are limits, of course, but what would be
Speaker 7: a limit. Well, for one is you can't violateublic policy.
Speaker 7: So you can't say, like you're only going to be
Speaker 7: able to use this house if you marry within the
Speaker 7: Christian faith.
Speaker 6: Okay, we're not.
Speaker 4: Doing Okay, you can't dictate that behavior. Can you say
Speaker 4: you don't get this unless you have a job.
Speaker 7: Yes, I mean again, there's actually a famous example of people,
Speaker 7: so somebody set up a trust where they said, we're
Speaker 7: going to match your W two in right, right, and thinking, well,
Speaker 7: we're motivating this person to work. Well, like as a
Speaker 7: business owner, you might not have a W two So
Speaker 7: the problem right, So that's where it's like, didn't really
Speaker 7: think through that.
Speaker 5: Now.
Speaker 4: Can you do a trust where you have some specific
Speaker 4: specifics in mind.
Speaker 5: But you leave it open for change.
Speaker 7: Yeah, I mean it has to be something that people
Speaker 7: can understood. Just like a contract, it has to be
Speaker 7: something that people can understand exactly what we're talking about here.
Speaker 6: So sometimes if.
Speaker 7: It's too a morphous, the trust he might have to
Speaker 7: go to court and get some direction on it because
Speaker 7: I don't really know what this means.
Speaker 4: Now, the one guy with a son and daughter want so, no,
Speaker 4: can you have co trustees?
Speaker 11: Yeah?
Speaker 7: I mean we usually recommend caution on that just because, Okay,
Speaker 7: at least at the very minimum, it's probably an administrative
Speaker 7: hassle because now they both have to participate.
Speaker 4: But you could have like maybe co trustees with a
Speaker 4: tiebreaker of somebody.
Speaker 6: Yeah, that's the thing. You need a tiebreaker or you know.
Speaker 7: I've had clients say, well, let's make them both trustees.
Speaker 7: That'll force them to get along.
Speaker 6: It does not. It does not. I mean they might
Speaker 6: still not get along. And now what do we do?
Speaker 4: Okay, now, in the event of trustees, do you have
Speaker 4: survivor do you have a contingency plan for if that
Speaker 4: trustee is incapacitated?
Speaker 5: Is how many levels do you go down?
Speaker 6: I mean I like to go a couple at least.
Speaker 4: So the trustee, a substitute for that trustee, and maybe
Speaker 4: even a substitute for that one.
Speaker 7: Yeah, and maybe some provisions saying Okay, if this position
Speaker 7: has ended up vacant, what are we going to? I
Speaker 7: mean I had one client whose brother passed away, and
Speaker 7: he had like six people named, and he he owned
Speaker 7: like twenty LC's all holding these different rental properties. And
Speaker 7: all six of those people are like, I'm not dealing
Speaker 7: with this.
Speaker 5: Seeah, they don't have to do. So if you have
Speaker 5: a trustee that doesn't want to do it, what happens?
Speaker 7: They just turn it down and eventually you get to
Speaker 7: a point where it's like, Okay, this thing does not
Speaker 7: have a trustee, want somebody else to trustee.
Speaker 4: Now, in my opinion, that would be the death knell
Speaker 4: of a trust.
Speaker 7: It's not where you want you. I mean, you're trying
Speaker 7: to stay out of court. That's why you do a trust.
Speaker 7: So if you end up in court, it's probably not great.
Speaker 4: And I don't believe public administrators, and you've heard me
Speaker 4: say this before.
Speaker 5: I think they're the worst scourge that ever happened. I do.
Speaker 4: I do dan because they the first thing I believe,
Speaker 4: Now look at I'm just giving my opinion. I believe
Speaker 4: the first thing they do is look at this a
Speaker 4: state and say what's in it for me? I mean,
Speaker 4: I don't know what your experience has been.
Speaker 5: In general.
Speaker 4: They've even made movies about it, and I know we've
Speaker 4: talked about it before. Do you don't you believe that's
Speaker 4: the worst thing that can happen to an estate?
Speaker 6: I mean they're pretty tightly supervised.
Speaker 5: But yes, there are supervised. Who supervises? Nobody actually says
Speaker 5: give us a quarterly report?
Speaker 1: Do they?
Speaker 6: I mean they We do have to report to the
Speaker 6: court annually.
Speaker 7: Well, it depends on which are we talking about, like
Speaker 7: a custodianship or are we talking Oh, we're talking about
Speaker 7: a trustee of a trustee of a trust for someone's
Speaker 7: passed away. So yeah, the state law is you have
Speaker 7: to report at least annually to the beneficiaries and then.
Speaker 4: The beneficiaries if they get upset, then the beneficiary.
Speaker 5: Can beneficiaries remove a trustee.
Speaker 7: They can ask the court to do it unless the
Speaker 7: trust document says provide them some mechanism to do it.
Speaker 4: Do you ever allow for beneficiaries who really write the
Speaker 4: trust for to be able to remove a trustee?
Speaker 7: Yes, but we when we do that, we always put
Speaker 7: tight constraints around who they can appoint, and that's for
Speaker 7: their protection if they can disappoint themselves any creditor coming
Speaker 7: after them as like you're really in charge of So is.
Speaker 5: It accurate to say a trustee or excuse me?
Speaker 4: A trust is an entity that survives you but still
Speaker 4: carries on your wishes and hopes.
Speaker 6: Yes, yep, sure, yeah.
Speaker 4: And then the trustee is there to see that it's
Speaker 4: carried out correct. And the beneficiaries are the benefits are
Speaker 4: the beneficiaries of what you have provided?
Speaker 7: Yeah, I mean I analogize it to a company. So
Speaker 7: the trustee is the CEO and the beneficiaries of the shareholders.
Speaker 5: All right, we got more coming up on the Troubleshooter Show.