The Truth About Probate Court - Episode 112
In today's episode, we are talking about something super important but often ignored—what happens to your stuff when you’re gone. I sat down with expert attorney Paul Deloughery to learn how families can avoid losing money in probate court. We talked about the differences between wills and trusts, how to make sure your kids get what you want them to have, and how to stop family fights before they start. Paul shared real stories about people who lost everything just because they didn’t plan ahead.
About our guest
Paul Deloughery is an Arizona probate and estate planning attorney. He helps ease the probate process and helps families honor their loved ones' wishes with clarity and confidence. With decades of experience in probate law, Paul understands the deep sense of responsibility his clients feel and the stress that can come with managing legal matters during a time of grief. Through his concierge-level approach, Paul provides families with clear, proactive guidance, simplifying each step so they can move forward knowing their loved one’s legacy is being handled with care.
Books by Paul Deloughery:
Probate Made Simple: How to Save Time, Ensure Family Harmony, and Reduce Stress
Lasting Wealth: A Revolutionary Method for Family Wealth Transfer
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TRANSCRIPT:
[00:00:00]
Naseema: What's up, my financially intentional people. I am honored to be joined by Delari. And we're going to talk about in general, my voice is messed up. So sorry. We're going to talk about probate all things probate because Paul is a probate expert, but we're going to talk about. Things we can avoid to go into probate.
We're going to talk about what happens when you're on probate and all of those great things. I'm super excited to have you here, Paul. And I think I'm just going to go ahead and started off with that controversial topic of do people even need a trust? Because that's what's being marketed to us to avoid going into probate, which is going to cost you tens of thousands, if not hundreds of thousands of dollars.
You have to have a trust. Do people really need trust fall? Welcome,
Paul Deloughery: Hi. Yeah. Thank you, Naseema.
Naseema: Yes.
Paul Deloughery: Listen, I guess it really depends.
Naseema: Mm-hmm.
Paul Deloughery: It depends on the situation. Let's do this, [00:01:00] let's do a couple of examples. Okay, let's do it that way. All right. Let's say you have one parent, maybe they're divorced, or maybe one of your parents has died, and you're the only child. in that case the parent could probably avoid a trust, and just have the house maybe put the house as, like in Arizona, we have a pay on death beneficiary, or in other states, you can have a, life estate and, give the remainder to the child.
You could maybe do something like that. That avoids the probate. You could have the bank accounts with pay on death beneficiaries to the child and that avoids probate. It's very simple, all of that stuff. If you have two Children, let's say that there's one parent and two Children.
Now it gets a little bit more complicated because it's harder to transfer the one property. To the two children, and I know a lot of people have this dream of creating a, a legacy that's going to last for 1000 years. And, the family and your great, great, great, great grandchildren will all live in this [00:02:00] beautiful house that you set up and, keep the same drapes and keep the same carpet and all that stuff for 1000 years.
But so realistically, just let it play out. Don't think about 1000. Just let play out a couple of years. And so the. parent dies. Now you have brother and sister who own a house together. And, so now what? Now they all have to decide. One of them wants to sell it and get the money. One of them wants to move into it or rent it out.
And I see this situation just all the time and the end. A lot of time how it plays out is, whoever is the bully, because there's usually a bully in the family and the bully gets their way and, the bully decides to rent it out and forces the other sibling to do that or the bully moves into it and just refuses to move out.
And I've had situations like that, that have just dragged on for years. That's actually a situation we're having You can do a trust or a will but, but literally specify, don't say that the [00:03:00] house goes to the two kids because, that can turn into kind of a nightmare.
But if you insist on something like that, maybe, think it through a little bit, maybe have it go to an LLC and have buyout provisions or something. Anyway, now we're getting complicated, but, but it avoids conflict. And so the thing that you want to avoid is not probate per se.
Cause in most states if it's uncontested, if it's a simple probate, it's not that big of a deal. Now there are some states like California, for example, where probate is always horrible,
Naseema: That's my state. Thank you very much.
Paul Deloughery: but, but in other states like Arizona here it's pretty simple. It lasts about six months, and most of that time you're just waiting.
Naseema: Yeah. For a hearing, right?
Paul Deloughery: yeah, or you don't even have to have a hearing. Just waiting for the credit or waiting period to expire and all that kind of stuff. But,
Naseema: okay.
Paul Deloughery: but I think what most people want to hear. Or what most people should hear is just like the real basics. And I [00:04:00] get calls all the time from people saying that, my parent just died and they left a will and everything goes to the.
Kids equally. And I say okay, let's see.
And, I say, okay, so imagine you're at an intersection and there's a, different roads going different directions. So this one road going this way is the Will Road. Okay. Yeah, that only governs things that are in your deceased parent's name alone.
If your mom's was Betty Lou, Betty Lou Smith and Betty Lou passed away the house is owned by Betty Lou and in that case, yes, if she had a will then the will is relevant. But same situation, there's Will, says everything goes to the kids equally.
But, now the house is in joint tenancy with the caretaker, for example, and we see things like that here in Arizona, and, probably everywhere. Unfortunately, people get older, [00:05:00] and then the caretaker, like the kids are spread around the country, and there's a caretaker or a neighbor or something like that, and they end up just getting It enmeshed in the older person's life and, pretty soon the older, the, and it happens naturally and it's murky but, the parent sees that, if not for this neighbor, this caretaker they're not going to have food, they're not going to be able to go to doctor's appointments.
And so they start feeling like obligated to, you Take care of the caretaker
Naseema: Mm.
Paul Deloughery: and so pretty soon one of them suggests that, to give the house to the caretaker. So the house is now in joint tendency with the caretaker and the sure. The will says everything goes to the kids, but that's not relevant.
Okay. Because now we're going down the joint tendency road and, the parent dies and it goes to the caretaker. So there's that and then. Oh, and then let's talk about the bank accounts and life insurance. Okay. That's a whole different [00:06:00] road. Again the will says everything goes to the kids, but the life insurance, let's say, okay, the caretaker got the house, but the pool boy.
ends up getting the life insurance. And that's just, that's just because of the beneficiary designation on the life insurance. That's a separate contract with a whole, with a whole different company. And the company doesn't care what the will says. They're going to do whatever the, whatever the paperwork says.
Yep.
Naseema: Oh,
Paul Deloughery: Yeah. You have to get everything going down the same road.
Naseema: So, that is the purpose of probate. If somebody is contesting any of those things, like we said, the brother or the sister that wants the house or is not in agreement, the caretaker or the pool boy,
like if the family is contesting that, is that the purpose of probate? Like how do things
end up in
Paul Deloughery: yeah, that can't, that can be a purpose for probate. Now, the simple thing, is in, Betty Lou's name. So yeah, that someone needs to file the will with the probate court to be able to have [00:07:00] permission to transfer the house to, whoever it says in the will.
So that's one purpose of probate. And. Also, if the kids want to contest who gets the life insurance or who gets the house, if it, if the the caretaker is joint tenancy on the house then you're going to court and it is in probate court. But you're making an allegation of undue influence or financial exploitation or something like that.
And it might be called different things in different states, but undue influence is universal. That's a term that's used in all states. But
Naseema: Yeah, do things like, just automatically end up in probate or it has to be filed by a contesting party.
Paul Deloughery: The second one, yeah, a lot of people are, a lot of people are confused about that too. So yeah, the,
Naseema: because you think,
if you don't have a wheel or trust it's automatically going to go into probate. That's
how it's kind of like, market it right? It's automatically going to go into probate and automatically to get access to those assets.
You're going to have to pay tens and hundreds of [00:08:00] thousands of dollars.
Paul Deloughery: Yeah. Listen, just yesterday I had a call with someone and I forget which one of the parents died in like 1999 and another parent died and 2014.
And, and, that like supposedly is a lot of money at stake and like rings and, there's a four carat diamond, which I can't even imagine who would even buy a four carat diamond, but supposedly a four carat diamond and so much time has gone by.
, it's really hard at that point. And I know that the child, so it was a child that called me and, years and years later now and said, wasn't I supposed to get something? Cause I have a copy of the will and all that kind of stuff like, ah, yeah. But to your point Yes, it's supposed to happen this one way, but, things go sideways and not everyone's honest.
Naseema: But isn't there a statute of limitation? that's 30 something,
Paul Deloughery: yeah, yeah,
Naseema: something years
Paul Deloughery: I mean, for the, yeah, for the ring, for [00:09:00] example if it's still around and if we can prove that the one person took it, I. There's maybe ways around the statute of limitations, like claiming fraud or, something like that.
Naseema: But what is the typical statute of limitations?
Is it, is it state by state?
Paul Deloughery: It's state by state and it's subject by subject.
Yeah, I, I, actually, I have a binder over here with
Naseema: Want to read through
that perhaps?
No.
Paul Deloughery: sure. Yeah. Yeah. No, there's a binder and so there's a section on real estate and if it's. Related to a contract, then it's this, but if it's related to fraud, then it's this, or, if you're claiming something else, it's this oh my gosh, and then there's a catch all it,
yeah,
Naseema: It sounds so entertaining. Tell us, how did you end up in this area of
probate?
Paul Deloughery: I thought it was going to be like L. A. Law, I, I, I thought, I thought, we just being Fancy [00:10:00] offices and, I don't know going up. Okay. I won't keep going with the LA law dramas, but
Naseema: But truly, like, how did you end up as a probate attorney? Like, how did that happen?
Paul Deloughery: Oh boy, so I was I was a musician back in my 20s and I was a little frustrated about not making as much money as I, you know thought I could and so You know, I just thought what should I do? I'll go to law school. And so I went to law school and I don't know, somehow I got, I don't know, so somehow I've, and I'm not sure if falling in love is the right way to phrase it but I, feel like I just get sucked back into this.
Like I can't imagine doing anything else.
so
for, for some kind of perverse reason, I don't know.
Naseema: You love helping families come to an amicable solution around personal property and things like that. And really [00:11:00] say,
Paul Deloughery: Right. Right. Yep.
Naseema: I love it. So let's talk about. Let's go on and talk about I know your specialty is blended families and, I have a blended family. I just want to know in estate planning, what are some things we can do to prevent disputes later on when we're looking at our assets.
Paul Deloughery: Yep. So let me talk about the. Common situation, and then, and then the possible solution. So the, so here's the common situation, blended family. Mom and dad got married. Think about the Brady Bunch, if you, if you remember that. Okay, so this is the Brady Bunch. Mom and dad got married. They both have Children, from before and they love each other.
Everyone loves each other. Okay, maybe it's not a typical, but anyway, just imagine. Okay. And so mom and dad have the or I should say husband and wife. They have bank accounts are joint and the Their home [00:12:00] is in joint tenancy and, everything is combined like that. Okay, so what could go wrong?
Here's the thing. So husband dies and then because everything's joint everything goes to the wife to the mom then Let's see. Let's say that In a typical situation, then, years go by and mom decides that she really likes her children a little bit more. She redoes the documents And everything goes to her kids.
So husband's kids get nothing. Okay. So that's one situation very common.
Another situation is the pool boy again. Mom's lonely and he's starting to look pretty good out there and and they have her, fast forward. They get in a relationship and, he wants to, or she wants to take care of him and all that kind of stuff.
And redoes, because she's familiar with doing things in joint tenancy. So why not have things in joint tenancy with the pool boy? And then she passes away, then everything goes to the pool [00:13:00] boy. And we see that,
you know, kids yeah, so all the kids get nothing, and very common and going to probate or fighting over it.
You can claim maybe undue influence or something, but if you catch it early, you can do it. But you can maybe unwind it, but it's tough. It's because all that all the conversations are in private and, secret. And usually that usually years have gone by before the kids even find out about all this stuff.
how are you going to prove that the. pool boy pressured mom to do it, , you would have to do that for example, to unwind the documents. So a solution can be to have a special. A trust not just any trust because having a trust is like saying you got to get a car, Not
all
cars are the same. Yeah. I,
Naseema: Mm hmm.
Paul Deloughery: some are safer than others
and it has to do with the little details. They can all look, pretty and shiny on the outside, but you have to look inside to see what it all does. So in this [00:14:00] case, ,here's the issue that people have.
Step back, go way back to, where mom and dad blended family the Brady Bunch and they heard about this. They listened to your podcast. And so they want to maybe go to an estate planning attorney. So the estate planning attorney then is going to explain so you have a choice when one of you passes away. You can have maximum, the surviving spouse can have maximum control and flexibility. Or, you can protect the kids, and you have to make a choice, and you can hedge your bets a common situation is to split it down the middle, and say 50, actually, I'm not sure how common this is, but one, one way to do it is split it down the middle.
Okay, so the deceased spouse's portion is locked in place and you can't, the surviving spouse cannot do anything about that. So that's going to go to, whoever it says it's going to go to. And then the surviving spouse gets to live off, their share. They can give it to, the Humane Society or give it [00:15:00] to their kids or do whatever they want to with it or the pool boy or whatever.
But at least that way, you've locked it in place. So that would be one way to do it. But frankly, most people, most attorneys don't think about that. and most people don't think about that. the very, ,most of the time, if you talk to someone who says, they're married and they have a trust, a joint trust together, probably it says that everything goes to the surviving spouse.
That's the, you haven't solved anything.
You've avoided probate, you could have avoided probate just by putting it in joint tendency.
Naseema: Mm hmm. Oh yeah, because when you put it in Joint Tennessee, then it's not contestable. They
Paul Deloughery: Well, it's, it's hard. Yeah, it's hard. Yeah so you, have to, goes right along the line of the name of your podcast. You have to be intentional about
it. You have to be, and make some hard choices and make, I guess talk about it and try to put some protections in place.
Naseema: In those situations what's the case for a trust versus just if it's just about the real estate the joint tenancy, because the joint [00:16:00] tenancy isn't going to cover, like, all the assets, right?
Paul Deloughery: Yeah, so one of the big differences is with people living longer now
and becoming incapacitated or getting dementia or something like that.
So if it's just in joint tenancy let's say, okay. Fine. Let's say mom and dad decide or husband, wife decide to put and by the way, they don't have to be married.
You can have, it could be boyfriend, girlfriend. You can
still put things in.
Yeah, yeah.
yeah. You can still have a joint trust or whatever. It, there might be some tax differences or whatever, but you can yeah. Put things in joint tenancy, like the house.
Let's talk about the house. Okay, so house is in joint tenancy it's husband and wife, and husband gets dementia. Okay, now the wife needs money maybe she, okay, husband gets dementia, he has to go to a care home, and wife doesn't want to live in this big expensive house anymore. And she wants to, I don't [00:17:00] know, she wants to, maybe move into a smaller place. Hopefully they've done a power of attorney, but if not, husband's incapacitated, he legally can't sign. Legal
documents at this point. So for them to sell the house, you can still have the husband sign something, but, the family can cry follow baby, say he's had dementia for five years.
How did that possibly happen? Then you start going to probate court again. So what, one of the big differences you're talking about having it at a trust versus not, that's a huge difference.
Naseema: if you had it in a
trust, then you wouldn't even have to go through all of
Okay. Okay. Okay. Got it. All right. I just it's so many things like it's, I know you have like stories on top of stories, but if you like to do the safest planning without trying to plan for all of the unknowns, what do you recommend people do like in general when it comes to securing their assets or passing their assets on to the next [00:18:00] generation?
Paul Deloughery: So it's still important to, I think, have a good complete estate plan. And so a complete estate plan, you have a will, no matter what, even if you have a trust, you're going to have a will, you're
going to have,
A trust is probably good, unless you have, minimal assets.
But for most people, it's still a good idea. And a general power of attorney and in different states, these could be called different things, but general power of attorney is more for financial things. And then there's a healthcare power of attorney for healthcare decisions. And then there's something called the living will.
And this gets really confusing. Like everyone, it makes everyone's head spin because you have a living will. And then you have a last will and testament. Then you have a living trust. What, who named these things? But so the living will is I just call it the plug, the pull the plug document.
That's what I, yeah. So you're in, you're unable to communicate you're in a [00:19:00] situation where you would die naturally, if not for being on life support. And please allow you to die naturally. And I used to. So I've been doing this for 25 years, and I, for a long time, I just thought, I almost disregarded that document.
It just seemed like overkill or whatever. But I've, I had a situation recently. I had a situation recently, and I'm not going to go into the details. I'm For fear that one of the family is going to, watch this, but it was where someone had a motorcycle accident and it was a horrible situation and he had verbally, I talked to some of the family members and said, if that ever happened to him, he just wanted to die. But another family member came who had priority and said, no, keep him alive, keep him alive, all this kind of stuff. And so the hospital kept him alive. And I was on a court hearing with this person. And, talking about [00:20:00] is there a need for a guardian, one of the other family members other than the person who said to keep him alive? Should someone else be in charge of making healthcare decisions? And I, thought he was on the point of tears cause he never wanted to be in that situation again.
So yeah, anyway
Naseema: that's interesting because I'm a labor and delivery nurse, and anytime somebody comes to the hospital, we ask them about advanced directives and all those kind of things,
people always ask about anytime we come, we do our own admissions. So we ask about directives and I'm 1 of the few nurses that I see knows the benefits of
directives has an advanced director myself and everybody is just automatically my husband and, women in childbirth are usually younger.
They still have parents that have strong influences over their life. And I'm just like, no, it's not automatic because what if your mom came here and told us that you said, to stay, that's keep yourself alive as much as [00:21:00] possible, as long for as long as possible, or she's advocating for that. But your husband is no, we're married.
We've had this conversation. And says that, no, if something happens, she wants to go ahead and go and pass. And people are always like, oh my God, I never thought about that.
And I'm just like, yeah, it's this is why we have to have those conversations. This
is why we ask about those documents
because we're in a hospital and things happen and even in labor and delivery where you think you're just going to have a baby and things.
Go find, we have bad outcomes all the time. So I'm glad you brought that up just as a reminder for everyone. That you don't have to be on your death bed to put these documents in place. These are something that you should have continuous and ongoing conversations about.
Paul Deloughery: Yeah. and Listen, I know it's hard because I mean, attorneys are expensive, it's thousands of dollars to get this stuff put in place, through an attorney. I, there's options like LegalZoom and I, never thought I'd mentioned something like that.
[00:22:00] but honestly, it's better than nothing,
Naseema: yeah, and these kind of documents also they have social work and social workers that in the
hospital that will
help you. Documentation and it's funny how I know this because I accidentally clicked a button off when I was admitting a patient that they wanted more information and it automatically generated a social work console for them to come and talk to that person.
They do
have resources like that, but,
I just wanted to highlight that to further emphasize the importance of having a will the trust, like all those documents in place. And I think it's something that people are too often put off. And I think that, we're talking about these things so that you understand just the importance of these documents getting them done as soon as possible because they are important.
But. The most important thing is it gives you the opportunity to be able to have those conversations with your friends with your loved ones, your
[00:23:00] relatives and all those kind of things. So you can flesh that stuff out while you're alive.
And it's crazy that people are so afraid of talking about death when everybody has
got it.
Paul Deloughery: yeah. and I think, people our age are more comfortable with it. Like it was when I meet with an older generation think about the World War II generation was very private and they would, let's write their documents and then. Keep it hidden away somewhere and then it would be like a big surprise for the family leader and that's really not the best idea.
Naseema: But where do you think that came from? Where is this like, where did that come from? people like
being so squirreling stuff away
and then what do you think has changed
recently?
Paul Deloughery: A couple of things. One is, like in older movies, there's this idea of the reading of the will, and honestly, that goes back to the Middle Ages. There was a time, hundreds of years ago, when most people couldn't read. And [00:24:00] so you had to go to the lawyer's office because he could read the will.
So that, yes, that's how that goes. That's what
Naseema: Wow.
Paul Deloughery: about. Yeah and then I think just in general older people like the World War II generation for sure, I think is is our or we're more private. And so they, they didn't want to talk about a lot of that stuff.
you're going back to the time when if you had a child out of wedlock, like it was very shameful. Like that's their mentality. And then, so now I think it's more natural to talk about things, but, it's you're doing anything other than.
I guess the kids probably expect who's going to be in charge? It's obviously the oldest
child, but yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. And then it'll go equally. But, maybe there's a reason not to do that and, so very common situation is. Not all kids are the same. Not all kids turn out the same.
And it is common to have a responsible one and an irresponsible one. [00:25:00] And and maybe to have the responsible one, fine, they can get their half up front, but the irresponsible one, they would maybe blow through it or use it on drugs or alcohol or something like that, so maybe, that goes into a trust for them.
But here, you're treating your kids differently, and then if you haven't even talked that through with them, it, it can cause resentment and conflict and all that kind of stuff. So it's, as a general rule, it's better to talk things through, it really is.
Naseema: Yeah. What have you seen, as a best case scenario in your experience?
Paul Deloughery: Okay
best case scenario let me explain it this way. How a family is organized or how a family operates is like society in general. Okay, so in society let's talk about the best case scenario for a society. in my opinion. I think the best case scenario in a society is where the [00:26:00] society aspires to something greater.
And so there's an aspirational goal. Then there are mores or ethics, for example we're, we're gonna treat each other with respect. We're gonna be honest with each other, things like that. Then you maybe have like documentation of, like the laws and all that.
Yeah, that is a bottom line, then you have the law. Okay. Okay. Now we have, ignored a lot of that top stuff in our society and now we're like fighting over, should we even have laws or what are the laws and all that kind of stuff. That's where we're at with this as a society right now.
And, that's led to a lot of dysfunction and all this kind of stuff. Now, in a family, to answer your question, the best scenario and there's actually research about this. The best thing in a family is if there's a shared history that everyone knows about in the family, something that they're proud of, and then also, and that might be, that how, grandpa worked really hard and, [00:27:00] grew up dirt poor and, work to, be able to, buy a house or buy this or, something like that to where everyone can be proud of it.
And Yeah. That's awesome. Also, a little bit of the opposite, like it can't just be that, grandpa had a, grandpa grew up poor and then he got, he, he made a lot of money. It has to be more than that. Like there, like you have to get into the, the nitty gritty of it. Okay he wasn't.
100 percent perfect person. He made these mistakes and did this and that that way it gets real for people for the family. but having shared stories like that's super important.
And then some kind of a way of just communicating and, and getting together at least somehow regularly, and even like in this day and age, that may just be around the holidays
or, for Fourth of July or something, but super important you got to do that.
And especially if all the kids are scattered around the country or something like that, or maybe they don't, maybe everyone doesn't get together. [00:28:00] Who cares? You got to suck it up and do it. You just have to. Super important, and then, okay. So you have the, I was talking about the society, so then in the family, you have this aspirational stuff of, okay, Grandpa was pretty cool.
He went through this good, good times and bad times. He wasn't perfect, but he still, got better during his lifetime. And, that's cool. We can all aspire to that. And then you have, some kind of common understanding about whatever that is, we're going to, Be honest with each other and whatever, whatever the common understanding is.
and then you have the foundation is like the legal documents. That's where you have the will and the trust and blah, blah, blah, and all that kind of, in case someone dies or whatever. But that way you have the whole thing, it is balanced. And that's the best situation.
Naseema: I love that. I love that. So you wrote a book called Probates Made Simple, right? And what can people learn from this book? Why should people purchase this book?
Paul Deloughery: Oh,
Naseema: yeah.
Paul Deloughery: You're in [00:29:00] California. So really the book is geared more for for Arizona. So the book Probate Made Simple and that's fine. And then so , you got me talking about like how families can work together and communicate, there's this book it's called Lasting Wealth it's on Amazon and it talks about my own personal story of, so this is maybe a story for a whole nother podcast, but basically I found out when I was 35 that my dad was actually my stepdad.
And, then my mom and I had a little conflict over that. Oh, and my stepdad had died when I was 16. And I had been grieving. And he was a great guy. Don't get me wrong. but, I was grieving over him. And then it turns out that My last name, Dilawri, actually was not what I was born with originally, and so there's a little conflict with, me and my mom over that.
And why did she keep that a secret, for my whole life and everything? [00:30:00] And then. A few years after, she just, she refused to talk to me about it
Naseema: she was of that secretive era. .
We don't talk about stuff
like that. Yeah.
Paul Deloughery: yeah, she thought maybe ignore it and it'll go away or something.
And then she finally
I'm laughing cause it's a longer story, but I'm gonna, just plow through this. She came from Minnesota to visit us one time in January of, what was it 2007. And in the morning my wife and I were ready to go to work and she was going to watch our kids.
And she said, she finally asked, what I knew about my father. And okay I had a file and like some emails we'd emailed back and forth because he and I had never actually talked. We just emailed and, after I found out about him and I but that was really awkward.
And so anyway, I gave her the, I gave her that file. And then when we came home later that night, she had She had taken some over the counter pain medicines, [00:31:00] and, yeah, so she, got doped up on pain meds, and she was so bad, I wanted to take her to the hospital. She didn't want to go.
And then she said, Paul, there's something important I need to tell you. And I said, oh, mom, let's just, just go to bed, sleep it off. I helped her to bed and she died. She died at that point. And as funny as it sounds, one of the last, one of the last things my mom told me is there's something important I need to tell you.
So there is
That
Then I finally ended up meeting my biological father a couple years after that. He died six weeks later. Then I found out he had a 28 million estate. Half of that went to estate taxes and then the other half, here I am, yeah, I'm an estate planning attorney, but I was completely unprepared.
I, like for me, it was, just money in an account and it seemed like a sick consolation prize after all [00:32:00] this kind of, after all this, like I wanted my loved ones to be around. I didn't want a bunch of,
Naseema: So you just inherited like $13 million and it was
Paul Deloughery: yeah,
Naseema: Oh,
Paul Deloughery: and I did the best I could to learn to invest it, but I didn't know what was missing here.
I'll bring this around. So for me, because it seems so far fetched that most people can't, most people can't even imagine. My mindset was that, I was a go to work everyday lawyer, and, I made okay money, but, I wasn't rich or anything, that's who I was.
That was my identity. So then having money in a bank account did not change my identity.
Yeah, so it didn't change my identity and yeah, I made bad investment choices and I ended up losing most of it. I lost most of it within a few years. Yeah. So with, with, because what happens is after you have a net worth of over a million dollars, you're an accredited investor and then, [00:33:00] then you qualify, qualify for.
You
know,
all these, yes, yes, completely unregulated, all
Naseema: Yes.
Paul Deloughery: So
Naseema: When you could have just put that thing in the S& P 500 and
could have been a
Paul Deloughery: oh, totally, totally, yeah, totally, totally. Yeah, but again, it actually goes to, to prove what I was saying before. and I've had a lot of time to think about this. If I had had, If someone had talked to me if my father, my logical father had talked to me about, what it meant, how hard it was for him to work for that money what he wished me to do, do with it or something, like if I had some foundation like that, I would have had kind of a roadmap and I think I would have had a lot better chance, but just you don't have to have a million dollars to help your kids or help your loved ones, like just talk to them about, I have a house and I have some money in the bank and I'd really love you to if I If when I pass away, I'd love it if you could use that [00:34:00] to, help my grandkids go to school, help my grandkids go to college, something like that, whatever then it has some meaning.
Otherwise, it's just money in a bank account.
Naseema: Yeah. So your book talks about that lasting wealth, talks about that journey of
Paul Deloughery: Yeah,
well, and Yeah.
what I go into is what I call the family code of honor.
Naseema: Mm hmm.
Paul Deloughery: Like a, the common understanding.
Naseema: okay, okay, but then you also have the probates made simple
book
Paul Deloughery: have probate made simple. Yeah. Anyway, here. Like I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm I'm selling all these things. Absolutely. Ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha. Ha, ha, ha, ha,
Naseema: No, I love it. I love it.
And so the probates made simple book. How is that different from the other book?
Paul Deloughery: This, this just talks about the probate process.
Naseema: Okay. But you said it's specifically to Arizona.
Paul Deloughery: Yeah,
it's more Arizona specific. But, I think it applies to most, most people. there's good information that, that probably applies to most people.
Naseema: Yeah, both books [00:35:00] seem pretty interesting. The story is just, first of all, that is an incredible story to tell but also a cautionary lesson we could all learn from. And that's why this podcast is this is about learning, but I think ultimately what I've really taken away from this conversation is the importance of really communicating what your wishes are
and why and having those conversations while you're able to have those conversations.
go figure. Communication is the key. I was just like, every time, every time something comes up, we could have had better communication. Anytime I have a, a, a neonatal incident, it was because of a communication issue. You know what I'm saying? Communication is key. And I'm glad that
you provided really sound examples of the importance of communication, but also to be able to have a roadmap to guide those conversations is impactful.
So it sounds like that's what's in that [00:36:00] book.
Paul Deloughery: Yeah. Yeah.
Naseema: And yeah, I really appreciate this conversation and, just if you want to leave someone with a parting word of advice from tried and true and tested probate attorney, what would those words be?
Paul Deloughery: If you have final wishes get it written down legally. Like
seriously, just go to an attorney and ask what that means. that's what, serious.
Naseema: do they have to go to an attorney? Can you do it? Through what are
Paul Deloughery: it, it, it's best because otherwise people get confused about, we're talking about the different roads and they think they have a will, but everything's in joint tenancy. So then it doesn't matter. So it's best.
Yeah.
Naseema: so get those things recorded. When is the best time to do that?
Paul Deloughery: Yeah. Sooner than better. Sooner than better. Yeah.
Naseema: Like now? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
Like now? If you have the mental capacity to do it, do it now? Yeah. Yeah. So
I, I, I have to give these people calls to action because they keep on [00:37:00] putting it off. And I need people to stop playing around. Okay? People work so hard. They work so hard to say, they want to leave a legacy for their kids.
They buy these houses, they invest and they do these things, but they don't tie up that loose end in the back end to make
sure that they actually get what they need
and get what
they've worked so hard for
that's why these conversations are so important. please,
please please put these things into place to make sure that you're able to pass down this wealth that you built these things that you worked really hard for and
then.
Do some education around it. 13Million dollars doesn't go down the drain,
Paul Deloughery: Or whatever it is
Naseema: or whatever.
It's a million dollars. Yeah, but thank you all
so much for the conversation. I really enjoy talking to
you.
Paul Deloughery: Thanks.
Naseema: You have so many stories so much lived experience and I know people who learn a lot.
So I really appreciate you.
Paul Deloughery: Great. Thanks for having me on.
Naseema: Of course, of course.
Hey there I’m Naseema
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