This episode delves into the intricate and often overlooked realm of estate planning, with a particular emphasis on its significance for equestrians. Attorney Andrea Sinner, guides us through the complexities surrounding this crucial topic, providing clarity on legal terms and simplifying the steps necessary to initiate the planning process. Andrea emphases that the act of organizing one's affairs is a demonstration of responsible love, both for family and animals alike. Listen in...

Equestrian B2B Guests and Links Episode 89:

• Hosts: Jennifer Wood and Jennifer Connor of EQ Businesswomen
• Sponsor: Saratoga Women In Business Spectacular
• Guest: Attorney Andrea Sinner - Stable Legacies
• Equestrian Businesswomen: Website | Facebook | Instagram
• Sponsor: Second annual EQBW Meet-Up with a party and a “Supporting Women In Business” Vendor Market at the 2025 Saratoga Women In Business Spectacular Horse Show.

Time Stamps:

00:09 - Introduction to Equestrian B2B Podcast

03:08 - Navigating Estate Planning: Starting the Conversation

30:54 - Understanding Estate Planning: Wills and Trusts

41:58 - The Importance of Estate Planning for Animal Owners

01:10:08 - The Importance of Estate Planning for Equestrians

You are listening to the Horse Radio.

Network, part of the Equine Network Family.

Hi, I'm Jennifer Wood.

And I'm Jennifer Connor from Equestrian Businesswomen.

And you're listening to Equestrian B2B, the podcast that brings together industry leaders, entrepreneurs and equestrians for conversations about how they build and sustain a successful business.

On today's show we speak with attorney Andrea Sinner about estate planning.

She helps us navigate this sensitive topic by defining the legal terms, simplifying the process, and easing our minds on how to get started.

Andrea Sinner is the author of the recently released book Newcomer to the Horse how to Do Right by Horses and Not Be Taken for a Ride.

She is an estate planning attorney who serves Floridians, primarily equestrians, through her law firm, Staple Legacies pllc.

Andrea also offers non legal equestrian advisory services through her bespoke consultancy Equine Consulier.

In partnership with the former dean, she teaches a class titled the Future of Legal Practice at the University of Miami School of Law.

Andrea began riding at age 30 while working as a senior partner at the global consulting firm Accenture, based near Wellington, Florida for over 20 years.

She now spends summers in Middleburg, Virginia with her horses and rescue terrier mix.

The Saratoga Women in Business Spectacular is the first ever horse show created by women, operated by women, benefiting women's health and showcasing business women throughout the equestrian industry and beyond.

Local and equestrian women owned businesses are welcome to participate in a vendor market and everyone is invited to attend the meetup and party free of charge.

Don't miss the opportunity to engage in a fun afternoon, support women in business, and watch fantastic competition at the Saratoga Women in Business Spectacular Show.

For more information for more information, visit www.saratogahorseshows.com.

Thank you so much for being here, Andrea.

Well, thank you both for having me.

I am super excited to be here and it's an important topic even though a lot of people don't want to talk about it.

I think is essential.

I know.

And actually the reason why I'm super interested about this is because I have just gone through the process and so I, you know, I probably have some questions that I want to ask.

I'm.

I'm done with it, but I want to make sure I did it right.

Fair enough.

But for, for those that are out there who haven't started the planning process at all.

Can you kind of walk us through where they should start and you know, what it.

What starting looks like?

Is that finding a lawyer?

Is that finding.

Putting your documents together, finances?

Where should we start?

Yeah, great question.

So I encourage a lot of people.

There's a lot of work you can do before you talk to the lawyer.

And I think it's important to get things organized.

So I, I look at this entire process as sort of an act of responsible love.

So you want to, you know, responsible behavior and yet also take care of.

Obviously I focus on animals, but also the people in your life and property and.

And then you've got your an.

And we'll talk about horses, I'm sure, throughout the course of this.

So I encourage people, even before they rock up, is to get everything basically inventoried.

And by that I mean all of these sort of obvious.

Which would be your real property, assets, but then everything in terms of your financials, anything you own.

One of the things that you'll do eventually is make sure you understand exactly how things are titled.

I wouldn't worry about that too much in the early days.

Just get the list right.

Like, even if you're old school, want to write it down on a piece of paper.

Putting that all down, I think is really important.

Important as part of that you want to think through, because this is the part that really stumps people is think through who are all the people in your life that you want to play a role in your estate planning process?

So people will think about beneficiaries.

That's sort of the easy part.

The harder part is thinking who might be there to be either a personal representative or a trustee for your state?

Who do you want to help make decisions for you if you're either incapacitated or can't make decisions in terms of medical.

And then thinking through all of those things in advance is just the brain time.

So one of the things I do with prospective clients is just share with them.

Here's all the things you should think about.

And it's kind of like good bedside reading.

So you can just think like, who are these people?

And for the, you know, and as we age, we're like, do I have younger people that will play these roles for me?

Because I want these people to be there.

So I encourage people to spend all that time organizing everything as best they can to whatever their ability is.

The lawyer will help you once you get them involved.

But just going through that and starting to.

To think because they're going to ask obvious questions, including, like, if you have children who are.

Who's going to be taking care of your children and is it the same person that will take care of the money that you leave on their behalf?

Think through those things to begin with, I think makes it a lot easier.

When you walk into the lawyer's office.

Is there like a list or something that people can find online anywhere to.

You know, I've done my own, so I just.

Over the years, I've just evolved mine so that you can absolutely go online, though.

I mean, there's tons of research out there.

I could, I could even post on my website, put the things that I do.

But it's kind of different for everybody.

Right.

And so what I find is people will do a search, find something, and then kind of keep going.

I'm a huge fan of Generative AI.

And so for those who can dig into that as well, it's a helpful tool.

In these kinds of early stages, they're dangerous if you follow them and they tell you what to do with all that data.

But in terms of inventorying data, that's a pretty good use of that tool.

I have a question for, you know, a lot of our listeners are small business owners.

How does that play into estate planning?

When, you know, if you're a sole proprietor, do you have to take that into account in your estate planning?

You do.

And whether.

So your businesses would be some of those entities you would want to inventory.

And that's one of the things that we run across.

And you know, we, we estate planners talk to each other.

Right.

Is we run across people who are small business owners who don't have their business side sort of tidied up.

Yeah.

So one of the things that this will do often is sort of instigate some good behavior of tidying up your business stuff.

And so it's making sure you have, whether your LLC or whoever it is, you know, understanding.

Do you have those documents, not just did you file them with the state, but do you have the appropriate operating agreement and everything that goes with it?

Have you separated things so that you have separate bank accounts for.

So one of the things that estate planners will do is they start asking questions and when you want to figure out where do these interests go?

So either, you know, it could be ownership in actual entities, it could be intellectual property rights, brand.

Right.

All of those things need to be thought about and you need to understand how they exist and are titled.

And oftentimes there will be a little bit of business law and Contract, et cetera, that needs to be done on the side to make sure you're tidied up.

But you really want to make sure you've got all of those things listed.

And then eventually you will need to go get paperwork to make sure that your memory of how you put these things in place actually matches what's still on file with the state and then also with partners.

And so then we get to beyond the sole proprietorship, you get to partners.

It's a really interesting question and I'm sure we'll get to this eventually.

But we look at when you have shared interest in actual horses, right?

How does that get handled?

So syndication or even just simple co ownership, how does that get handled when someone is incapacitated in terms of care and continuity of care and then also if they die, who gets it?

How does that work and where is that documented?

Who even knows, right?

So a lot of this is just getting things organized.

And my, my pet topics are around the horses and just making sure even, you know, I love it if you go talk to a lawyer in your state, that's great.

But even if you don't like, get things organized for the horses that are in your care so that they, we know that there's continuity of care at least if you know you have a bad fall, let alone future things, that's organized as well.

Actually, I have two questions spawning off of that.

Is that something when you're first making an LLC and a partnership you should think about, or can you go back and change it after you've already made your partnership agreements?

Like, are there things you can do after you've already made it?

You can always tidy it up, right?

So I like to think about it in advance.

But anyone listening to this call who's like, wow, I have no idea what I did three years ago or four years ago, right?

Just, just know that you can go back and look at it.

But the biggest thing is having the conversation with, especially if there's partners, you're like, what did we plan and what are we going to do?

And most operating agreements, if they exist, you know, in this world, this horsey world, are going to be pretty light because people get scared if it's a 50 page document.

And you do need to be very clear though, what happens to these ownership interests.

And you know, for example, and you'll have it typically, you know, whether you allow someone to sell their interest or not in a partnership, say, and you know, there'll be rules around that.

And then if they do sell it, does that then buyer need to sign on to the operating agreement and they should.

Right.

So you want to make sure that they understand they don't just have an ownership interest in a horse or a business.

They also have the care costs and everything that goes with it.

Right.

It's not like you get to have x percent of a horse and you don't have to pay anything.

And when it sells, you get that, but you have to make that clear.

And then also so by going to the level of being clear in the operating agreement with your partners, where those interests go, you can leave it moot.

As in leave it or just not say anything on it or be clear that in estate planning documents it should be clear who it goes to and that they must sign the agreement.

But going back later is always a good option.

Okay.

Yeah, I was, I was just.

Because something I wasn't even thinking about when I made my partnership agreement with a business that I own.

And then when I went through all this estate planning, what we ended up doing is I had a living trust and now I've kind of like have a document that says like that particular LLC will, my partnerships percentage will go to my living trust if something happens to me.

Okay.

It just.

Then it matters like, so who then who is the trustee?

Because the other thing is consider who you're putting in these roles.

And this is why it gets really complicated.

Like it seems like you could just chat GPT it or you know, I love the legal zoom and those guys but you know, you want to sit down and think about what does that mean and who then do I.

Is it the same person that I see in charge and the trustee of my revocable living trust in general?

Does that match?

Do I also want them to have any kind of management role in the.

Or the, you know, the business entity?

Right.

There's a difference between the ownership and the management.

And you want to.

Yes.

Real clear on that and make sure you don't upset the people left behind.

Right.

Who's this person rocking up to tell me what to do?

Right.

Many things.

Right.

Yeah, yeah.

There's a difference between somebody managing your assets and somebody managing your company who doesn't know anything about it.

Yep.

Saying.

Saying that you follow on from there the care roles for, you know, children, of course.

And that's, you know, that's not going to get missed.

But then also the horses.

Yeah.

There'll be people who are really good with the money and then there's other people who are going to be your caretakers for the horses.

And you want to make sure those.

Everyone's right.

What do you say to people who are nervous about the process?

I mean, obviously when you start thinking about all the things that go into us into this, it.

It feels daunting.

Yeah.

I think the.

There's two elements to it.

One is the administration, organization and all that piece of it.

And then there's the other, which is we're going to be talking about death and dying.

And then, you know, one of my jobs is a kind of scenario plan.

Like, what if these three people die?

You know, like.

Right.

You kind of.

And you ask permission for these conversations.

But they're both hard.

And so we all joke about.

My biggest competition is not my friend down the street who does estate planning.

It's doing nothing.

Right.

The biggest competition is people just not even calling, not coming in your door because they're scared and they don't want to talk about it.

So I think you have to just kind of sit with this is going to happen no matter what.

Right.

So to do some of the scenario planning of bad things that can happen, those probabilities don't change whether you have this conversation or not.

And so for the difficult thoughts about, you know, family and what happens if I'm not around that you really just, you really have to.

Whatever way you personally can get comfortable with it, whether it's talking with friends, talking with.

Whether it's a religious thing you want to do, just having that it's those facts don't change whether you do your planning or not.

All that changes is the state decides what happens to all those things if you don't do any work.

So, yeah, the do nothing for people is even though it's a hard process to think through all this stuff, it's going to get thought through by somebody else.

And do you want your state and those intestacy rules to do that or do you want to do it in advance?

And then the organization piece is.

It's a legitimate, very difficult one.

So I.

I've been an organized person my whole life.

I was engineering my undergrad.

So like, this stuff sort of seems easy to me.

And that's where you just lean on either a friend.

Right.

Or a family member who's good at this stuff.

You know, hopefully everybody's got one and have them help you do the list and have it be taken from paper to whatever.

And then you're scurrying around finding, you know, eventually documents to back all this stuff up.

And you want to make sure you bring all that with you.

So that, you know, I just find a friend there.

That piece of it, you know, kind.

Of reminds me of some of the things I've seen on social media, especially with probably my our age gen, like our generation and younger whose parents are passing away and just like leaving a house full of stuff and nobody wants the stuff and what do you do with it?

And like that's kind of how I feel about this is like you don't want to be left with all these things to do that you don't know what to do with.

And if you can spare your family and your friends those decisions and have it all taken care of beforehand, especially with things, you know, as important as, you know, your life savings and your children and your horses and your pets.

Like, why wouldn't you do that in order to make sure that everything's taken care of.

No, it's, it's, it's like, it's, it's a difficult one.

It seems, it seems sort of obvious.

Of course one would do this, but most people don't.

But the biggest advocates that are not attorneys for doing the right thing and getting things organized are people who've recently gone through a parent dying.

Yeah.

Or someone in their family where they've had to the house.

Yeah.

And it's, it's a tough process.

I, you know, I've got a position where I'm trying to do the cleaning now.

I don't have children.

I'm 57.

Right.

So I'm not worried about dying.

But you know, I've kind of shifted from my accumulation phase to my decumulation phase in part because who wants this stuff?

Right.

Right.

Nobody wants this.

And I don't want to have to.

You know, it's either that or whatever those guys are 1-800-got junk.

You know, you just bring up the dumpster and they take it all into that.

But no one else is going to go through it.

So.

And so getting things organized from a stuff perspective physically is I think a wonderful process because it's very cleansing and you feel better.

And the same thing applies to just having and however you like it.

Like some people like the binder, other people want all the high tech and just put it in the cloud and you know, you have to have your physical copy of the executed ones, but mostly all the other stuff they just want in the cloud.

But getting that, the getting those things tidy I feel is very encouraging and like comforting and freeing.

Yeah.

And some people are like, well, if I do all this, then am I going to die?

I'm Like, I actually feel the opposite.

Like, I feel as soon as I spend all that time, all that organization and some money to get it all buttoned up and tidy, I'm like, then I'm set for decades, Right.

I've avoided it.

But getting that stuff done, really, you do feel good.

And back to that, you know, responsible love.

I got to come up with a better phrase for that.

But, you know, then I feel really good about things are taken care of and I know what's going to happen.

And it's.

It's a caretaking role.

Yeah, I'm actually kind of in the position right now.

I had a family member pass away and I'm trying to help my aunt navigate through that.

And she's not organized and, you know, she's older, so trying to find the documents and get everything together.

And she does have children, but one of them is disabled and lives with her.

And so trying to get everything set up and make her realize, okay, now it's really important that we get everything together and organized so somebody knows where this stuff is.

But it's a painful process for her because she isn't an organized person.

And, you know, she's dealing with that.

My uncle had passed away, and then on top of it, now she's got to do all this.

All these things that I didn't even realize.

And I'm fortunate to have started my process way before this happened, so I had some idea of where I can guide her going forward, you know, and I was very fortunate that my in laws are kind of the one that prompted all of this, because they're in their mid-80s and they have everything to a T.

I mean, and they have showed us in the safe where the documents are and where everything is.

And they've had to rearrange, changed some stuff a couple of times, and they keep us up to date on it.

So I've been fortunate, but it is eye opening.

And I've like gone to my brother and said, hey, we need to make sure mom and dad, like, at least know where their title is to their vehicle, you know, like, I don't know if they even know, but, like, we need to start getting some of this stuff, like, know where it is anyway.

Well, the beautiful story that you shared so with your in laws.

Right.

Because part of what you're.

You've described is they're communicating with the family.

Yeah.

And that element of it is just huge.

I mean, one of the biggest ways that you can almost assuredly create family drama is a not be organized or B, make decisions that not everyone's going to like and then C, not tell anybody.

Or the worst case which does happen is basically telling different stories to different people to appease them in lifetime and then, you know, it opens up afterwards like, oh my God.

But what your in laws are doing is a, is a beautiful example of being responsible and wanting to, and then keeping things up to date and sharing it with people in the family.

Anyone who's kind of, that need to know is really important.

And so it's, you know, there's all these steps to this journey so you kind of got to get comfortable with doing it yourself.

You got all this work to do and then you got to bring everybody in.

And when it comes to some of these caretaking roles, you also need to make sure in advance people are, are on board.

Yeah, a lot of people will name someone and I always, you know, we all try to get three, like whatever roles you've got, you need a couple backups.

Right.

So name someone a couple backups.

All of those people need to be signed on to what you've written down.

Right.

And because they're big decisions, some people don't want to be your healthcare surrogate.

Right.

For whatever reason.

Yeah, they love you more than anything.

But that, that's one role they can't do.

You need to know that so you don't waste one of your spots.

And all of a sudden then you know, hospitals scrambling, trying to find someone that can help.

So yeah, they, my in laws are also at the point where my mother in law has realized nobody wants their crap.

So she has started getting rid of things and donating to different places and you know, and every time we go and she'll be like, here's, here's a bucket full of stuff and we're like, we don't want it like, like it's going in the garbage.

If it comes to our house, I live in an apartment.

My husband and I are in a two bedroom apartment, like, and his sister is in like a one and a half bedroom apartment with two older boys in New York City.

So like she doesn't want the crap either.

You know.

She sounds like a great case example of, you know, doing the right thing.

Yeah, it's definitely good.

This question I was thinking about, I don't know how to exactly ask it but like, are there some general legal guidelines that, that are out there that people will have to follow?

Is it state by state?

I think is kind of where I was going with it.

I wasn't.

Yeah, it's Very state by state.

And you don't need to spend too much time diving into the legalities because you will want to talk to a lawyer in whatever way you do that.

There are, you know, there are online tools, but they won't need to connect you at some point with you want to talk to a human lawyer.

But the biggest things I would highlight are making sure you get the actual execution right.

So in that, by that I just mean you want the signing and the witnessing and the notarizing and all those things tidied up and then the rules around, you know, paper copies, where those are kept and how you do backups, et cetera.

So the execution is where often people will stumble a little bit.

But in terms of all the documents, you know, again.

And I'll, I'll post it on my website, but there's some standard documents that you'll want to have.

And I think, you know, making sure that those documents, you think about a living will, which is, you know, my choices of what happens when something bad happens and I'm kind of not there anymore.

And then you have also the healthcare surrogate helping you out with certain things.

You want all those different documents.

But again, that's that simpleness we talked about in the early days is just make sure you got that all of those elements and kind of no matter what your age is and making a, you know, young people need these too.

Some of these, they may not need a will, but they do need a living.

Especially when we ride horses.

Yeah, that's the sort of the, the tough thing to talk about.

But these, you know, and I can talk to a personal example of just.

I was, I fell off one time and I was just knocked out.

I'm fine now.

Clearly back to, back to normal.

But.

But I was knocked out and I was in ICU for a couple days with a head injury.

And so there, you know, I happened to.

I don't remember it because I was.

I've got amnesia for a chunk of the day, but I was able to remember my brother's phone number, but I was riding at a new place and I.

They didn't have my reach information.

They didn't have thing.

As luck would have it, I could.

I was able to remember a number.

Who remembers numbers anymore?

Right.

It's just.

Right, right.

His is one digit off of mine.

So I'm not superhuman.

I just.

And so anyway, so you want to think about how do you get those things done and how to have the document.

But in our industry, it's really, it's important.

It's important to have that stuff.

So I send my.

I called it in case of emergencies, so you'll find these online as well.

You can get fancy about it.

You can just have a little piece of paper, which I do in my phone holder, and it just says, you know, here's the piece of paper.

Here's my.

Here's my key reach information.

Here's any medical things.

Here's my health care.

You know, here's my insurance.

I have.

Please call Sonia, because my dog's at home alone.

Like, just the basic stuff.

And you want to call in there.

But yeah, the.

The difficulty of the sport is like, so that's a.

A good outcome.

Like, I did nothing terrible.

Terrible.

But, you know, I was out of commission for two days.

And you got to figure out what's happening at home and what's happening with the horses.

Mm.

For sure.

I think it's good to not.

Now that you're talking about this, I'm like, ooh, I need to make something like that and have it in my car.

You know, it'd be really cool.

A QR code, like on your keychain.

That's what I've been doing lately with.

Oh, that's a good idea.

QR code in case of emergency.

QR code emergency.

And I.

I think there's two.

So I think there's one that first responders, literally, you're happy to have anybody see.

And then there's another one that can either just be the link you said everybody, or you do a QR code with as well.

You might as well.

You're doing QR codes.

And that would have like, your lawyer's name, your, you know, all your bank information.

If you have a financial person, like, all that stuff, and the names of all the people your call out list in case of emergency who are, you know, the healthcare surrogate.

I would put on that first one for emergency responders, but there's a whole bunch of other stuff that I would put.

So that's kind of for me.

I've got a.

A phone holder that's got an outside and an inside, and the inside is extra stuff.

Yeah.

It's so easy these days.

I mean, the tech.

There's really no reason to not have these.

And then I also do a little piece of paper.

It's like 2 inches by 1 inch.

That just sticks in there too.

Yeah.

Or anyone who's old school because you don't know.

Right.

Gonna pick up your phone, right?

Yeah.

No, I've had friends who've Been in catastrophic car accidents.

And either the phone is within the car, like, smashed a bit, or it's been.

It's flown out of the car.

Nobody can find their phone, so they can't, you know, find the emergency contacts on there or something, you know, but even just, like, different ways.

Yeah.

If you have it in a few different places, I feel like it ups your chances of being able to reach the right people in case of emergency.

And like you said, you know, riding at a barn, like, I feel like the barn also was slack in letting you get on a horse without having your emergency contact information.

Right.

But no.

And this, it's.

It's a big one.

Right.

So that checklist of the things I do now, you know, and that, you know, we'll take that mistake as a lesson learned.

But you want to have.

So we as horse owners, and me, I don't own a horse facility.

I have a responsibility not only to take care of myself.

Right.

So my.

In case of emergency, here's all the contacts and then my animals.

So making sure that I've got clear if I'm not available, who has decision rights?

Yeah.

I actually get a little tear.

My horse was fine, so it all worked out okay.

But if she had been hurt, who had decision rights for what needed.

Right.

Yeah.

Right.

Yep.

And so making sure I'm responsible.

And then, you know, I also make sure everyone's got credit cards with every nearby vet.

Right.

I mean, humans, they'll take care of.

You get taken to the hospital without any paper, you're okay.

Right.

Horses, you need to have all that done.

And then on the barn side, you should have all that for every person that's there.

Right.

So every person, every horse, if the horse is insured, we all know about that.

Right.

You want to make sure you've got that documented so calls are made so you don't take yourself out of the running for coverage.

So, yeah, that.

I keep using the phrase kind of like a little binder.

Just the pieces of paper.

And you want the redundancies like you were talking about, Jen, right?

Was.

You want to make sure.

Okay, I've got a piece of paper, I've got a QR code, and then I've emailed it to everybody.

Right.

If you do all of those things, something's gonna match to whatever circumstance happens.

Yeah, Yeah.

I actually feel like I gotta go do stuff.

Well, I was thinking about it about the phone just now, and.

And that's why I was thinking QR code, because, like, my phone is locked because it has to be for work.

Like they won't let my.

I have to have a lock on it, you know, So I don't even know if my husband knows how to get in my phone.

Actually, I think I wrote it.

I have a binder.

He calls it my death binder.

But it.

Yeah.

And I think in there I've written down what my passcode is for my phone.

But like it's not anywhere else.

He would not know what it is.

Yeah, he probably wouldn't even have a clue where to start.

So.

Yeah, I mean I, Yeah, I need to put something in my car and you know, tack trunk and all those things, all those places.

There's kind of list of like even I've got this little special holder that holds my, you know, my car registration and insurance car.

And it's so much easier.

It's in this little holder and it's like there and I button it up and just rather than fumbling, you know, I got an accident a year ago and you know, I was, I was probably in shock like, and I was okay.

But it, you know, to be able to hand things over.

It's the same goes with all this kind of stuff.

And it's, you know, there's a long list of all these things.

You just decide what you can get to over time and oftentimes it's something external that gives you either a little bit of a scare or a little bit of a.

And hopefully for people listening to this, they'll be like, woo, I could at least make sure my horse is taken care of.

Like all of us horsewomen.

Right.

We know we're going to take care of our horse.

Yeah.

Oh yeah.

At least make sure that's all figured out.

Make sure my cards are in and.

Yeah.

Decision rights I've been doing.

I used to travel a lot internationally and I've been doing decision rights for.

For my horses for over 20 years and leaving that documented behind because I don't want there ever to be a delay in people being able to do the right thing.

And there are times when legally it's a big enough thing that they'll be scared that they can't do it even though they believe it's the right thing.

So you really need to pick someone.

Yeah.

And you know, as we get more into talking about estate planning, maybe there's some terms that you would use.

What are some.

That you can simplify or explain for people such as irrevocable trust or living trust, things like that that you can break down for us.

Yeah, yeah.

Absolutely.

And so I'll start with just basically a will.

So if we start with the do nothing, right, Like I said before, the state sort of makes decisions.

It's not irrational decisions.

But one of the reasons to do a plan is if you don't like what the state rules say.

So before we get to any of those documents are.

So if you have a situation, I have one friend who, you know, because he had no children and his parents have passed, everything would go to his brothers.

That is the last thing he wants.

And so he's really incented to have a plan so that the state rules don't apply anyway.

Once you get into doing legal documents, then a will is a way to basically provide your instructions.

And wills are.

And probate go with that.

So you have a probate process by state.

It varies whether that's an arduous process, an expensive process.

It really depends on your state.

If that's just a simple great answer, I think always having something that shares what you want is better than nothing.

What people then will often talk about are the trusts.

So you brought up those terms.

So a revocable living trust is basically something that you create in your lifetime that allows you to manage all your stuff.

You basically document this and you have control.

And then if you're either incapacitated or if you pass away, you have a successor trustee.

So the reason the trust is used a lot, it sounds fancy.

Like I grew up.

I grew up in the 70s, right?

And the only people who had trust were fancy trust fund people.

And today it's just used by a lot more people because it allows.

It takes care of you during incapacity.

So I didn't need it in my two days that I was out of commission, but had I needed it, it would have triggered and my trustee would have been able to take everything over and keep everything going.

And so that's one of the reasons people use it.

And a will doesn't do anything for incapacity.

So a will only gets brought forward at your death.

So that's one of the big reasons.

So revocable, just so revocable trust you'll hear that just means you can change it anytime you want.

So I am the trustee of my trust and I can do anything I want.

I could change it every year.

I wouldn't bother to spend the time, but I could if I wanted to.

And then living basically just means.

You'll hear revocable living trust a lot.

Living just means you created it in your lifetime, and so that means it exists today.

And so we'll talk about this more.

When he talked about pet trust.

Those exist.

You can do those either as a living document.

The alternative to that is testamentary.

So it is conceivable.

And this word starts to get confusing.

So in your will to create a trust.

So.

Yeah.

So it only kicks in once you've died.

Exactly.

So basically that a.

So the difference between living and testamentary is once created and used while you're alive, the other one is enacted and by force of law becomes a thing after you die.

And then you have that revocable word versus irrevocable once you've passed.

It's irrevocable.

Right.

Because that's whatever happens locks down at your death.

But if you.

And you can create those during your lifetime.

And so if you're fancy with enough money where you're interested in tax strategies and how do you make sure all this money goes in a way that's best for my, my heirs, my beneficiaries?

You know, having an irrevocable trust can be a helpful tool.

But most people at a general level are doing these revocables and so those will then be used.

They become irrevocable at death and then from there they get managed.

The only thing I'll mention is it is people will come and say I want to trust because I want to protect all my assets.

Unless you use an irrevocable trust, which is a special thing.

And you must go talk to someone fancy a lawyer in your state about the topic.

But a trust in general doesn't do that for you.

It only does that upon being irrevocable.

But what it does do is, and this is where a lot of people with children who even maybe not adult or not married yet, one of the reasons you can help your beneficiaries of whatever kind is there are some asset protection opportunities once it becomes irrevocable.

So you can put some controls on how those assets are accessed.

And the reason that becomes interesting for folks is you've got a son and he's married to someone that you think is a loose cannon.

Not sure how long that thing is going to last.

And.

Or they might just piss it all away while they're together.

Who knows what the thing is.

Yeah.

And so you want to make sure that it's controlled and only your son gets it.

There are, there are ways to do that.

Now once he has access, if he chooses to give it all away to someone that is with his, within his rights.

But if you're really worried about that Then you have spendthrift trust where you say he's only going to get a certain amount, you know, per X period of time.

And there's ways to control that.

People will use it when they have minor children as well, because if they pass and the kid hasn't even gone to college yet, at what stage do you think you might want to have them have access to money?

And then how do you control it?

What kind of trustee rules are in place so that while they're at school, if there becomes a problem and there's a spending problem that's related to gambling, not related to school costs, how do you lock that down?

So there's some interesting things with that.

So that's back to the trust.

Beyond that, you'll have your living will again.

That's the document that says what you want to have happen and what level of medical intervention you want or don't want.

And you want to be really clear about that.

And then.

And that's distinct from a dnr.

Do not Resuscitate.

That's a DNR is a medical document that's handled separately.

And.

And then you'll have your healthcare surrogate.

So that's good.

And it's called different things in different states.

But that's basically the person who will make decisions.

If you're unconscious, those should be.

Everyone should have one of those.

Like even if you're just having a procedure where you're under general anesthesia for a couple hours and everyone knows it's going to be fine, you still want someone.

And anytime you're planning to go into one of those situations.

Absolutely.

Make sure everyone has all the documents.

Yeah.

Anyway.

And so those are a few of the ones.

I mean, we go further into that.

You can have an attachment that's like an addendum of your personal property memorandum and that's where a lot of people put extra stuff.

But everything typically if you're doing a will plan or a trust plan will fit within one of those.

And then that's where you document all your wishes.

Now I.

When I do, we'll talk.

I can talk about Petrus whenever, but when I do care instructions for pet trusts, I'll have some that's in the legal document.

And then I may have a whole separate document that's it's not going to be legally binding, but it's just kind of all of those things.

You want to just make sure that they know about Horse X.

Then you leave that sort of separate.

So that's a bit of an art.

Deciding what Goes in the legal document.

Right.

And then what really is unnecessary to be in that full document.

Okay, yeah, that was actually the next question.

Like what, what do equestrians need to do and need to know?

Yes, I'll start with something brought up.

Petrus.

I'll start with.

Yes, old horse owners, all of us.

And then I'll talk about business as well.

But for the, for the animals, any animal in your life.

So I'm picking on horses here, but they tend to cost more money to keep up.

There is every state has a law in the books about companion animal trusts.

So it used to be sort of impossible due to legal reasons or legal function reasons.

And now they basically, it's.

It exists everywhere where you can leave a trust for the benefit of an animal, an individual animal, you can leave it for several animals.

We call that a common trust or a pot trust, where it all serves a group.

And then.

And it can also, you can chunk up those groups however you like.

So it could be that you have a horse trust and a dog trust, for example, and typically you'll say, and any horses or dogs that I own at that time.

So you can include animals you don't own yet.

Right.

So you're setting up this structure.

You'll name who's there or, you know, have the general list and then provide that provision for more.

That variability is the hard part.

Right.

So there's this art of how, how detailed do you want to be and how precise do you want to be when, you know, this needs to be, you know, maintained over years?

Because we all know that we have different animals over time.

And so that feeds into then the funding question as well.

Anyway, so there's this legal instrument, just like a revocable living trust.

It's the same thing.

It's just that all of our states have decided rightly, because they're smart in this case, that animals should be able to be beneficiaries as well.

Before that, it was only humans that could be beneficiaries.

They are still property.

There's no change in their legal rights other than this one sort of niche word.

They can be the beneficiary.

It still requires that you have a, obviously a human trustee, a human caretaker, and then they have this thing called a trust director, which is kind of an extra layer of checking and that's an extra role that's optional.

Most places there's a couple.

There's at least one state that requires that independent person to kind of check in on things.

So you set up this trust and it's just as you would if you wanted to leave a trust for a human.

But you have a chunk of money and you have your instructions.

And it's a way to not just leave, like say you have a dog.

A lot of people will just handle the one dog goes to the neighbor or goes to the brother or goes to the whatever, and they leave them a little bit of money and that is fine.

Right?

So in this.

The fact that we have this legal instrument is not a reason to use it in every case.

So in a lot of cases, it's just fine.

The normal sort of pet trust didn't exist for a long time and we survived.

Right?

But what I would say is that a lot of people haven't gotten things organized for their animals.

And so the people I work with, they've got a stat that's been checked from a couple places that about half a million animals die every year due to lack of planning.

It doesn't mean they required a pet trust, but it means they required something.

Because when someone gets incapacitated, goes into a home or dies and there's no plan, they'll end up in the pipeline.

All right?

So, but for the horses, I think in particular, where there's more money required, obviously they live a long time and there are varying degrees of our equine addiction in each family.

Right.

So if you, you know, say I'm the only horse person in my family and I have horse friendly people, which is great.

And so I might put some of the miss caretakers, but I'm not sure I want them to be in charge of all the money.

Or you have other families where the horse advocate or the horse person has family members that don't see why they do that at all.

And so that person's worried about what happens to these creatures.

They don't want to just hand over ownership because the law doesn't look at it much differently than basic personal property.

And so you want to make sure those instructions are there.

So it's a great option to have.

There are a friend of mine who's also an estate planning attorney, has an organization that's a nonprofit, and they have a kind of a group trust organization that they've set up so that it's not so overwhelming.

And so you can just.

They're called act.

I'll send you guys the link for that so you can post it.

But ACT usa, and they have a community trust for animals, and they'll make sure and they'll do the annual checks and they'll find either forever Homes or forever sanctuaries.

And so they're taking some of this complexity out of it.

So in terms of horse ownership, I think this is one of the most important things is making sure that the animals are taken care of if you're not around.

I believe that responsibility happens from the moment you are responsible for the horse.

Right.

So whether that's, you know, 10 minutes later, all of a sudden you have a lawn ornament on your hands.

That wasn't the plan.

Your job is still to take care of them for their natural life and do the right thing.

And that includes whether you're around or not.

And so I think horse owners need to think through that.

For the business owners, it's making sure all the same things we talked about early on in terms of your business being tidy, but there you look at also this, the continuity, planning on steroids.

So we already talked about this a little bit.

It's just making sure it's very clear that there's.

We understand who's doing what in any cases.

And then ownership doesn't ever risk.

I mean, to me, this is risk mitigation.

Everything a horse, especially a horse caretaking organization, whether it's, you know, your boarding training, however it is, your whole job is to think about risk.

It's thinking about natural disasters, it's thinking about fires.

It's thinking about people not showing up when they're supposed to just for easy reasons, or.

Or people not showing up because something bad happened.

All of those scenarios need to be part of your business planning and understanding exactly what happens.

You know, the fire one is a huge one.

Right.

People don't.

If you don't get that right.

It's a terrible situation.

We've all seen enough of it.

And so for the estate planning, it's thinking through all those scenarios as well in terms of what's happening.

And I think a lot of.

Even if we just take out the incapacity and dying, I think for business people, as equestrian business people as well, it's just succession planning.

Yeah.

What if you just don't want to do this forever?

Right, Right.

You don't get to just quit.

Right.

You know, and people do.

And then people, you know, it's some.

It's almost like.

Seems to work out organically.

Sometimes it's a crisis and people are good at that.

But a little bit of planning goes a really long way to make sure that these facilities, you know, that are taking care and for these creatures are able to just kind of keep on trucking no matter what comes their Way.

So hopefully that's mildly helpful.

Is there a difference between, say, if you own like a boarding and training business, a difference between if you own the horse personally or if you own the horse under your business name?

I think, I mean, in terms of the care and everything we just talked about, not really.

Okay.

But in terms of the estate planning.

Yes.

Risk mitigation.

But in terms of the estate planning, you just.

It goes with the entity.

Right.

So it goes with.

Yeah.

Now the entity, it had to flow up to a human.

Right.

So it's not because it's an asset of the business.

Right.

They plan ready.

It all goes to the person.

But it can get complicated depending on then the ownership structure above that.

Yeah.

Because it would get.

It would get distributed as an asset of the business.

Right.

If you were to pass away.

Yeah.

Okay.

Yeah.

It's a tough one.

Right.

So thinking about.

Because a lot of people will have separate entities for their sales business and they're.

And those are good separation practices in terms of making sure your businesses are separated.

And that separates some liability.

Most people don't do a very good job of making it, of keeping it clean.

I mean, you get to keep your separated liability if you keep your business tidy.

Right.

But in terms of the planning and thinking about, you know, we haven't even talked much about insurance, but insurance is one of the key things through all of this is making sure businesses have the right insurance and the right entities have the right insurance.

As in you think you have the coverage.

There's, you know, there's plenty of examples where someone had.

Was individually covered and it didn't cover the business thing that happened.

And so with horses, you know, owned by different, you need to be very careful of that and making sure that the coverage will flow and protect whatever you need it.

It's one of the things to think about.

Back on this pet trust concept, a lot of people will say, well, I don't have the money to leave X.

Whatever X is.

X could be big or could be small.

But assuming it's big because it's horses, they don't have X.

You know, there are ways you can think about, do I have an insurance policy that would fund a pet trust so that I can do the right thing by these creatures?

Even if today the thought of taking care of these five horses, I'll just pick a number.

You've got five horses and they all could live to be, you know, God knows what, how they'll all live forever.

Right.

So you got this a lot of years, a lot of Costs.

So sometimes having insurance is the way to mitigate.

The last thing you want to do is have a fancy plan, give away all your money, fund the pet trust last, and there'd be no money left, left, right.

Part of doing a plan with, you know, someone qualified to help you think through all the organizational stuff is as you outline the plan.

What happens if, say, you plan, you assume you're gonna have a hundred thousand dollars when you die.

What if you only have 10, what happens then?

If you've given, you know, 30 grand to this person, 30 grand to this person, and then there's 40 for the horses, what if there's only 10 left?

Like what happens, right?

And depending on the sequence and all those things, I'm using small numbers to not scare people.

It would take more than that for the five horses.

But you'd want to think about how do you do that in a way that everyone's taken care of.

And so a way to mitigate from a financial perspective is just having the.

Is there any advice you can give to people who are concerned about the cost of estate planning?

It's a difficult one because the business case for estate planning is after you die.

So.

And it.

So that's the only thing I can say, just to be blunt about it, is that's not a great sell, right?

But it's true, right?

It is very true that in terms of, you know, I'll, I'm going to make the assumption it is not accurate.

I'll make the statement that assumedly people who are above the estate tax numbers, like you say, you got 10 million on up, you have a plan.

Now there are plenty of people with that much money that do not have a plan and they should get themselves down to a qualified person and take care of it.

So if we take the sort of, the tax planning out of it and the folks who need proper help to think about all that, basically what you do now, the money you spend now is like a gift to your beneficiaries and your family.

It's just like cleaning out your garage and is, you know, also a gift so that they don't have to take care of your stuff.

So what I would say is there's a business case for doing it if you do it well and if you have a well documented either will or trust, it's going to save money later.

I will also say there's lots of options for how to do it.

I am not delusional to think that people all, not everybody listening to this is going to want to go Hire a lawyer and do this process.

Please do something.

There are better tools.

There's more available online.

I think having an attorney to talk through, let alone do all the legalities is really one of the best parts.

I mean, I hire my own estate planning attorney just to keep me independent and objective when I'm looking at my stuff.

I do the same thing with my legal work for my horses.

Sometimes it's complicated and my own emotions are high and I need help.

And so when you kind of want to risk mitigate on something, you need some help anyway.

So do something would be my first advice.

There are ways.

There are tools out there and there are more and more, whether it be.

I don't want to keep naming names, but yeah, there are.

There are tools that do wills.

Just be careful, you know what you're getting.

And I think you can find lawyers that will work with you.

The cost range is too massive to name.

It depends on you.

If you're married, you have kids, what's your property?

Is it all in one state?

Is it multiple state, Is it international?

Like, is it blended families?

Like that's always a big trigger too.

Like it's just trigger for.

It's going to cost you more.

That's what I mean.

And so you want to.

Things are all that.

But it's well worth it for that tiny feeling, you know, What I tend to do with my clients is then keep them.

So that the thing that's sort of stressful for folks is I'm going to spend this chunk of money and what if I don't get it right?

Well, then I.

I just basically do.

And you know, every year you can come back and do X number of changes.

Like just please just keep it up to date.

Like it's just a better way to do it than forget about it.

And.

And when you rock up for your estate plan, you bring everything with you.

And that includes if you have an existing one, somewhat.

A friend of mine, I was at the Equine Law conference, as we know.

I met a good friend there and I was talking to another estate planning friend and she beat me on this.

She had someone walk in with a.

Obviously these people are older, but.

And he's like, that's not a good plan either.

Like that actually could create more trauma and drama because of whatever their assumptions were that long ago.

Okay, I'm going to cut you off real quick here because I want to tell you, my aunt's will.

It was before any one of my cousins was born.

Like, everything was left to my mother and, and their.

The brother, my cousin, wasn't even a thought in their mind.

And I know this because I had to make copies of it for her.

And I'm like.

The pages are like almost disintegrating as I'm trying to put it in the copier.

Just a will, too.

Nothing else.

Just a will.

Yeah.

Yeah.

It did the trick, though.

It actually did the trick for some pension that my uncle had for left to her.

So that's great.

Yeah.

So the, you know, the.

It's.

It's worth the money.

Just think about.

And if it's horses that inspire you to come in, one of the things that I'm standing firm is my opinion that there's going to be more people walking in wanting to get their plan and their affairs and order because they're worried about their horses, then that that might get you in the door faster.

Right.

And if that does, that's great.

And then, you know, work with an attorney who's willing to find something that matches your.

Your price point and your level of dialogue.

I prefer to be in a model where call me anytime, like, let's talk a hundred times.

I don't want to be counting minutes.

You don't want to be counting minutes.

And I don't want anyone holding back.

Right.

It's worth talking this stuff through and then keep it up to date.

And that's the other thing.

If you just kind of keep it up to date, then it's not terribly expensive to do so.

But unfortunately, the business case for this one is after you pass pretty much, unless you add in peace of mind.

I think peace of mind is a big one.

Definitely.

Yeah.

Yeah, peace of mind.

That's why I'm trying to get it all, because I'm on the other side of it, trying to run around finding all the things, and I don't want to leave that for somebody else to do.

I'm an organized person.

I love organization.

And so getting it together makes me feel so much better that somebody can walk in and they're going to know X, Y, Z, do this, this is here, this is there.

Yeah.

And the other thing, just mentioned it only briefly, but the tech is better and better.

Like I'm, you know, one of my jobs.

I'm a bit of a, you know, a geek.

I did consulting, technology consulting for 24 years.

And so.

But what we have in terms of where you can document things, where it gets stored, how you can update it, how you can use AI to make sure.

I mean that just keep your eye on the tech or and talk to your lawyer and make sure they have any idea about it because some of them don't want to.

And it's not going to take long.

I teach a class on the future of legal practice and people who are ignoring it are.

Are making a mistake.

It's not that something we're going to get.

Not going to be any lawyers, but the lawyers who use AI are going to beat out the lawyers who don't.

Is it just you can't get paid for the old kinds of tasks that are easy to do now, you know, with the tech.

Well, at the end of each episode we ask each guest the same four questions.

Well now we've only had it for a few episodes, but we changed them up recently.

I noticed that Connor starts with the first.

What is your unfair advantage over others?

It's my analytical and organizational skills.

That sounds very mundane, but I will tell you I made an entire career out of it and it.

It's my superpower.

Awesome.

What's something worth fighting for and what is something worth giving up fighting for.

Is for me I'm sorry for the high level which is doing the right thing or integrity no matter what.

And for me.

And you can always tell when the emotion comes in.

For me it's the horses with the light in their eyes.

And so if I think about everything I'm trying to do, I have my own horses.

But I also trying to help a bit in the horse world which is just walking around showgrounds and seeing horses with light in their eyes as opposed to not.

Because we've seen both, we've all seen both and I think we can do better.

So that's what I'm fighting for.

Yeah.

And what's something worth giving up?

And something worth giving up is any story because life is just a story.

Right.

We all craft the stories of our lives and we tell ourselves stories.

Any story that doesn't serve me.

So anything that doesn't create, you know, help me be constructive, help me move forward.

And I'm all about lessons learned.

Probably too much.

So it's not like I don't look backwards, but I've decided that I'm 57.

It's like these stories of things are just not worth carrying around.

So I just give those up.

What's been your favorite age so far?

I would say 57.

I don't have like I have so many amazing.

It's like asking, what's your favorite place you live?

Like, I lived in over a dozen places.

Every year gets better, you know, more.

And it's not to say I wouldn't take a few elements of being younger back if I could.

And the skin is but 57 today, being able to do this and talk about, you know, horses and state plan.

I'm integrating my life here and I just, I love it.

And who would you recommend as a guest for this podcast?

So you already had Denise on here.

Denise Alvarez.

That was going to be.

But I went hunting.

So Weatherly stroke would be my suggestion.

Okay.

Weatherly is an artist and businesswoman and an amazing person.

She's doing these retreats at the moment.

They just got back from one, but.

And she's very horsey.

Yeah.

Of good soul.

Yeah.

She.

She was part of our Wellington.

Was she at the brunch?

Yeah.

Right.

Before we hop off here, I just wanted you to be able to give a little bit of a plug for your new book.

Yeah, yeah.

So it relates to what I was just saying.

So the book is.

Hopefully people will find it.

It's, you know, this is books I've learned don't make money.

So this is not to make money.

This is just a pitch for helping with that light in their eyes.

So the book is called Newcomer to the Horse World.

How to Do Right by Horses and not be Taken for a Ride.

So because I started riding when I was 30 and I was a senior partner at a big firm and I thought, you know, I'm not going to be taken advantage of, all of us kind of check our brains at the barn door.

It's the strangest thing.

And I think all we all do it, but especially those of us who come in late because we don't know the language, we don't know anything.

So it's basically all the ways to just know how to be in the horse world, not how to ride.

I do have a lot about how to advocate for horses in there too.

But, and, and I mentioned this to you, Conor, as I'm trying to look at using the book as a textbook and frame it for some schools and have.

Create a program where people can learn about all these elements.

And then also.

But also help the parents because a lot of parents come in that's.

I've got two target markets.

One is people like me who started later, and the other is parents who have no horsey background who have horse mad kids.

Yeah.

So I think through the schools, maybe helping those parents navigate this world because it's, you know, it's crazy, it's changing.

And if we can just stay grounded in the horses rights and humans responsibilities, which is one of my early pages, then that'll be great.

Well, I will definitely look into that.

And congratulations on writing a book.

That's awesome.

Yeah.

And thank you so much for joining us today.

I know it's not always the easiest to talk about, but, you know, it's so important and we always appreciate it when somebody can come in and break it down so easily and, and make it, you know, something that everyone can understand and, and take away so much from.

Great.

Thank you.

I found it interesting how timely Andrea's topic was to our lives.

I know, given what we've been going through lately with deaths in our immediate families, which is why we have taken a break from the podcast for a little while.

So, you know, I.

And like she said, you know, usually it's something like that that spurs people on to take, you know, take care of their own business.

So I thought, you know, like you said, you've been going through this process and I've done.

We did it all after we had Finley and I.

We have to update it now that we've had Eden.

Of course, Eden is five years old, but it's got me thinking, of course, that we need to update all of our documents as well.

Yeah, it.

Some other things that happened in my life that we needed to get things organized, and my in laws were the ones who kind of prompted it and started us really thinking about it and getting.

Since they were getting their stuff organized and in order for them to finish getting their stuff organized, we had to have our things together, our documents together.

So that prompted us into doing it.

Well, before I'm going through this process with my family, trying to figure out how to go back and find the papers.

And, you know, now we're working backwards, which is much harder than if it was all there and we could just move forward with things.

But when you're trying to date it.

Yeah, yeah.

When you're just trying to like, look back and find, oh, find the will from so long ago and, you know, you don't realize all the places that need all of these things like Social Security and life insurance and your regular car insurance policy.

And I don't know if people know this, but when you have a death certificate, you have to pay for every death certificate that you need.

And everybody needs.

Needs an original copy of his.

Yes.

It is shocking how many death certificates you have to buy.

Yes.

And even Just like, trying to help my aunt navigate, like, the bank account now, you know, laws have changed since she first got the bank account, and we're talking about maybe having to close one account and open up another.

Well, all the.

All of her automatic payments and, you know, payments coming in, the payments going out, and what a nightmare to, like, have to change it because of the way it was set up and is there a better way to set it up?

And so anyway, going through that whole process has made me really think, oh, my gosh, I just, I want it to be simple for.

For the people that I would be leaving behind, you know, I want them to be able to make decisions easy.

And it's not even about my wishes.

It's just more about, like, hey, I don't want you to be struggling to find, you know, any kind of documents, marriage certificate, you know, like, need to have that sometimes for.

To prove that you're married for pensions.

But, you know.

Right, right.

My aunt was married in, like the 70s, like early 70s.

And so, like, finding.

Finding that document was.

Was a bit of a challenge.

Like, oh, I think I remember moving it, you know, how many times she's moved in her life.

And she lived in Canada at one point and moved to here.

And so, yeah, it's.

It's a whole process.

And so it is.

I've been speaking to Andrea for a while and since last fall and you know, her schedule and our schedule and then things happen.

But when I was getting back into it, I was like, yes, we need to have her on because now we can relate so much and there's probably things that we're feeling and that we can.

That will come up and that we can ask that we have on our minds.

And I, I love, you know, that she's a horse person.

She could relate it back to people who own horses.

What you do for that, that you need to plan ahead for that.

Like, like she said, you know, I think we talk a lot about, you shouldn't buy a horse unless you can retire a horse.

Right.

You also shouldn't buy a horse unless you can find a way to provide somewhat for its care after if you die and, you know, have some sort of plan if it is old or lame and can't be sold.

Right.

So, you know, those are things that equestrians really need to think about and consider, like, do you need a second horse or should you be putting that money into savings to take care of your first horse?

Yeah.

Yeah.

So.

And, you know, same with businesses.

Yes.

Make sure you have some plan and your.

Your full operating plan together.

So things are very clear.

What happens if something happens to you, whether you're incapacitated or if you die?

Because I think, especially if you're a sole proprietor, you know, what happens to your business?

Do you want it to go on or what?

You know, what.

What type of steps can there be?

And there's people like Andrea that can help walk you through all of those options, which is great.

And, you know, after we stopped recording, she did mention, like, a lot of the lawyers who do this type of estate planning do it for a flat fee, which is.

She kind of touched on.

She was like, you know, I'll call me anytime.

Like, if you want, if you need to ask questions, just call me up and ask a question.

Like, that's the.

The good part about playing.

Paying a flat fee is that you can do that and not feel like anybody's nickel and diming you.

Yeah.

So I really.

I really liked that part of it.

She explained things so well that I really came out of that feeling like I could start today of getting things organized for myself.

Yeah, yeah.

It made.

Made it less overwhelming the way she kind of spoke about it.

You know, I think that when we think about.

It's just so overwhelming that you can't even wrap your head around it.

But she broke it down really well and I think gave some solid advice on just, like, do something like what you could do just to get started, what you could do for the minimum to have, and then, you know, build from there as.

As you need it.

And I was very interested in the business questions as well, because I think going forward, if I'm going to develop any more partnerships, businesses, taking that to my lawyer and knowing, okay, I played, I paid a flat fee so I can ask him questions.

Right.

And taking that partnership agreement to him and saying, how, before I sign this, how do I need to make it so that it fits into what I have set up for my estate planning?

Right.

You know, instead of.

Now I have to work a little bit backwards.

And, you know, I have some documents about partnerships that I have.

And.

But she made a good point.

Like, that's great that I just left that asset to my living trust.

But what does that actually mean in terms of, you know, is my trustee going to be involved in that business or it's just the percentage holder or what?

Right.

So those are things that I'm like and have to think a little more through to see if that needs to be changed in any way.

I love these guests that leave us with Lots to think about and even, like, action items.

Yeah, yeah, absolutely.

It was.

Yeah, that was a great conversation.

Like, I really, really enjoyed digging into this a little bit more, especially for such a sensitive topic.

Like, she really made it easy to digest.

Yeah.

And I bet she makes everyone that she works with feel really comfortable through the whole process.

Yeah, absolutely.

I think that's.

I think that's like a huge barrier.

Right.

Like, people think that they're getting judged for.

For things in this capacity.

Right.

Like, oh, are they gonna look at my finances and see I don't have a lot of money?

Or see that I have a lot of money and, you know, or am I going to be judged for that?

And it's like, no, they're not there to judge you.

They're just there to help you organize it and put it in the right places so that it can be helpful.

Going forward based on your wishes and what you want to do.

Yes.

They're not telling you what to do.

They're taking what you want to do and.

And organizing it.

Yeah.

And you can't.

You can't look at it because I've heard this before.

Oh, well, I.

I should have done something different.

You know, I should have done this with a 401k, or I should have done that with a pension, or I should have done this with money or.

Or I would have had more money.

If that doesn't matter at this point, that doesn't matter.

You need to move forward with what you have.

Don't worry about it.

They're not going to judge you with what you have.

You could.

You could have only a car to your name, but it is important that somebody knows where.

What to do with that, what they can do with that car if something happens to you, you know, so don't.

Don't worry about being judged.

They're just going to take what you have and put it into the boxes that it needs to go in appropriately and move forward.

Yep.

And the living will, you know.

Yeah.

For anybody who rides horses, if you don't have something like that set up, I.

You get it done today.

It's so important.

Yep.

I mean, we've all seen enough people with traumatic brain injuries that that make you.

I mean, they've made me think twice about getting on horses again, so.

Right.

I mean, if you're throwing a leg over every day and you're not thinking about what's going to happen, if you're stuck in a hospital bed in a coma for three months, then you need to look at your priorities.

Because that's.

Yeah.

There's a chance every time you get on a horse, so.

Or around them, even grooms.

I mean, around them.

Exactly.

You never know when you're kicked in.

The head in the stall, when you lean over, they kick out a fly and catch you instead.

Right.

Yep.

So I think that's important for even anybody who's working around animals.

Totally.

Especially the horses, to make sure that they're.

They've got something.

And I thought it was very interesting about, like, the barns and.

And her message.

I think it's worth reiterating her message to have your information, your emergency contact information in many places so that people can reach out to you.

Like, I.

When you were talking about, oh, I need to put that in my car, I was like, oh, I want to try and find a keychain that can take somebody to my stuff.

My phone's locked.

Nobody's getting my husband's number or any emergency number off of that.

So, yeah, I'm going to make sure that I do that as well.

Mm.

Well, even, like, remember when we were traveling and you got sick and had to go to the hospital?

And I was like, I need your husband's phone number.

Yeah, I didn't have it in my phone.

Right.

So just simple things like that you don't think of until you're in a situation.

You're like, oh, gosh, I need to figure things out.

So just a little bit of pre planning can help avoid messy situations in the end.

Yeah, that was actually.

Right.

We were finished with all of our stuff, and my brother is a trustee of my will, of my trust, and my husband called him so that he knew that I was in the hospital.

He was like, okay, we're gonna have a plan going forward.

And like, he's like, yes, I need to know.

But also, since you're, like, in a situation like this where you're in the hospital and ill and we don't know what's wrong, like, I think your brother needs to know just in case something happens.

And I was like, okay, that is a good plan.

Like, that's a plan.

From now on, he doesn't need to know every time I have a cold, but if I'm.

If I'm hospitalized for three days with some weird stomach bug.

Yeah.

Hey.

Thank God for you, Jen.

Thank God for good friends that have seen the good, bad, and the ugly.

That was a rough one.

Yeah.

Yeah.

We got lots of stories now, don't we?

Yes, we sure do.

So we're going to end today's episode and you can find the links to today's guests and the show notes@www.eqbusinesswomen.com.

equestrian B2B is out twice a month on the 1st and the 15th.

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Now go start estate planning.