KGCI: Real Estate on Air - Full-Circle Aftercare: The Hidden Side of Probate

Episode Date: September 3, 2025

SummaryThis episode provides an essential guide to the often-overlooked and emotionally draining administrative tasks that follow a loved one's death. Featured guest Matt Van Drimmelen, the founder of Full-Circle Aftercare, shares his unique perspective on how a specialized concierge service can handle the complex paperwork and phone calls that often overwhelm grieving families. The discussion reveals the critical role of "aftercare" in the probate process, highlighting how this service provides peace of mind and allows families to focus on healing rather than on tedious and time-consuming administrative work.Key TakeawaysThe "Aftercare" Gap: Discover that while a will or trust handles the distribution of assets, a massive administrative void exists for families after a death. The episode highlights the hundreds of calls and notifications required to close accounts, cancel subscriptions, and notify government agencies, which can take families months or even years to complete.The Value of a Concierge Service: Learn how a service like Full-Circle Aftercare can handle the administrative burden for you. The discussion breaks down how these services proactively manage tasks like notifying banks, insurance companies, and government agencies, freeing up the family's time and emotional energy.Protecting the Estate from Fraud: Understand the serious risk of identity theft and fraud after a loved one passes away. The episode highlights the importance of taking immediate steps to protect the decedent's identity by notifying credit bureaus and setting up fraud alerts.From Hours to Minutes: Hear how a professional aftercare service can accomplish tasks in a few days that might take an average family weeks or months to complete. The discussion emphasizes that having an expert who knows who to call and what to say is a game-changer for probate professionals and grieving families alike.Topics:Probate aftercareEstate administrationMatt Van DrimmelenFull Circle AftercareProbate concierge serviceCall-to-ActionReady to learn more about the final, critical step in the probate process? Listen to the full episode on your favorite podcast platform and provide a full-circle experience for your clients!

Welcome to Probate Weekly. We do this every Thursday, 4 p.m. Pacific, 7 p.m. Eastern Time. We live streaming this on YouTube, Facebook, LinkedIn, Rumble, Twitter, Twitch, 15 other things. I even know what they are. And this is a program designed for professionals in the probate business, to, and trust administration business, to improve their business. And the way we do that is by improving the service to our customers. Most commonly on this call, I interview attorneys, either state planning attorneys, probate administration attorneys, or litigation attorneys. But one of the most popular segments I've done in the past has been with this particular vendor Full Circle Aftercare.

And today, while the past we had the founder, the big mucky muck who knew all the information, today we get a chance to talk to somebody actually does the work. No reflection of math, but really, we're glad to have here today, Nikki Schmutz, who is, well, she'll tell us what she does at Full Circle Aftercare, which is a very much. service provider that I think anybody in our space, whether a real estate agent, focus on probate or senior real estate or an attorney, should be aware of. So, Nikki, thank you so much for joining us today. You're so welcome. I'm happy to be here. And with Matthew traveling, I'm surprised you weren't like partying. We didn't catch you at the

pool or the beach or doing something crazy besides actually working. Well, somebody has to keep this place up on its toes and going. So that would be me. At least for this time segment. So what is your role at full circle aftercare? I am the director of operations. So I manage all the day to day for the different departments here. I also manage a lot of our client base and I am on some few shows with Matt as well. So I've been on some podcasts with Dutch talking about what we do because something I'm very, very passionate about. So let's talk about that. When you get the short version, you're sitting at a cocktail bar or something, cocktail hour or whatever baseball games. You leave over and says,

well, Nikki, what does Roll Socarol Aftercare do? What's the short answer? The short answer is We help with all the notifications and things that have to be done after a person passed away. Because when they die, everything their life is touched, everything that comes in the mailbox, everything that they worked with, every single day has to be addressed. Right. And so you kind of enter the space from the kind of data and communications side of that. Is that kind of your focus area that you focus in? Well, do you mean my job personally or what we do is

as an as an organization are you guys I mean it just seems to me there's there's many different angles of attack into this problem somebody died what do I do yeah and so yours it seems to me is more about the communication the data the information flow to help people get a handle on what's going on that's a good way to explain it we believe that even though we're in this amazing digital world and there's apps for everything that an app can't answer all of your questions especially when you're going through something you've never been through before. And so while we are about data and communications and the back and forth and notifications, we actually have a staff of people who work as an advocate that we

call them our state specialists who actually help the family walk them through. So we're actually a boots on the ground more so than a tech company. So real quick, just come some quick housekeeping. This is probate weekly. We do this every Thursday at 4 p.m. Pacific time, 7 p.m. Eastern. We live during this live stream this onto all the usual suspect social media channels, probateweekly.com. We also have a Facebook group. You can continue the conversation afterwards, post your content with 3,800 members across the country. So if you're looking for a realtor or a service provider or attorney referral, a great place to drop your information there. I love to have you to participate. If you're watching this on a replay of some sort and want to subscribe and get notifications,

go to probateweekly.com, put your email in. You can also scroll down and and get out your favorite audio versions or past episodes on YouTube. And again, our guest today is Nikki Schmutz with Full Circle Aftercare. We've had the founder on previously, and she is the head of the operations organization. And again, the reason we do this is as real estate agents or professionals or attorneys, our goal is always to create more value for our customers. And so this is a service. I'm always looking for things that I can offer in my toolbox to help my customers,

whether that's the family or that's an heir or that. that's the attorney, what could you to help make their process and systems and experience better? And that's what we're here for. Lastly, if you're watching this on live stream, you have questions, comments if you're on YouTube, Facebook, LinkedIn, put them in live, we'll answer them live, or after the show, we'll catch up with them as quick as we can. Either Nikki or I, or we'll laugh at the question if it's particularly funny. Finally, feel free to put your networking information. We want to do business together.

This is about building our mutual business and creating a team. So, Nikki, what do you see is the biggest problem? I know for me, I think it's mostly just the overwhelm of the size of the enormity of the task, meaning people say, oh, they pass away, all they have is a house or how hard can it be? The answer is it's a lot harder than they would imagine. What do you see is the biggest problem that people face that they come to you for help for as an organization? The biggest problem is they're afraid. They don't know what to do.

So the fear of the unknown can grow into this massive anxiety that can overshadow everything else in their life. And what they actually need is just someone to help them break it down because it's just a bunch of tasks. Any one of us can get on the internet and look up what we need to do, but it's knowing exactly how to tailor that information to our specific situation. That's where we come into play. So let's talk about it. There's a number of different areas that you guys really focus in on. One is government benefits.

Talk about how you help guide the errors or the administrators or the professionals through the maze of government benefits might apply to a decedent. Well, the biggest thing, the biggest question we get is social security. There's like this cultural fear of social security. People are afraid of actions that may be taken or losing their payments or not getting their benefits. One of the biggest things we do when it comes to those government benefits is we just get on the phone and help them through the process. So we actually call Social Security with the family as long as, you know, we're going to look and see if they qualify for the benefits if they're eligible for those. But we actually walk them through the process and speak the things for them on the phone so that they don't have to remember what to say. But we do the same thing with the VA, if it's a federal employee through OPMs, the Office of Personal Management, if they work for the railroad.

There's so many different things that have different rules. And that's what we specialize in is being able to direct them on the current. correct course. So some of the areas that people are surprised to find out that I've been aware of is for example, Social Security, sometimes there's one spouse who's a breadwinner, one has none. The spouse might have had benefits because they had put money aside, but when they passed, there's a benefit to the spouse or children, correct?

Yes, under certain circumstances. So it can get pretty complicated, but yes. Right. Right. And so it's worth checking into. And then also VA, I know because my father-in-law was a v. and entitled to care, that it wasn't easy getting her set up with all the various benefits.

She was entitled to certain pensions. He was entitled to pension, and as a result, she was after he passed and medical benefits and things like that. So those are things that you help with as well. Oh, absolutely, and there's many different types of veterans as well. There's some that only served a few years. There's some that retired a career military, and those are actually different offices to call.

So that's also what we can help pick apart for the family. apart from the family. One of the areas that I know also trips up my customers all the time is financial institutions. Now one of the things drives me nuts. I don't know if it's true nationally, but California, the common requirement is the banks want a original wet signature of the letters of authority with a little stamp riffled on it. And I feel like, you know, in 1960, that was great technology. Today it'd be easier to counterfeit that because the banks could go online and check the

stats of the real letters of authority on LA County. for example. Talk about that. Is that a common problem for families and how do you help them with that? Absolutely. It's a very common problem, especially in families that haven't done any estate planning. So if they've done some estate planning, they've usually put some things into place to avoid a lot of that red tape. But if they haven't, first we're going to look at their estate and see whether they need a full probate or if they can just go file a small estate affidavit down in the county office. But you're right, there is no other way around that besides a paper trail that goes through the county court, and they have to take those papers into the bank. So the great way to avoid that is to encourage people to pre-plan their estate. So they have a state plan in place.

That way they have at least a transfer on death on their bank account or they have a joint, some way that they can bypass the complicated process. And these banks are shameless today. You know, I have a case right now where our decedent, had a bank, numerous bank accounts at First Republic Bank, which was a very, a bank to the wealthy, bank to the successful. They went out of business, of course, because they were reckless. And, but in their last four weeks being taken over, they kept stalling and stalling and stalling the transfer money out of the account because we wanted to get the money out of their bank to to another bank. And they kept stall. And literally every day was, well, as soon as we catch

the administrator on the phone and verify him, we'll trust money. And somehow they magically never made that phone call. And after four, weeks, I said, sorry, now we're taken over by Chase. And literally my client's attorney has filed an order to appear at Chase Bank to show up in court over millions of dollars that they're entitled to. There's no reason why not. They're given a reason why not. But the banks, they don't care, and they get paid either way. They're not, nobody's a loser job, but not giving money. And so I think for those of you and us who have modest bank accounts, we think, well, they have to give you my money. They really don't. And I think it's important to learn.

and how to work with them. So you must have people on the phone with various banks from the country pulling their hair out all the time on this stuff. Well, we actually will, when there's problems. I didn't say that. I'm sorry, hold on. I don't know create kind of employee problems, but somehow you guys must figure this out because it would drive me crazy. Yes. So this is where we have attorney referral partners. So if the family situation is really complicated, if there's a lot going on, we're going to refer to the proper professionals because we are not attorneys here at full circle. we are the advocates that walk families through. So it's highly important to have a whole network of people

so that you can send to your family to the correct professional when they do need that extra help. So far we've really talked more about what I would call the, hey, Adra, thank you for the kind comment. Kind of technical, hard technical piece. But I know that the guiding principles, and I know that what distinguishes you guys is the soft skills, the compassion, the empathy,

the listing what people have. Talk a little bit about that, how that ends the process. At one hand, you gotta get your job done, I'm sure. And the other hand, part of the job is making sure the customer feels cared for. Oh, absolutely. We have an amazing team of a state specialist. So there is no one kind of training you could go to school

to learn everything that we teach our employees here. It's a hodgepodge and a mishmash of so many different industries that we train, we train well, so we have systems in place to support our estate specialists. But we really thrive on hiring people who are caretakers. They're coming back into the workforce. Maybe they've been a stay-at-home mom for 15 years like I was before I started working here.

I started on the phones as an estate specialist before moving up into management. And what I find and I see in all of our employees is they're not just talking to another family. They're talking to a family they care about helping. And they become the advocate. So while on the phone, we have empathy. many of us here have been through loss. We understand the grief stages and how that goes. But we also become advocates and voracious advocates, if needed,

when we're talking to credit cards or Social Security. We're going to make sure that family is represented. So so far we've really talked about your service to customers. But another whole area, kind of what intrigued me and has caught me to introduce you to our team, has been your partnership program where you can be offered by partners to their customers directly. Now, I noticed in your website that underbecome a partner, the two primary categories that you list, which tells me that's where most of your business comes from or is involved with, are funeral homes and hospice.

Describe a little bit how funeral home and or a hospice facility or a center would use your service as part of their business. Absolutely. So with funeral homes, funeral homes have this amazing service where they're helping the family do with the body and have the funeral services. And there was a study done with Johnson Consulting that said 70% of families wish they had more support after the funeral service was over. And our funeral professionals don't have time to do that. So that's where we come in is they report those families to us with the next-of-kin information. And after the services, we reach out to their families and offer help with their estate settlement.

It's been a great program. It creates a great way to market in an industry that can be very competitive. But it also creates a goodwill and a loyalty in their customer base as well. I think the loyalty is a big part of it, right? Because everybody wants to know somebody can help them that time. And nobody really knows what to do. It's not like we all spend time shopping on Instagram for our favorite funeral home. It's really a time of need as we talk about it.

I'll share with you kind of a story. In college, one of my kind of friends in my team was a son of a huge funeral home chain, very wealthy. He was really a jerk, the guy. He was just the son of this successful businessman. And so I always had kind of negative connotation to funeral homes. When my mother-in-law passed, in particular,

we were very involved with the director of the funeral home here in LA. And she was so amazing. She was so comforting to my wife. It was just, it was just, amazing to watch. And I remember when we finally met her in person, I said, you can't be Marty because I imagined her to be like eight feet tall with like lightning bolts coming out of her eyes. She was so powerful and yet so compassionate. And she was just a human being who really

obviously cared about people. And so there is a special group of people that have to have a special heart, I think, for that job. Oh, absolutely. Absolutely. And I myself have been through loss. I was widowed at 38. So I was a person walking into the front door of the funeral home and having to go through that and I was given the list, the dreaded list of all the things you don't know if you should or shouldn't do. And that's what led me to this industry at all as I found this is incredibly meaningful to help people go through that experience. Wow. Well, I'm sorry for your loss and thanks for sharing that. So obviously partners are hospice and funeral, but we're real estate agents. I think these are also things that we can offer to people. Now, I don't think every realtor this is

appropriate. I know out of those who are focused on probate, there's a sub segment that focus in funeral homes or sub focus on nursing is a big niche that we have a couple of our team members on. Do you have any real estate agents that promote your service or have successfully integrated your service into their offerings? We have we have some, yes. So what we have found works best is that if they pre-purchase credits to be able to give to their families who are in need of help. And so they're kind of picking and choosing the ones that are the best fit for that happen. So not everybody. It depends on how much time has passed into the death and how many things have actually already been done. It's something every family has to do whether they want to or not. And so inevitably,

everyone will start doing it. But if you catch them at the right moment in that process, then it becomes the best service available to them at that time. Well, and I think also you may be, for those of us, realtors who get involved with the probate filing from the beginning, you're kind of helping us to our job because you're getting the insurance, you're getting the, I imagine the death certificate, I imagine you're getting the bank account information, mortgage account information, things like that, helping them kind of gather that information. Now, let's talk a little bit about some of the specifics because you're in the Treasury of Operations. I imagine you have some experience in that area. When somebody passes, are you able to get like mortgage statements or do you need

to wait until the court's appointed somebody to act on behalf of the estate? Well, most of the time what we're doing is kind of playing the superhero that swoops in and helps them get everything started. We don't necessarily stay with them through that entire process because they're usually passed to an attorney. So a lot of times we aren't exactly seeing all the statements, but what we're doing is helping them become organized. So by the time they get to the attorney, you're taking everything with them that they know they're going to need. And maybe they're prompted to get to the mail early before it gets lost to get the statements, otherwise get thrown out. I just can't tell many times I've had a customer say, oh, I just threw all that out.

Well, I had the numbers we need to have so much. What do we do now? And you would be surprised how many people know nothing about their loved ones affairs. No, I would be surprised. Yeah, it's crazy. I was just myself last night going through my finances and thinking, my wife would never know we have this. She would never know we have that. How do I tell her?

I need to put something somewhere in the binder. Of course, if the binder burns down, we're all kind of lost. Yes. So talk a bit about, I also know that your business, you're doing with other independent businesses, right, funeral homes, hospice providers, attorneys, real estate agents. You know, what is it that you see as the consistent power into people who are successful in the business and integrating a service like yours with customers versus those that just come across as transactional and just doesn't really work?

you see is the common element of success? What I've seen across the board is the element that providing a service like ours actually gives less of a transactional feel and more of a caring feel. With the funeral homes, a lot of them will wrap our service up in their basic service fees, so the family never sees it written on their bill. Like, it seems like a gift. And our service works best when it is offered as a gift in that way. And I believe that it creates a lot of goodwill coming right back to whoever gives it.

Makes sense to me. And again, I feel like, I mean, in all honesty, I'm not the most compassionate guy. Now, I can turn it on and I'm smarter to learn how. I'm married. I've gotten this far in my life and not got divorced after 38 years. So at least through today have gotten this far without completely offending one human being. But that said, it seems to me like we kind of outsource. some of that soft skill to your organization.

So let's talk about it. As someone's to buy the credits to integrate that into their offering. I can imagine this myself as a real estate agent as part of my listing package that we help them with this financial information. What's the cost to do that individually? And then I know you have a package deal with a couple. How does that work?

Yeah, so we try and keep our price point low because we want to be able to get out there and be able to help as many people as possible. So it's around $200 if you're just going to buy one here and there. And then you can wrap that up into whatever purchase, you know, that you're having them proceed with you. But if you're to buy five or more credits at one time, we drop that down to $159.

So there's a little bit of a savings there. And then usually it's nonrefundable. So if a family, if we call them and they don't want to use it, then we allow you to roll it to whatever family comes next. Well, that's nice. Yeah. And again, I think some of the. some of these things, just one or two of these starts can make a difference, getting a mortgage

statement, early, a bank statement, early insurance, helping them discover insurance, having to discover social security benefits could be worth a fortune. And as I say to my customers, you know, that's the value I present. You know, you can cut my commission half percent. In a 500,000 dollar house, that's $2,500. But if I can save you $50,000 because we found something, somebody else didn't or we saved some tax issues, somebody else didn't, then obviously it overwhelms the difference on commissions and that's why they use this. Talk a little bit about how you market your service. I know obviously you're on podcast with me and I know you do some of these.

What's the basic? Is it more online marketing these days? I know Matthew does a lot of traveling and goes to convention and such. Is it more professional networking? What's the marketing angle that you guys focus on? We have always been a B-to-B business. So we work directly with the funeral homes, hospice, realtors, probate attorneys, And we do a lot of white labeling.

So when we're marketing, a lot of times our name isn't involved. We're actually marketing for the people that we work with. So we do very little direct to consumer. So that is a part of our marketing. But Matt does travel for funeral shows across the country. There's some really big ones that have a lot of attendance at hospice conventions, as well as he speaks quite a bit in places. But what we find is if we just educate everyone,

the business comes to us. Fantastic. So separate from your service, what do you see as the biggest mistake families make that they get caught by surprise and now they're in trouble? What would you urge somebody to do to prepare? If they have a family,

and wouldn't avoid making the catastrophe of loss worse than otherwise would be? I would say they need to do the estate planning. They need to have a will in place. They need to have their home deeded correctly. And if they choose a trust, it needs to be in the trust. because if you don't put it in the trust, you end up in probate anyway.

There are certain things that just have to be done. And if you do the correct planning, you can avoid probate completely. Does your service integrate with estate planning? Because really nobody's passed at that point. So that's kind of a pre-need basis. Really, it's not going to be maybe it triggers with somebody past. Does you have all the information or how would that work? Probably not.

Well, we have some referral partners. So we don't do it in-house. We're not estate planners or, you know, know estate planning attorneys. But we do work with some large entities like trust and will. They do the online estate planning, which is pretty easy to access and do. We also have a network of attorneys across the country that we send families to if they're interested in doing that. And we encourage it. A huge part of what we talk about is not just helping the family with their lost loved ones estate, but with the surviving family members of

state as well. Because so many things change. So many things have to be updated. It's just as important. So if a real estate agent or attorney watching this wanted to be a partner, purchase a package to supplement their service with a customer, what would the next step be for them? Just be to send Matt or myself an email. And actually, if you send it to Matt, it gets them to me anyway.

But we have stepped you up in our system so that you can purchase those. We keep track of those credits. And then there is a way to submit information to us to go ahead and take advantage of that. Fantastic. And so, Jen, just as a reminder, as far as the contact information,

full hyphen circle care.com is the website. This always trips me up because it's full circle after care is the name of the service. And I always say it wrong, but I'm trying to be very careful. But if you go to the website, full hyphen circle care.com,

we'll put it in the description as well. And go online, they have a phone number, email address as well. And if you're interested to becoming a partner, if you're not a hospice or if you know you can send email and Nikki will probably get back to you and offer you the opportunity to talk about those details as well as well as they're on social media so Nikki I just want to thank you so much for being on our call today and sharing

with us your services the opportunity to work with you I think it's a great program I really am really trying we're building at our probate team nationally with nurses is the area that we're focusing on right now I'd love to find a realtor who works for the funeral homes but we're not there yet but I really appreciate what you guys do and your approach and thank you so much for making time for us of course I'm so happy to be here and I I know how much all of you care about the families that you're assisting and we are all one team in that effort so thanks for having me thanks so much now for those you're on the call the real estate agents and attorneys obviously this is one of a series of vendors or services

that we've had on here and I think it's really important as an opportunity that you find the right tools for your business and this is one where I think particularly you know Melanie if you're watching the probate nurse or anybody who's in the nursing area or the senior transitional facility care niche of the real estate piece of business this is your opportunity to offer additional services right when somebody passes and it's a way to kind of solidify that relationship now whether you do it along with a referral to an attorney for probate or estate planning those are different

ways to package your business you do what's best for you but again I just really want to encourage you to find the right combination of tools for your business and we always want to focus on building a business not because it's about the money but a business is an entity that has procedures and processes has focused on solving a customer's problem and providing those solutions that they need so that's what i do i'm bill gross just i want thank you guys for being on today again thank you to nicky and her team at full circle aftercare and then for those you who who are on our call every week thank you for joining us this is probably

weekly we get together every thursday at 4 p.m pacific time uh 7 p.m eastern time we live stream this onto Facebook and to YouTube, LinkedIn, and other sources. You can continue a conversation on Facebook with 3,900 members. Love to have you join us there, ask questions. Also, feel free to post your probate trust, real estate-related content on there. If you're looking for referrals, it's a great place to post it. If you're watching this on a live stream, I mean, recording and you want to get the live stream, go to probateweekly.com, and you can just put your email address in.

We'll send you out reminders as well as you can scroll down and sign up on your favorite versions for audio and past episodes on YouTube. So again, thank you to the team at Full Circle Aftercare, Matthew and Nicky. As always, you guys are great vendors. Thank you those we watched today. I heard it. I joined late, it's full circle nationwide

or specific to Utah only. It's nationwide, Brian. And remind me, what city do you in? I don't remember Brian Nolan, where you're located. But yeah, they're nationwide. They work with nationwide attorneys. They work with nationwide vendors and offer these services as well nationwide. So feel free to check them out.

And if you have a particular state that you're focused in, feel free to, in your email, just ask them. But I'm pretty sure they're in all 50 states because I know they work with a couple of national vendors. Okay, everybody, that wraps up for today. A short version of date, but hopefully it's powered. Oh, you're in Hermosa Beach. Yeah, right.

You're down the street from me. There's certainly in California, but they also are, I believe in all 50 states or certainly most of all 50 states. So hopefully they can help you out. Brian, thank you so much and Audra and everybody else who's on the call today. We've got a nice following on YouTube and Facebook today. Thank you, everybody. Have a great week.

If I can help reach out at Bill Gross Probate, we'll see you soon. Thanks.