KGCI: Real Estate on Air - Stephanie Hopkins

Episode Date: February 6, 2025

So much about success in business is having a narrow focus of where you help your customers and making sure they understand that. I had the pleasure of stumbling across and meeting Stephanie Hopkins, who is the probate title agent. And I said, wow, you know, I meet a lot of title reps who tell me they do all kinds of stuff. First time, I met somebody who really focused in this one area. And I said, I got to meet her. And we had a chance to meet months ago and do a little bit of business together, even though we're in different states across the country, actually. but we had a great conversation.

I'm sure with you guys. Stephanie Hopkins. Thank you so much for joining us, Stephanie. Thank you so much, Bill, for having me. So in a lot of ways, we're very different. You know, I speak very quickly and mumble, and Stephanie speaks more slowly and is very polite. I'm from California.

She's in Florida. I'm a man. She's a woman. There's a lot of differences in our business. But one thing that we share in common, I think, is an intense focus on probate. So Tommy, how did you end up in a focused area at least enough in your marketing to be the probate title agent.

Well, my mom always told me a taught lesson is better than any bought one, right? So with that, I have experienced a lot of death in my life. I lost a child. I've buried my mother, my two siblings, and I just most recently buried my dad. So with that, I realized that a lot of people don't understand what that death process looks like. So the Lord put it on me to say, Stephanie, you know, specialize in probate, be my vessel to speak about the importance and how it relates to generational wealth, especially in the BIPOC community. And BIPAAQ community stands for?

Black, black, brown, indigenous people of color. Great. And I'm not any of that. But I will say that I do recognize, I think, the number one destruction of wealth amongst the black community, the minority community in Los Angeles, is the fact that wealth gets transferred through probates rather than proper planning from generation and generation. It is, I used to go to court every day, and it was heartbreaking. And I'm not a member of the BIPAC community that says. But you can't help, but notice the destruction

of wealth. The families who, husband and wife from World War II came back, GI Bill, bought a house, raised his kids right, had three or four kids, paid the house off and left it. And the four kids go to war. And the only person comes out ahead is the attorneys. And the wealth just gets scattered to the wind. It is heartbreaking to watch. It really is. So with that, that's the reason why I focused in and horned in on probate for those exact reasons. It's called a tangled title, actually. So when an individual passes away and they were the sole owners of the property, no other magic language used to transfer it to anyone is considered a tangled title. So the title, So the title itself states that it will provide coverage for that individual in their ears.

So what happens is people think, oh, okay, because I have legal ownership that I actually own this home, but you don't, because there's a deed involved as well. So the deed is the one that actually conveys ownership. So title and deeds are two different things. So because no one's name is on the deed, no one officially owns that home. I remember watching a 60 minutes piece, it must be 15, 20 years ago, about families post-slavery, how they were, how they were former slaves were given chunks of land. And in those days, they had large families. So you had eight or ten kids, and they had eight or ten kids.

Next thing you know, you might have 40 acres. but you have hundreds, literally in some cases, of errors, the property. And because back in those days, the laws wouldn't even develop for state planning like they are now, and nobody planned ahead. So much of that wealth in land got distributed to speculators and to land barons and to, and I remember watching that thinking, well, that might be true. And it's sad. Might be true 150 years ago.

But I'm talking today in Los Angeles. There's an $800,000 house with no equity because they've been fighting over for five years, and there's four siblings, and attorneys are all getting rich, and the courts are going on. I'm not talking about post-Civil War South Carolina. I'm talking about today in the most modern country in the world that wealth is being destroyed. So I know that you got called on to take action. What are some steps that people can take to, keep that wealth within their family and maybe also extend a little further, what can we do to help

keep the wealth within those families to help build more healthy communities? Absolutely. So one thing that we can definitely do is learn how to dance with death. Death is the inevitable. I don't know why we don't want to take care of the exit strategy in our lives, but it is the inevitable. So with that, we all need to sit down and have a conversation about our wants. Also draft wills, have trusts where it's appropriate, and make sure that we're all on one accord. That's where the confusion comes from because we have our thoughts within ourselves, but we don't convey them on paper so others can see. So I always tell people, you know, your will is like a genie, right? It comes alive and speaks your truth once you're gone.

It gives that roadmap that your family needs to jump these hurdles through probate or whatever they're going through. It makes the process so much seamless versus, well, this is what mom wanted. This is what she said. She had a separate conversation with me. But if we all are on one accord, it's all documented. We can get in and out of that court system. Just like you said, it gets beat up by court. But if we go in there with a game plan, then it's seamless.

That going into court is not the time to have, you know, family therapy. That should be done way in advance because it just eats up. He said the equity in the home, which is the generational wealth. So I totally agree with you on that. I've been to court so many times when the judge was a question and one of the family members will say, why haven't talked to my sisters in 15 years? And I said myself, if I was a TV producer,

this is the kind of case I wouldn't follow because the drama is going to act out, whether it acts after they pass and before or when the wills read and distribute everybody, Or when you go into court, there's going to be drama. There's going to be something going on about the process. And again, depends your goals. But if your goal is to avoid additional family conflict, and your goal is to pass the most wealth as possible,

the time to manage these things is before you get to court. It's long before that point in time. So now you're in Florida, and I'm in California. We have different rules and procedures, but there are certain things that are consistent. In California, not legal advice, but business advice, I say to anybody who owns a property, owns a house in California, at a minimum, should have an estate plan. Most commonly will come along with a trust.

Even if you don't care, who gets your stuff, you're going to care to not be wasted in court. You can give it to your charity choice or you can give it to your cat, but why let the state have a plan for you? What's the threshold that you recommend? again, not that you're giving legal advice, but just giving good business advice and financial advice to families. What's the minimum threshold that somebody should consider a formal meeting with an attorney, getting a state plan together, or is it will sufficient in many cases in Florida? Well, good question. It's really based off an ads needs basis.

So trust, again, this is not legal advice or whatnot. It all depends on your assets and if it warrants to have a trust. But I think a will is definitely the foundation for all because there are some trust that have poor over wills as well. And a trust is only as good if it is funded as well, meaning people create trust and they don't put anything in it. So it's pretty like a null and void type situation. But I think everyone would benefit from a will because let's say, Bill, you have a toolbox, right? And you have kids and there's one kid that wants this toolbox. But you say, well, you can have this toolbox, but then they end up fighting over it as well.

So something just as simple, keepsakes. I mean, just write it down, make your vision plain. That statement is just not about business, but that's in everything that we do. So I think a will is very vital. And if it needs to be adjacent to a trust, then so be it if it's appropriate. So when you have family members or, excuse me, you know, social friends who say, you know, we have a property. We've been blessed to have some assets and we want to start planning. What's the next step?

Do you recommend a particular attorney or is there a service or how do you suggest people get started on the path of putting something down in writing? Well, I'm also a legal show individual as well. So people feel as though estate planning is expensive. So with that, I try to make a cost-effective way for them to at least start the basics. it can be, but, you know, everything is expensive, but we have to prioritize our expenses. So we may say, oh, well, estate planning is expensive, but then we'll go and spend $500 on some shoes, but that could have been your estate plan, you know. That's so true.

It just, it just amazes me where people spend money on things and don't spend money on the fundamentals. and then it's heartbreaking at the end, though. I mean, we can laugh about it because it's painful, but it's heartbreaking when you see the results. Yeah, absolutely. So, excuse me, with that, if you have a family member that or members that you want to have your home, in the state of Florida, we have an enhanced ladybird deed,

which is an enhanced state deed, and you can have, the person while they're alive to complete that, list the individuals that they want to be the remainder man, and the house would automatically transfer over to them. You'll play around in Florida. No. It's so funny.

You've got the deed that transfers title, which we don't. It doesn't matter when it says either you have a trust, then you have to transfer the deed into the trust, or if you have a will, you've got to go to court and probate the will. In Florida, you guys don't play that way at all. And it's, for some of your plans ahead, it's a very effective way to get the job done. I also notice our governor is signing more and more squatters' rights. We're trying to help squatters take more property, and your governor is doing what you can to help protect property rights.

So, Florida, you guys don't play around with the law at all. It's all very serious business down there. It's strictly business. Okay, so we're going to go with all that. You know, you're fine to talk to stuff. You know, let's be honest. You know, I work all day long, try to list houses, get house through rescrow, and I do this as part of my business development. And then I get a chance to talk to you.

And before we start, we're laughing and having a lot of fun. And now all of a sudden the record button goes on and I get all serious. I don't know why that is because you are a lot of fun to work with. So your business, you're a legal shield, you know, representative, which means you refer people to a service that, in turn, has a cast of attorneys that can help people get the right. solution. But your basic business job is you are a title representative. In fact, let me just do some quick housekeeping since, you know, I'm a little delinquent. Our guest today is Stephanie Hopkins, and she is a probate title agent in Florida. And one of the names she works under is Black Wall Street Title LLC. She talks about her particular mission. But she's a title representative in the state of

Florida. But more importantly, a businesswoman, and I also think a member of a community committed to helping our families keep their wealth and build their wealth. And that's really why what really got my interest. I don't do much business in Florida, though she does business nationally. We'll talk a little bit about her title business. Okay, so Stephanie, let's talk a bit about title and how title fits in the probate business because I sell houses. That's how I get paid. And I talk about these issues. But you're not doing that. You are involved in the title process. So what's your role and what do you do on a day-day basis that helps families entitled, particularly regarding probate.

Absolutely. So besides being a title agent, when you specialize in probate, then you kind of also become, let's see, a therapist a little bit, right? Because you're coaching them through the process. They're going through the process because they have to, but they don't understand. So when they don't understand, it brings confusion.

and confusion brings reluctance, right? So you have to walk them through the process and explain that this is normal, you know, this is just the laws of the land, you know, but how we can avoid it is by doing X, Y, and Z. What makes me different is most, and I'm not knocking my other title agents, love them to death, but they're more transactional. And I am more, I'm more of a, I get to use the empathy side of me. And that's at every touch point.

So to make people feel at ease, because they're very vulnerable at this point in probate. They're kind of ashamed that they even arrived here. So I make it a judgment-free zone and we just stick to the facts at hand. I try to explain to them, you know, how they even arrived here, what they can do moving forward to be proactive, to make the process a little bit more simpler for themselves. So you made a great point, Stephanie, about the shame that people often feel. I get that, I want to talk to families all the time. You know, my mom passed away and she was 93 and the house is a mess. I'm going to sell it. I'm so embarrassed. And I have to clean it up before we can sell it. And now I'm the real estate agent, a little different. different than your position. So I'll say, it'd not be ashamed of. I mean, I'm 65 and I can barely

keep my stuff together and my wife. And, you know, when you're sick, you fall behind on those things. But more importantly, you know, we can sell the property as is. We don't need to clean it up. We need to, you know, get out the valuables. We need to get the keeps six. We need to be, we don't want to throw things away that we can donate and help our community. But you don't need to do that. On the realtor, I can handle that for you. So what are some of the things that people call you about, they're shamed about that you can help them that maybe the internal agent not focused on this can't really help them with. Well, I do too offer that same service.

Look for you a smile on that. For those watching, you notice that? When we are of service to people, it feels so pleasant. And she just laid up, I'm sorry, I didn't interrupt you, but I just want people to catch that, that your smile just lights up when you talk about that. How does that feel to help people more than just writing an title policy, actually helping them change their life? I love humankind.

I just love it because I understand the importance of our, of us being here. You know, we are to generate wealth, pass it from generations to generations to be fruitful, become many. I understand that and I embrace that. But when people encounter me, I'm kind of like a probate whisper a little bit. They say my spirit makes them feel at ease. So that's one of my superpowers, I guess, as well as, like I said, my kindness and my ability to be relational and relatable. Because as I stated, my father just passed as well. So I had to deal with his estate, but I made it smooth for my family and I.

And so that's what I try to bring to the table to others to let them know. I've been where you are. And I never say that I understand how you feel. You don't. I always say I can only imagine how you feel. And that helps out a lot too because they're angry that they're here. They once loved their loved one. And now they're like they left me in all this chaos.

and I didn't know that my family would act this way, you know, after my loved one has passed. So to give them, when they did not get the roadmap prior, I try to give it to them on the backside. So I want to share with you. I had a vision one time. When COVID first happened, my wife was a cancer patient. Thank God she's beat it and cancer free today. That was a couple of years ago. She was high risk

because she had to get the COVID shot as soon as it was available. And in L.A., one of the places they offered it was this huge church parking lot. When I say huge, I'm Jewish. We walked to synagogue. I belong to a large synagogue. We have 500 members. This church, like, it was like a basketball stadium.

I mean, it was ginormous. The parking lot was like Dodger Stadium's parking lot. And so they had like, I don't know, 15, 20 roads of cars like us, 20 deep, waiting in line to, get at that time COVID shots, I think it was, or COVID, I remember what it was. I remember thinking, what if the pastor said, everybody in this congregation, everybody here has to get a will, and if you have property, you got to get an estate plan, and we're going to have a line of volunteer attorneys, and just, you know, pre-fill out your basic information, hand to

the front of the line, the back line will print out, sign it, notarize it, and be on your way. How many thousand people could be right one day? Now, I know that's a long shot to make that all that happen. But if that can happen, how about you and I, Stephanie, inspire other people in real estate, other financial professionals to take a service approach to this rather than just how can I get paid and try to teach people and inspire people and encourage people open up and encourage people to be empathetic and what kind of a difference could we make if we got an army of people, 10, 15, 20 people together nationally and really talked about this issue on a regular basis. What could we do? I love it. That's my vision.

Yeah, I love it. As you will know, when we talked a few months ago, that I am blessed to even to be here because I almost lost my life to COVID. So that was an eye opener for me, not so much for me as a person. It's because I love my family. And I wanted to make sure my family was taken care of. So with that, to be candid, I didn't even have all. of my stuff together. I had a portion of it, but not all of it. So when I, it took me about six months to recover on oxygen therapy and everything. My voice, this is not my voice. This is actually COVID voice for 2021. And once I got well, I made it my mission to make sure that I spoke about this secret that we have in the community where we don't talk about it and that is so true about COVID. Imagine all the people

built that have most recently bought a home or have been in their homes and had no wills. Just imagine how that flooded the whole financial institution. I mean, not just the families, but how it impacted the whole financial institution itself. And I spoke at a lot of lunch and learn at a realtor brokerage. And I challenged them. I said, you're the first on the infantry line with your clients, you know, encourage them to say, hey, you know, I understand, you know, whatever reason you purchase in your house, be it, you know, a better school, rent too high, but look at it as a wealth multiplier, your home as a wealth multiplier, that you're walking into, you know, you're getting the keys to the kingdom. And it's hard these days

getting a home and qualifying for one. So why would you want a small technicality of not having a will to wipe out your whole generational wealth and potentially make your family homeless? Oh. So we both have our mission working on together here. And I'm glad to be part of your army or have you as part of my army, however that works. I don't know who outranks each other on this one, Maybe I'll be the West Coast Sergeant and you'll be the East Coast Sergeant on this one. So let's talk a little bit about in the title business. Do you, you know, I know here in California, I have a title, you know, different title companies and they have like a tool where I can look up my client's property profile

and see how they hold title and see, did they deed it into a trust? Did they take the deed as, you know, Marion Joe Smith? or is it say the trust of Marion Joe Smith or the Marion Joe Smith family trust? Do you have such tools that the realtors that you work with have a chance to access to check their customers? Because I say to my real estate team, find out if your customers have a trust or not. If they don't, call them up and say, hey, I just notice the public record information in your title is in your names. Have you guys not been made aware of the importance of having a family plan and usually including a trust? when you own property. Do you have

tools like that? Are there systems like that in your market area that you can help realtors with? Just like you stated, the public record is what we use. And if a realtor ask me, I'll go and look for them.

But other than that, I refer them back to the public records where they can see the deed, the prior deed, and how it's conveyed. I just look at the MLS, actually. We have a public record little tool in our MLS. I just put in the property address, boom, pulls it up,

and then I can download the profile, and it has the history right there, and I can email to the customer. Hey, congratulations. I see you in the trust, back in the trust. It looks good from where I said. You know, you might want to double check yourself, but based on my assessment, you're in good shape.

I think it's really important that we do that as agents. Let's talk a little bit about, I don't know if you get often involved with elderly and conservatorships and, you know, dementia and memory issues. Do you see more of that as part of your business as a title representative where there's questions about that or people taking steps to avoid those problems? I don't get too many elderly, but I do love them to that, literally. I actually trained or was in the process of training to be an embusment, which protects the interest of the

elderly in nursing homes as my background as I have a bachelor's in health care administration. So I do have a soft spot for our elders. But I always suggest that people have a health care surrogate as well as a power of attorney. So if they become incapacitated or there's any type of issues, with their mental being that that's done beforehand. Right. So it's not challenged. You don't want to do it while they're in that state of mind,

and then it becomes contested. But you want to do everything while you're in good health, because we're not guaranteed tomorrow, you know, and just to have to be proactive and have everything in place. I think, too, in regards to, to the probate. Another thing that wraps around that is taxes. A lot of families end up losing their homes due to tax issues.

A lot of heirs don't realize that there's a carrying cost. So once they go through the probate and the house is deeded to them, that now they step into the shoes of the homeowner. And they're responsible for everything that that homeowner was paying to keep that house running. So I talk about things like that, too, in the probate space, as well as the reverse mortgages. I did a probate foreclosure that was due to a reverse mortgage. So I recommend families to sit down and to talk about that as well. And I know they go to counselors, but the family actually needs to talk about that as well, because that is causing a lot of issues even in the probate arena.

You know, it's interesting you bring that up because on one hand, I think the reverse mortgage is such a, what is such a powerful tool. And like any tool, like a gun or an electric, you know, tool, it can be used for good or it can be very dangerous and depends on how you use it. And I think you hit the right point, which is everybody should be involved in that decision and know what's going on because it is expensive compared to a normal mortgage on one hand. The other hand, it's not expensive if you can get it and you need it and there's no other alternative and you use it properly. And so that's where, you know, the problem is one or two siblings left out of that discussion two years later. What the heck did you do? That's a terrible loan. Well, it's easy to say now back when they're facing foreclosure for not having money for taxes, they didn't have the alternatives.

Maybe the siblings would have lent them money back then. But it's easy to criticize two years later. I think that's where, again, I think you hit it right in the head that they need to all be involved in that discussion. So they understand these are complicated matters with a lot of different pieces of the puzzle. And if you understand the whole thing, you can make a good decision. But you can't. Well, anybody can have to the fact. you know, nitpick anybody, but it's, and I'm not excusing reverse mortgages and I'm not advocating

for them. I'm advocating for like any other tool. You know, be smart about it and in planning in this area, make sure you talk to everybody. So I think you really hit a good point on that one. Okay, one of our best followers, Matthew Price, auctionary, realtor said, I found people wait on a property because it has Medicaid lien against it. What advice can you give to people who might have a lien that may be scared that it will leak out. I don't know what you mean by leak out, Matthew. I think that what he's speaking to, Medicaid is a government program like Social Security for people who can't afford other insurance. And oftentimes it happens is at the end of life, they get certain health care, you know, given to them. But then when they pass, the government

sends a bill and says, oh, you pass and you have a property while we want to collect. And so there our state plans where you can deed the property, let's say, from one spouse to another or from the spouse to the trust. There's different ways to avoid that tax or that cost if you plan ahead. If you don't plan ahead, sometimes people are scared. Well, we don't want to open, we want to sell property because then the state will find out and bills for it. And I can assure you they're going to find out and they're going to bill you for it and they're going to get paid just how it is. So I don't know if that answers your question. But I would say to any family, Medicaid liens is, yes, it's a problem once somebody's passed, but it's just another reason why we should plan ahead because you can qualify for Medicaid and still own the property and still provide for the surviving spouse or kids without losing everything.

Do you have experience with Medicaid liens, Stephanie? We do come across Medicaid liens, and any governmental lien is tricky because they want their money. money. That's the government. So trying to negotiate with them in order for the family to have money left is normally I've seen them by the attorney. The property that I just most recently did, it had a Medicaid lien on it. So the attorney, of course, all the funds from the sale of the property was put into the attorney's trust, and then they will negotiate that Medicare lien down with the government. You know, I had a private case where the attorney had several continuances and what should

have been a six-month credit period. The public was open for about a year. And towards the end, the lien popped up. Now, I don't know if the state was watching and got it in under the wire. I suspect they might have been backlogged because of COVID and so many things going on. And I was tell everybody in a probate, the faster you can open it and get it ready to close, the better. There's nothing good that happens. So the day you open a probate, there was nothing good that happens until you close the probate.

Everything else in between is going to cost you money, time, effort, or energy. And sometimes you might miss a lien, which means you're good. The court is sanctioning. You have to pay it. That's what the point of the probate is, is to limit those things. So that's another reason to move as quickly you can. Matthew also points out, best series ever, Who Gets Grandma's Yellow Pie Plate?

Not familiar with it? I'll take your word for it, but I will tell a little story. My mom, her mother, passed away when she was quite young, and my grandfather remarried. And my mother's stepmother, she called her stepmonster. And they hated her. Hated, there was some physical abuse involved. It was really bad.

My mother's mother had these lustres they were called. And when her mother passed away, my grandfather was going to move from Philadelphia where my mother raised to California, where my mother and her brother had moved. And my mother was so mad about her stepmother. she kind of stopped having a relationship with her father as well over it. She felt so bad. And she and my uncle were always fighting about these lusters. Who were they?

His, hers, his, hers, from her mother. Of course, anything from your mother who passes when you're young would be sentimental. And I remember as a kid when my grandfather finally showed up and he kind of made his peace piece with my mother. And my uncle and my mother got along. And he went to his car to bring these lusters out there. They were just like these things. they were, you know, maybe a foot long,

these kind of crystal little decorative, something you might put in a dining table or in a hutch behind your dining set. They were nice. I'm thinking, all this time you're yelling with these lusters, that's it? You would have thought they were talking about the royal jewels of the United Kingdom, the way they fought about these lesters.

Be honest, if I had them and we were moving, I would just give them a way to get rid of them. But it's amazing how sentimental these things come. And so I think the point is, you plan ahead or else you're going to live out these emotional issues after the fact and they're going to phone over nonsense. Okay. And Jenny is saying our chat's like a well orchestrated symphony.

Well, Jenny, I'm glad you guys are having fun on the chat on Facebook. I'm glad to see us going on. That's fantastic. Okay. So another question I wanted to ask you about. So let's step out now of the probate and inspiring families and title, I guess. Well, let me get this, let's finish up my title. So what, who is your customer, is your customer?

Is your customer of the family? Is your customer of the attorney? Is your customer the real estate attorneys like I know in Florida you guys have? We call escrow officers. Is your customer of the realtors? Who's the customer of your service? And what do you do to help them specifically? In addition to this mission we have, what's kind of your probate title functionality look like? So my customers are everyone literally that you just named. And what I do is besides, tideling, what makes me also unique is that we offer a state education and title clearance education. So we hold the workshops for the communities. I also host them at the first-time homebuyer courses. I've done it twice for the city of Tampa, and I've also hosted one

alongside Bank of America. So with that, I'm trying to get in at the beginning to make people aware of what it will look like if they were to pass, what their property would go through and what their family would go through if they passed without something without an estate plan. Not good.

Well, you love to have like, like, the movie It's a Wonderful Life where the man sees his life as if he had never lived and he realized the contribution he made so that he goes back and he's happy to be himself. Can you imagine if you could take a family who owns a house and has a couple of kids

if you could put them in the probate court where their kids fighting over and then put him back in a real life they're going to say, where's the forms? I'll sign right now. They'll kill you to get that estate plan put together, right? Absolutely. Absolutely.

And I also speak to the realtors about it. So most title agents talk about, you know, title commitments, what they are. But I talk about the tangled title issues and how they could mention this to their clients ahead of time. And some title agents, I'm sorry, and some realtors are actually excited about it as well. Because it's like, oh, my God, I experienced that, you know, with my family or whatnot. So I'm excited to be a part of all of the community wealth building that we're having. We're having another seminar here, April 13th at one of the public libraries.

And I'll be there alongside one of our Florida representatives to discuss the importance of estate planning. But I'm going to tell you this. I attended a Airs Property Conference. via Zoom held by Boston Law College. And this is such an issue bill to the point that the HAC partnered with Fannie Mae to do their own quantitative findings of air, how it's affecting the residential air property is how it's affecting the residential arena. And that's when you know it's a problem when you have Fannie Mae.

May, you know, and even Wells Fargo did their own control study as well. They brought that out in that meeting as well. And it was, it was breathtaking that the world is seeing that this is such an issue. And this affordable housing, you know, if we were able to keep individuals, these heirs in their homes, we can preserve affordable housing. Well, not to argue with you, or either keep them in the homes, great, or how about make it so that their heirs who don't want to live in that house could sell it to the next family who can move in and fix up and make it a nicer home and bring more tax revenue and create jobs for rehabilitation

instead of the home sitting there kind of lost in stuck in the mud. One of the things I find, particularly in lower income neighborhood, which have enough trouble. You know, let's throw some more problems in there. Let's throw them in on top of crime and tough economies and this. Let's throw in title-related problems. So even people who want to sell houses, can't sell them. And then you have squatters come in those houses.

You've got crime coming in those houses. And now you've, and that's why at probate, I did with so many of these issues at once. Because once you start the spiral down, it's easy to go down in getting it back up is so hard. And I think I just feel like the cities and the banks and Fannie Mae are really missing this enormous opportunity to improve our communities. And again, I don't know, you know, personally, I think it's nice to be able to age in your home. It's my home and I like my neighborhood and I want to be here.

But by the same token, if I pass, I don't want my kids to be stuck with it because they can't figure out how to unprobate it. They, you know, they should be able to cash it out and let the next family move in that wants to be here. and hopefully maybe improve the property to make it nicer. So it goes both ways. Yeah, or either, you know, we have a couple of realtors here that are hosting, they're reaching out to their former homebuyers that have been in their home for many of years that have equity and having a discussion about, you know, let's see what we can do with your equity.

Do you want to invest it in anything? You don't want to start a business. Do you want to buy other properties? So we're really trying to give the community some ideas as to how to preserve and then how to grow wealth instead of just dying without a will. Your children only inherit your debts. And the capital is dead capital at that time. No one can access it. So, you know, it's not like the house would be preserved while you go through probate.

Probate is just slowly, you know, becoming dilapidated and affecting your family as well as your neighborhood stability. And I guess as more of an issue, you're in Florida. You know, we are on a mission to destroy our real estate market here where now we have immigrants coming in, squatting in houses, and we have organized bands of criminals coming in in houses. And so when you have a house that is, there's a recent case here where a family, not mine, but a probate and they're getting ready to close escrow. And right before close of escrow, squatters move in. And here's buyers with everything in moving vans and the families get ready to collect on the money. And the whole thing comes to a grinding halt. And it could be six months to a year to remove squatters.

So again, there's nothing good that happens from the day you open probate to the day it closes. and that includes selling the property. And anything we do to expect that, I think, helps everybody. So one of the areas that, the other reason I really was excited when I first reached out to you and I've only enjoyed it more since is kind of the marketing focus. You know, there's probably only, you know, 100,000 total reps in America. You know, if I say, what do you do in that area? Whatever you define that job, there's a bunch of you.

To my knowledge, you're the only one that really identifies herself. for himself specifically in probate. Not that you only do that. I'm sure if I called you with a regular resale that need an insurance, you'd be glad to help me out with that, but that you're doing your business development and you use that for your marketing. I notice on your website it's on there.

I notice on your LinkedIn you talk about your probate. I know she also did a book. If I remember correctly, that's on your website. I did it. On wealth, right? But all that comes from the focus as a probate title agent. So talk a little bit. I know some realtors are scared if they were to

take on that title, does that eliminate other business you might get otherwise? How is that titling helped you or does it hurt you also as far as building your business? Good question. Because I do specialize in that I also do regular titling. But there was a need for the probate title and aspect of it. I've heard countless times, I even had a realtor transfer over a case to me because the title agent was not compassionate enough to her client. So in order, and we got it through the, through the process. So I can be transactional when need be, but that doesn't change my baseline of me being kind, consistent. you know, affectionate, but I know that there are like little kids over here, like little

orphan kids that need more attention. That's what that probate does. It gives more attention. So yes, if you want to close your regular title business with me, absolutely. But if you want to make sure that, you know, there's a probate and you want to make sure that your client is only treated like the only client there is on earth that they get that full, you know, undivided attention and relationship building, then you can do that with me as well. But it has been challenging because people think that I only do probate titling, but I also do regular title work as well. Within the probate space, do you have particular vendors you work with more consistently,

certain title attorneys, I think you would call them in Florida? Do you have particular attorneys that you work with to help with the probate counseling and process as well for people get tangled title issues and need some help with that? No, I am open to the public. So whoever needs me, I am there. There's really no exclusive. I don't have any exclusivity with anyone. It's just if you need my help and I have that capacity to do it, I will do it. But going the other way, if I said to you, who do I use for my,

you know, real estate title attorney, is there particular ones that you work with or have had, you know, are you able to recommend for the right case, you know, based on where you are, this would be the right person to work with you with on? Yes. I do have a couple that I work with and that I would recommend if warranted. They share the same value, the same mission, and we have the same vibe. So, yes. Attorneys as well?

Do you have particular attorneys that you? you are able to refer people to, they're looking at legal questions? Yes. Yeah. I think that's important too that I tell people, you know, it's also, as a realtor, it's also with like mortgage companies. I work with a lot. Now, most of them are any good. So I have a big list of people who are no good. I have a small list of people who are really good. But importantly, let's find the right one for you on this particular case. And that could depend on what county you're in, depend on your situation, the amount of assets we're talking about. So that can vary for quite a bit. So what do you do from a, I know you're speaking a lot, and I know you're working with one of my good friends, Melanie Hans, the probate nurse.

So what do you do for business development? Do you have a particular plan of action or certain set of activities regularly or how do you handle the activities to build your business? Well, like you said, I do a lot of speaking. I do a lot of networking. go to a lot of the elderly programs that they have to vendor meetups, and people get intrigued by the probate title name. So I get to do all those things to promote myself. And one of the things you have is a book,

and I want to make sure that we put the link up there for somebody's interested. The book is Maytock. Talk a little bit about that. Yeah. So the book is a financial literacy book that is geared towards the Bipop community. It talks about the, you know, with all things come with change, right? So with that, you have to have a changed mind. So with the changed mind, you can.

Oh, whoa, hold on now. That was a nugget. We just ran right by that. One more time. One more time. Can I think you said that before? Go ahead. Oh, yeah.

So everything comes with a changed mind. So you have to change. You can't go into something new with an old mindset. It just doesn't work. It's just like putting a peg into a square space. It won't fit. So when you want to invoke change, it first has to begin within you. You have to be sick and tired of being sick and tired of something.

And only you can make that change. I can talk about it all day long and want that change for you. But until you realize that you have that accountability about it. yourself and say, you know what, I really need to make this change in order to get to the next level, then that's what you do. So that's what we're talking about in the financial literacy book, is that first you have to change your mindset. You have to gain this relationship with money and understand that money is a tool. We talked about tools earlier. We're given tools all the time. Time is even a tool. Some people say, well, Stephanie, time isn't a tool. But it is. If you, if you

understand time early enough and let's say you start investing over time your money will grow you know but if you don't use your time wisely then the time becomes like that oh my god you know i got the rush i got the rush but you know time is a tool as well so with that we talk about the money mindset we talk about how to grow leverage and protect your money because we're really trying to make a difference in our communities. According to a recent study, by 2053, African Americans wealth may dwindle to zero. Yes, and at this time, 77% of African Americans

do not have a will, and 82% of the Hispanics do not have a will. So with that, we're losing out. You know right now we're in that, great generational wealth transfer that's over, what, $84 trillion? Well, we're going to miss out because we don't have that roadmap or that tool, which is the estate plan, to help our family to get through that process. We're just- We're not going to miss out. We might miss out.

We'll miss out if you and I do our job. Absolutely. And we get our colleagues to do their job, and we can inspire the rest of our industry to do its job, which is how can you be in this business and look around your neighborhood and watch that wealth just trickle through the fingers of the families into the hands of attorneys and courts and speculators and all that. How can you let that happen? And so I don't mean to argue with you, but I have determined not to let it happen at least as much as I can push it. Oh, me too. I know you are.

I know you are. You said it was mindset. So I just said I'd interrupt you and say, you know, the wealth number, I haven't heard that one. But I can see, I mean, I watch that happening every day. And I don't, I know that people, you know, it'd be delicate. I mean, people of the African American community want attorneys as such, want realtors as such. I get it. You know, it's always easier to deal with people from your community, from your culture.

But at the same time, I watch them not doing the job. Like the results just aren't happening. And so I have to call on, you know, people of the community. We need to say, listen, we need to get these plans going. We need to get people into wills. We need to get people in the state plans. Yeah, I might be an older white guy, but come on, let's get with the program. Absolutely.

Absolutely. So I have a goal is to host a will clinic, hopefully, if not August, no later than November of this year, where I will, you know, get sponsors and partnerships. in place, invite the community out, talk about the importance of estate planning, and then and there we'll start writing some wills and putting things in place. Or at least get the input sheet done, right? At least if you need certain fields, let's get going. Like right now, stop.

You know, I don't have that. I guess that's what I need to look for somebody who has that input sheet to say, let's right now, download the form or hit this button, fill the information, and send it to this attorney or the service or whatever it is. legal shield, whoever, let's get an action on this thing. Like, there's no time to waste. There's trillions of dollars changing hands. It's just trillions, trillions of dollars.

And then what happens is probate becomes so complex because it's not just your mother and your dad. Well, let's say you have siblings and then one of your siblings passed. Well, now it's going to go down to your siblings kids. You know, it starts going deeper and deeper just like a tree. with roots. And so that's where the money comes in. Or let's say you live in a home and it's not properly deeded. And it just keeps passing along. Someone lives and it dies. Someone lives in it and dies. And then someone finally decides to want to sell it. Well, probate is needed and it needs

to go back, you know, two or three, you know, generations because it was never transferred properly. And that's where you come into the thousands with the COVID. So. Okay, Steph, let's get busy. You can have that workshop when, October? Either August or November of this year. So I'm working alongside with some individuals now, trying to solidify it, trying to get some banks on board so they can see the benefit of it as well.

You would think the banks would be on board with us, like because they want the money in the bank. They don't want the money squarred away. You would think these big banks would be totally supportive. Yeah, the banks don't want your house. People, you know, people think, oh, the bank want to have. No, they don't. They don't want the house.

Give me a cash. Yeah, for even the taxes. The tax authority doesn't want your house. They just want the money so they can continue to take care of the community, you know, the libraries, the police officers, you know, the community. So that's all they want is the money. Politicians need their vacations, their hair done, their nails done, paying money, their girlfriends. a boyfriend. Well, not in Florida, I guess.

Florida, you guys play straight in California. The politicians, man, they live the life. So, Bill, stop. So that's really, I tell people, I'm like, they don't want your property. They just want, you know, the money, so they'll be able to continue to sustain our communities. Okay, well, look, Stephanie,

always a pleasure to chat with you. It's just, you're just a real treat. I, you know, I often ask myself before I start the question, what's the goal here? What am I trying to do? What am I trying to get across? Because often with attorneys is something very specific or technical. With you, I just like to hang with you. It's just, we have a fun time.

So I just do appreciate so much your positive outlook and the joy you bring to the business, the mission. I think you also challenge me and challenge us to up our game to be customer focused and understand that we're the mission to complete. And we're working on it. We're not done yet today. So let's keep working on it together. Okay. All right.

Sounds like a plan. So thanks again to Stephanie. Thank you for being on the call today. As always, make today your best day ever. Thank you, everybody.