KGCI: Real Estate on Air - What Are Fiduciary Services?

Episode Date: February 20, 2025

And we're going to live stream this to YouTube. Let's see if we can do this. There's a current. Okay, welcome to Probate Weekly on Bill Grouse. At Bill Gross Probate and social media. And Bill Gross Probate, if you want to find my website. And welcome to Probate Weekly, which is a... Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa.

Let's get the volume up for that. Technology, man. It's always something. So we do this every Thursday morning live at 9 a.m. time and we live stream it onto YouTube but you come out on the Zoom call and if you're interested in the Zoom can register at probateweekly.com www.com if you do that you get reminders and advice to the YouTube replays as well as opt to come in on the Zoom live and the reason we do the Zoom live is as I

coach real estate agents in this space and even attorneys about making their own content as well as doing business development talking to people as critical skill. It's a critical activity. And so the idea here is that we have guests here for her life. We could do this easily on another format, but I do this so you guys can ask questions. So if you have questions, you want to ask our guests or me, raise your hand in the chat box using the Zoom hand-raised tool or put a note in there in the chat box or if you're brave, just unmute yourself and jump in and we'll work it in when we can. I see Karen camera off and mute it, unless she's ready to jump in there. Karen, whenever you're ready, we're ready for you. There she is. There we are with

a big smile. So really excited today to have our guest, Karen Stiles, and Karen is a professional fiduciary with Lawson fiduciary services. And I think one of the things we have opportunities here that we don't talk about in probate is because the probate real estate industry is dominated by companies to sell data, they just sell us to people who have already filed probate, which are either going to be attorneys. So I told you a cool call attorneys, that's a tough road. or families who've already filed probate, who decided they don't need help, and you try to talk them into it.

And there's some value there. But I think as you go up the food chain, you look for people who have problems, people with bigger assets have bigger problems, and oftentimes those families or those attorneys are hiring professionals to help them with fiduciary services along the way. And so one of those professionals I've come across,

and we've interviewed our channel before. We had a great discussion. I invited it back is Karen Stiles with Lawson Financial. Karen, thank you so much for joining us today. Thanks for having me. A little background. How did you end up in fiduciary services? Yeah, good question.

It's kind of a niche career, and it wasn't very widely known about. Obviously, we're coming into a different time with a lot of baby boomers and a lot of wealth transfer, so it's becoming more popular now. but it started for me as a family gig. And my cousin started the company almost 30 years ago. And someone just kind of mentioned it to her. You know, you should try this. And then my sister joined and I joined when I graduated college.

I left to go get my CPA license and I came back. My CPA license, Devils is a fiduciary license. and I've been back with the company for many years, but it's a, you know, it's a, you do have to be pretty well-rounded. You know, it's a lot of finance. It's a lot of, you have to know some real estate, you have to know tax, you have to know finance and insurance, but then you also have to sometimes care for, you know, individuals while they're alive. So, so that's, that's, that's, that's how I got into it. And it's just kind of, you know, I love all of those things.

Sounds weird, but so I stuck with it. You can't help but notice we go to the website, Lassen fiduciary.com. We have a link to the chop box to find out there about Karen. You're going to scroll past Kelsey, who looks amazingly like and has the same last name. So I knew there's some nepotism in there somehow along the way, but good for you. it must be fun to work with your sister. Yeah, sister and cousin.

And then we also have another set of sisters in the office. Wow. We tend to hire people that are close to us. And so it's a really, there are 14 of us now. We happen to be all women. And, you know, I guess the best referral is word of mouth. And sometimes that happens to be a sibling. So what's the most common trust or trust?

state or situation that you match. What's the most, I mean, I'm sure there's a wide range. And I know the nature of businesses, there's a wide range. But if you were trying to summarize, what's the most common size, the most common scenario that you get involved with? Yeah, yeah. I mean, you're right. It's very such a wide variety.

You know, we, the three of us are also on the court list. So we do, we, we get conservorships. And I think everyone knows what a conservorship is now because of Britney Spears. So we work with those. So, you know, that could be just a wide range of either issues or financial levels. I would say the majority of our clients, you know, we're on the peninsula in the Bay Area. And if you have a house, it's over a million. So I would say, you know, for asset level wise, it's, you know, probably about $4 million.

and we also choose, you know, we're a pretty established firm. You know, we have, we're larger than most. And so we don't take a lot of clients that we won't be the most efficient for. You know, we're more than happy to talk to people and point them in the right direction. But we're also not the least expensive. So sometimes it's just not efficient for us to take clients that don't have. have over a million or two million. Not saying that we won't.

We, you know, we are, we like to hear stories and, and talk to people. So there's always that route. But most are, you can be, you can get into a trust many different ways. One is the actual grantors, the people making the trust write you in. You know, they see this happening. They don't have kids. Their kids are not. financially savvy, they live out of state. They see what's coming and they plan for themselves

and they write us into their trust and then we don't talk to them for many years. And when we're needed, we step in. Another route that happens frequently. Unfortunately, is that a child is the trustee. And as soon as that happens, very common between siblings that all of a sudden you're not brother and sister anymore, sister and sister. You are trustee and beneficiary. So that relationship, can change and cause a lot of turmoil, especially when there's any already, you know, wounds from the past. A lot of the times there's fighting, very expensive fighting, and instead of continuing that fighting, their settlement is really to ask a third party to come in and administer, so we do that. And then a lot of vacancy, so a lot of people in their trust name, their brother,

their sister, their cousin, their neighbor, all of whom are the same age as them. And when you do that, you're kind of making a gamble, you know, who is going to be alive last? And if you're the same age, if you're 80 and you need someone to help you and your neighbor's also 80, are they going to want to do it? Are they able to do it? Are you able? Yeah. And so a lot of the times, you know, we've been named fourth in line in a trust, you know, really just as a backup, backup.

And we've gotten called because of that reason. And so, yeah, so a lot of times there can be a vacancy in that trustee position, which is when we can step in also. So as a finisher, your job is, you know, no different than the executive ministry. You're playing the role of that person, right? You're stepping in for them and doing the work for them. And so, you know, we call this probate weekly, but really probate in California is where trust are litigated and conservatorships are litigated and

guardianships. So I pick that term to kind of be more broad. And so when you are stepping in and taking in, what are the most common duties? I mean, how, for example, what percent of the time is there real estate that needs to be disposed of, for example, maybe the decedent's residence or investment properties that need to be disposed as opposed to properties are held for continued investment? Almost every case. You know, there are occasionally, for example, I just, I had a trust where most of the property was distributed in kind, so we didn't have to sell it.

It went outright to a beneficiary. So occasionally that will happen. Sometimes, especially if there's more than one child, that's not always the greatest choice because of difference in values and keeping it even, if that's what the parent wants to do. So I would say, I mean, I would say 99% of our clients have real estate. And unless a child wants to buy out the other children, then we do have to sell it and liquidate it. So it's, it is almost every case. You know, it's at different times. So obviously when we have clients that are living and we don't sell their properties right out from under them, unless it's

Absolutely necessary. When spouses, other ones still alive, they want to stay in the house most commonly. Right, right, right. So, you know, it comes in time. It's not, you know, we get on and sell, but we do many real estate transactions. And I want to give you an estimate per year, but I don't even know what that is. Okay. So I imagine some of your business comes from real estate related people, whether they're the customer or a real estate-related people, whether they're the customer or a real estate,

agent, reduce the customer to them, and you can respect that relationship. Other times, there's no relationship identified. And in those cases, does the customer tell you, oh, we want to use Betty Boop the realtor? Or do you say, you know, this is kind of a specialized business? We want to have somebody that we know can do the job properly. And you recommend somebody or I imagine as a combination of those two. Yeah, you're right. So I'm selling a house right now and the client, the beneficiary is involved and he found the realtor and he wanted to use her. And then I kind of do the vetting. You know, I make sure she's legitimate.

And I also get, we always get more than one proposal. So for every real estate transaction, you know, we do, we have at least two or three realtors give us their proposal. But if a client does have a realtor in mind, we definitely put them in with those proposals. and we want to use someone that they want to use. So as long as that realtor is legitimate and we feel comfortable with that, then we will use them. Most of the time beneficiaries are not that heavily involved in the administration. And so we do use realtors.

What's important to us is that the realtor is mostly in that area. You know, they really do specialize in certain areas. And we've had just some issues with, you know, Southern California realtors that were hired to be sell something up here. And it just hasn't worked out that smoothly. And that's really, we didn't hire them. They were, you know, already there. But so we tend to find somebody, you know, word of mouth,

someone local in that area or at least willing to. to do the work and the research to be there. What does a proposal that you like, or what would you like to see in a proposal, and what kinds of things you see are unnecessary or detrimental in a proposal from a real estate agent applying for the job to sole property? Yeah, that's a good question.

I'm happy you asked it. It's, you know, for us, it's important. You know, we just need to be aware. You know, what if all of a sudden, we're selling the house and we're told, oh, you need to spend $50,000 putting lipstick on it. Like, well, we didn't, you know, decide on that when we were selling it or, you know, when we were getting the proposals.

So we just want to be aware. What do you think needs to be done to the property? You know, do we really need to do a kitchen remodel? We don't really do that much anymore. Or does it just need some lipstick? And what are the estimated costs? I would also, you know, quotes or estimates for, what we're going to spend on those things is very helpful. We have people, you know, in-house

that can do that hourly. So it's nice for us to compare. And obviously, you know, the realtor taking more of that off of our hands is, is wonderful. So that's something, you know, disclosure about pricing to fix it up or get it ready to sell, whether they think it needs to be staged. also their their fees, you know, their percentage, what it should be listed at and why, you know, different comparables. And then also what it's listed at, but also what our goal price is. You know, and so why is that the price? So those are some some items. And the comparables are really important to us because we do we do look at those and and you know some houses are hard to compare so just doing the best that that we can so just to kind of go dig a little deeper on

a cost of fix up property you know i i know there's the common school thought is most we'll talk about staging and fixing things up and and painting and as though that's going to get And it will get a higher gross sales price. My question always is, will it net you more money? And also, if you account for the time, if the asset is off the market for 30 days or longer, you know, there's also, you're paying your taxes, insurance, risking squatters, and just sitting there as a debt asset. And so I generally tell customers, there's nothing besides securing the property and safety

that will really net you more, net, net, net, bottom line. Now, I'm in the minority on that. So go ahead and tell me the opposite or what you see. When have you seen cases where it made sense to do more than, say, just secure the property, clean the property up, make it safe? When have you seen times when more than that? And staging is another one in particular that a lot of realtors will point to the headline of an article says, oh, staging, get you more money.

But when you read the headline or read the article, really it just says staging in that study is about taking out trash and putting things away. It doesn't talk about bringing furniture and paying for it. So I'm just curious where you are on that. I know that you're doing with hiring customers. And they're more susceptible to the, well, we want a house look pretty, I think, fallacy. Yeah.

I actually don't disagree with you. But I think it does highly depend on the property. And the timing. You know, sometimes like right now, we needed to sell a house right now. We're not going to list it right now. We have three weeks or so to list it after the new year. And so we do have a little bit of time to get it ready if we needed to. With that being said, between the realtor and us, you know, this is our full-time job. We're not a typical customer who has a nine to five and then is doing this in their spare time. You know,

we're involved. So we can normally get things. done very quickly between the realtor and our office. So having the house off the market, you know, for the 30 days or the two months, you know, that's normally not an issue. You know, we, we have a plan with the realtor also something to put in the proposal when it should be listed. And so that, that doesn't worry me. And then it just totally depends on the house. you know, I'll give some examples. You know, we just sold a house that quite literally didn't have a roof on it. And we've sold a house that was pigeon infested or, you know, just a really dilapidated houses.

Those are fun. It's not fun. But, you know, when that, when there are scenarios like that, we know someone's just going to come in and wipe the whole thing out. And so we're not going to waste time or money doing anything to it. it. And then there are other, you know, the most common is, you know, an elderly person who lives in their house and doesn't have the same style as, as everybody else. And I think realtors may, you know, the ones that I've talked to that we've done this for, and myself, you know, buying a house and selling houses, you know, people don't have that great of imaginations. And so when you do

deliver a property to them that's severely outdated. It's hard for people to imagine what they can do with it. And so I do think lightening it up sometimes, you know, if there's, you know, we had a house with bright pink walls and pink carpet and popcorn ceiling, that does lower the value a little bit. And so for us to be able to get all that out and done in two days to make it look so much brighter and bigger and, you know, the perception of the property to buyers, I think that is beneficial. But you're right, you know, cost benefit. How much does it cost? And how much, you know, are we going to get for it? But I do think, and, you know, the more offers we have, the more we can let them, you know, fight against each other. So I do think it's important to get those offers.

and when the house, you know, looks better, looks bigger, looks brighter, and gives people the ability to imagine what they can do with it, I think that we'll get more bids. So in turn, I think that could turn out well. But again, every property is very different. You hit spot on with the, you know, with people living there or vacant homes. You know, it is really dangerous, especially for us, we have a super high liability issue in our business. And, you know, if you have just regular homeowners insurance and nobody's living there, that is not sufficient. You know, you do have to have a vacant home policy.

And this is really important. And I think most, you know, non-professional fiduciaries or, you know, people selling houses don't necessarily think of this. And that's, it's a lot more expensive than just a normal homeowners. probably for that reason, you know, squatters, people know that you're not there. They can go and steal. So that is definitely a little bit more expensive and a good tip for clients. You know, just make sure that people tell their insurance brokers or insurance agent that the home is vacant.

And switch it to a vacant home policy for however one you need. Right. Otherwise, you're asking for trouble. In California today, you're really asking for trouble. Real quick, let's do some housekeeping real quick just to make sure everybody knows where we're at. This is probate weekly. We do this every Thursday at 9 a.m. Pacific Time and 12 noon each time. We live stream it on YouTube.

Oops, that's my spot there. We live streaming this as well onto YouTube. Then we'll broadcast it on Facebook and LinkedIn as well. And then you continue a conversation on Facebook. We have a Facebook group called also Probate Weekly where not only can you ask questions and we'll answer them. but you can also post your content. And here's an example, Kevin Bemel is one of our favorites where he'll post, it reads another one,

they'll post their YouTube videos that are related to probate and trust real estate. And that way we can help each other get more views and engage the conversation. He has all kinds of great questions and answers to go on there. You can register at www.probateweekly.com and just put in your phone number if you want, text reminders, put in your phone number

and you'll get invited to the Zoom call we went to as well as the live stream for YouTube, Facebook, and LinkedIn on the replay. If you scroll down, you can also catch us in other audio formats, as well as to see the past episodes on YouTube. Our guest today is with Lawson fiduciary services. We'll put in the chat box, Lawson fiduciary.com is the website. And then if you go to find her on the, and you scroll down, suspiciously, what? They look alike and they got the same last name.

What's going on here? I suspect some nepotism. Of course, it is. It's your sister. So there you go. So thank you for being on today, Karen. So let's talk about obviously there's real estate and what I kind of call the world of regular real estate, right? There's marketing the real estate. There's preparing the real estate. There's, you know, evaluating it price-wise. But there's also occasionally, and not every case, and I would say in a minority, specialized real estate contracts, skills, information related to probate and trust real estate. That happens in my particular area. Now, I deal more with probate cases and litigation. And I know that's not the majority of your cases. You're not always getting litigation. But I'm sure you come across them.

So talk a little bit about what types of cases do you think need somebody with some special, a real estate agent made with some special knowledge or understanding, or do you just assume they're not going to have it and you fill in the void with the attorney? Um, a little, good question, a little bit of both. Um, you know, I think where it makes a difference for us is, uh, when having somebody that's familiar with, with selling a house, you know, with a trustee or a fiduciary, um, kind of the administrative side and really, you know, us and the attorney and the real estate agent work together, but it's really helpful when the real estate agent has done that before or knows what's involved.

involved. You know, sometimes in probates, escrow for title companies will require notice of proposed actions. And, you know, knowing up front or at least having the, the realtor ask the escrow or title company if they were going to need that is super helpful. I'm in the process of selling one right now, and the realtor has done some work for us in the past, and he reached out to me and said, I'm going to ask the title. So just so we don't have any issues, you know, it's going to be an all cash offer. This is the one with no roof on it. And so instead of accepting an offer that's a 10-day close, if we do need a NOPA, you know, we need time to send that out and have it verified. So he did all of that up front. And when we were accepting offers,

we said, okay, we cannot close until, you know, we need a 20-day close. So even an offer, or with 10 day clothes, we said, we need 20. And obviously they may not care. But, you know, so knowing things on the legal side, and a lot of that comes just with experience, you know, that's super helpful. Also in the titling, you know, I think a lot of people in general, not just real estate agents, but a lot of people don't understand what a trust is

or an estate. And so, you know, signing my name, you know, Carnstiles trustee of blah, blah, blah, trust, or, you know, special administrator, administrator, executor, you know, what those titles are and what should actually be on the listing agreement on all the signing documents. And obviously we, you know,

we look at everything we're signing so we can correct it if we'd be. but having someone knowing what documents they're looking at and also knowing what documents are going to be needed at title. You know, looking at the title report and are there any nuances? You know, we had an old loan from 1983 on this title report that luckily, you know, they researched and found before, you know, we needed to close again. Just so that there are no hiccups. So I would say, you know, learning about.

about what a trust versus a will versus probate, special administrator, you know, all of those terms kind of mean, just to have a general understanding is a little bit helpful. And then and then the paperwork needed, which mostly the attorney deals with, but even having a, you know, you know, we, we have a lot of clients going on and sometimes we forget too. But, you know, checking the paperwork and making sure that our name is actually on the house, right, on the title, because a lot of the times we get on and the county has not processed the change in ownership. And so making sure that those documents aren't putted in the escrow package. And I think that's actually really common.

You know, I got on to a case in September and now we're selling the house. Well, the county obviously hasn't, you know, processed that paperwork to add my name. So just making sure all of that is readily available. So there's a lot to impact if I can just go back a little bit for those who may not be in California and familiar with it or those in California not familiar. She used to Nopa and notice a proposed action. So in a property in California, you have two types. Limit authority needs the court to prove it, very structured process, very detailed process, about 10% of cases when there's either limited authority or litigation require the court to prove it. those that don't where they have full authority, you still need to, in many cases, send out

a notice proposed action to all interested parties so that they have a chance to object. And this is a mispoint oftentimes. People know that has to get done. And so they'll have the property into the last minute, oh, we forgot to send out the Nopa. And as Kerm points out, either you have to wait 10 days for it to expire. You notice them properly, hopefully, and then you wait 10 days and follow the court. Or worse, they might say, no, I object. You sung it too cheap.

You sung it to my brother's friend. And I think we're getting ripped off here. Now you have a whole big problem. And so you need to know that process. So the notice of proposed action is really critical to strategize. How do you want to do it? When do you want to send it out? Is everybody on board with this?

Or is there somebody lurking this going to cause a problem? And that's why speed is important. She also mentioned about the title report. And I think it's best practice for any real estate agent in California. Every tile company will allow us to order the preliminary title report. as soon as we list the property. There's no excuse for not getting it and getting to work on it right away.

I think she points out, every actual company wants to wait to the last second to clear everything. And the problem is that last second might take them a week or two to clear it versus if we get the prelim up front, hey, what's this 1983 mortgage? It's been paid off.

Let's get started on it now and get the documents that we do that. And the last year, she pointed out, again, I'm sorry to pack here, but you're just, you're so full of good information. knowing the titles, I think real estate agents, we just don't take the time to realize importance as a distinction between executor, which means you're written in the will to execute the will, administrator, which means you're not, but you're filing to do the will of the state,

trust these special administrators, another term. And I think that when you use the right term, you show the other professionals like the fiduciary that you take this seriously. And there's just no excuse not to. I mean, it's on a piece of paper somewhere, and it doesn't change really during the course, generally speaking, do the course of transactions. So I think it's important to learn the right term and then make sure your documents have that right term,

Joe Smith, comma, special administrator, Joe Smith, comma, you know, executor of such and such a state. So she points out some great stuff there. And again, Karen, I just feel like you're giving some great goal to her and make sure we all pick up the nuggets and knows what they are. What would you say is the biggest mistake

that you've seen a real estate agent who works with your firm, maybe they're brought in by the customer or maybe you pick them, you know, unwittingly and what or the most common mistakes that you see that real estate agents make that you think that they should be able to avoid with some proper training or preparation? You know, I feel really lucky that I don't know that we've come across too many mistakes. Yep, you know, I think that comes in part by, one, the real estate agent being professional and And then, too, us as a backup that do it quite often.

And so, gosh, I think, you know, and it's hard because a lot of the things that go wrong in the transaction is not necessarily, not always the real estate's fault. You know, it's because we didn't know there was a loan on the title or, you know, something like that. So, you know, I can't even think of some major issues. I think the only, you know, service issue that we've had is, is that real estate agents maybe because we are there and we can pick up the slack and they work with us a lot and it's our job. I think sometimes they assume that we can just do it. and, and, you know, for us, it's a business also.

And the less time we spend, the less time we need to pay our employee to go do this for you. Right. Or for the sale is better for us. So I'd say making it as easy as possible on the client. I mean, that's, you know, this is your service. This is what you're getting paid for. You know, that's very helpful. And sometimes we are relied on.

It's our job too. And we need to kind of remind realtors, well, no, wait a minute. We are paying you for this. So, you know, meeting, like we've been asked to meet, meet people there with the key. We've been asked. Wow. And it's not our job to show the property, right? And even, you know, handing off the keys to the other realtor, all of those things because someone was on vacation.

you know, that is something that, and I think it's hard because we're not a typical client. You know, this is our job and it's not necessarily a personalized property for us. But just keeping that in mind, you know, you are getting paid just the same. And we do expect the same, if not better, service. And, you know, although we can be relied on in times of an emergency where something really needs to happen and we're quick, we get it done. you know, we don't want to. You know, we do expect to, I guess we have high expectations.

You know, we do expect to hire somebody that can do the best job for us and not necessarily making us step in. Again, real quick reminder that if you're interested asking questions, raise your hand in the Zoom chat or put it in the chat box. You guys are awfully quiet these days. The whole reason we move from a video format on YouTube to Zoom was, I think as a coach, you guys need to participate more and ask questions to get a chance to meet professionals like this. I think it would be hard to get a chance to meet with Karen in person

and that's where we have this call today. So feel free, you know, we're going to enter our last segment here. So, you know, towards that Karen, you know, I asked about the mistake. I think, you know, you really point out something that I experienced as well, which is, you know, a lot of the mistakes go away when you work with really good people. You know, I know for me as a lend, you know, I work with lenders or title or escrow. I want to work with the best. And I know when I do, things fall into place. I know when I don't, everything,

like the wheels just fall off when I, when I succumb to the other agent to use a title rep does nobody's doing or the escrow does know what they're doing. I just like I'm in an old jolopy and the wheels are falling off,

the steering wheel falls off, but the whole thing just comes to a halt and at times we've had to switch back and go back to the main vendor, but you want to be somebody who does the job properly. So on the flip side then, I think you point out a couple opportunities,

and I would point them out for people on the call of ways to create value. What can we do is, realtors. Obviously, you know, every data company wants to tell us, oh, find out who follows these estates and Cole call them. I don't want to do that. I want to meet you because my clients... Please do not do that. Yeah. Please don't. There you go. And don't send out random junk mail and don't send out random email. I wouldn't. I did because I was coached too and I realized it was a waste time. But I'd much rather do is have customers who meet people or have these circumstances

and then earn the relationship by going above and beyond. And so she pointed out a couple, I think, if you listen closely to those opportunities, oftentimes they're going to go to the house to secure it or get kind of a situation report on the property. But at the same time, we can go there and we can drive around the property and take pictures and knock on the door. We can go and get keys, change the locks. We can go and give an assessment of what has been done before they go to the property, for example. dropping off keys, picking up, of course we should go to their office. What a great opportunity to meet the people by getting in the office.

They'll say, oh, I can't get in the office because they're so closed and secure. Yeah, but when they want to hand you the keys, you get a chance to meet the front desk. Oh, and by the way, the lady at the front desk or the guy at the front desk, they're even more valuable than Karen because they deal with people all day long, or they'll go to Karen and say, I met the guy, Bill, he was really nice. Like, that's what you want, right? You bring him or her at Starbucks. You have a best friend, and they'll go back and tell Karen,

how great you are, and Karen would call you back and say, hey, we need something like you regularly. So what are some of the things that the better partners do for you that help you so that you say, gosh, I wish next time we worked with that person rather than just some random real estate agent? Yeah, yeah. I'm happy you're asking. And I do think this is a little bit of preference. You know, every fiduciary or person in general may be different on, you know, what they like with a professional relationship. from our, from our office standpoint, we don't like to be bombarded.

Who does? Yeah, we do have a lot of people in our pocket. But with that being said, we always do want more. You know, we don't, we do not, we always have to mix up our realtors. You know, we are not allowed to receive gifts or compensation or referral fees. and we will not accept them. You know, that's not something we can do. And so keep that in mind.

You know, someone may reject your gift, and it's not because they don't like you or they don't like it. We just legally are not allowed to accept anything in return. But I think, you know, there are definitely some professionals we stay away from because it's too much. You know, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, we are busy. We have full-time jobs and, and, you know, when people do ask us to coffee or to lunch,

we often decline because if we did that with everybody that asked us, it'd be way too much time. And so I, I would say, you know, and again, this is, this is personal. Every producer may be different, but the way to get in with us is, you know, yeah, a brief, you know, hey, can I, first of all, let us know you're coming. Can I stop by and give you my brochure and just, you know, let you know what I can do for you, five minutes. You know, that's, that's all I need. I am more than happy to meet people and hear what they have to say and what they can do for us and areas they specialize in. I will tell you that every cold call I get on a property, I ignore.

most of the time people call me and they say hi I you know I noticed you just became on as as trustee can I sell the property I'm like he's living you know no I'm not going to sell his house from him so so I do I do ignore those that's not a good use of my time but I would say you know just very brief check-ins yes if you wanted to schedule just a five minute can I come by and, you know, deliver my brochure and let you know what I can do, that is totally fine. And, and, you know, again, I think the areas you specialize in and the types of houses you specialize in is really beneficial. A good way, you know, to do that is just to let us know. And it's really as simple as that. And maybe that sounds to the realtor like,

not doing enough. But, but I do promise you, you know, I have a stack of business cards in my, in my drawer that I do keep. And we have a list of people. And, and sometimes, you know, we will ask you for a proposal and you're not going to, you're not going to get the house. And typically, we do do that a couple times before we actually hire you. So, you know, there is some upfront work. But, you know, it's kind of what we have to do, do our doing. diligence, especially if we don't know someone or haven't worked with them before. So there's a key point there that you'll often, and I think you mentioned, ask maybe two or three real estate agents for a proposal. You're only going to pick one, obviously. So that means

at best you're going to get one to three. If you're new, you might do that a few times. You might do that five times before you get one. And I always tell realtors, well, I would do 10 proposals to get a listing. You know, there's not that much work with technology today and and such, if you know the area, in a proposal, what, you know, I, and I get phone calls from attorneys, fiduciaries, and say, can you give me an estimate of value in this property or a broker's price payment? What do you like that report to look like? What's too much?

Because I know I see some, and I ask for a realtor in another city for a referral. And I feel like I get this whole big, you know, song and dance, but I don't get the actual data and the numbers that I want to make a decision on. What do you look for in a proposal from a realtor that causes you to want to be a realtor that causes you'd want to do business with them versus when you say there's a lot of fluff here and I don't think they really know what they're doing. Yeah, I would say in that, in that scenario, the fluff doesn't bother me, you know, as long as it's a thorough thought out proposal. It doesn't bother me. It also doesn't impress me. You know, it's the substance of the proposal. So I've received emails,

which, you know, it does say the property, what they're going to do, estimated timing costs. And then also a blurb about themselves and their experience. And, you know, I've received that in an email. I've also received, you know, a binder, hard copy, binded, professionally done. And, you know, I can't help but be impressed by that. You know, it took effort and that, you know, that shows effort and professionalism. However, I do think the majority is what's in that report. So I'm not necessarily blinded by the fluff. It is the, the quality of the substance

and what's in the report. Got it. Okay, and is there any, besides stopping by, perhaps, dropping off a flyer, you know, when you're called, putting together a nice proposal. Is there anything else that real estate agents can do to offer you, for example,

a particular service? Is research information helpful? Do you notice a social media? You've said, wow, this person seems to really know that area and as a result in business with them or do you go to network events and meet people there? What else would you recommend somebody since we know cold calling isn't an answer? What else might you recommend somebody who's trying to bake in the business and was worthy of your business to get your attention? Yeah, totally. So there are a lot of professional fiduciary events that I recommend going to and you can sponsor them. I wouldn't over sponsor, you know, I do, you know, just as a reminder, you know, giving people a little nudge and reminding them of your name every once in a while is sufficient.

I don't think you need to sponsor five times a year. But there is, if you go on to the PFAC website, PFAC is Professional fiduciaries Association of California for us in California. And there is a list of professional fiduciaries. We also have monthly meetings. And so we have a lot of realtors come to that meeting. It's a lunch meeting and we typically have education. And so you do have to sit through the education, whatever that topic may be. But there's 30 minutes networking beforehand. Yep, that's it. And each, you know, there are different chapters. We're in the San Mateo chapter. And so there are a lot of different chapters. And you can, all the meetings are on there in events.

There are also some larger educational conferences that you can go to. I will say, you know, the monthly chapter meetings are a lot more intimate. You know, we have about 30 people. The larger, you know, events and CPE education events, I think you really need to be a sponsor for people to see you because it's a lot harder. But there are also tons of, you know, during those events, a lot of networking. you know, cocktail hours and things like that. And we always talk to people, you know, at those and get business cards. And, you know, the more people you know, the better.

Because there are a lot of really, you know, quality realtors and attorneys and people out there that we want, you know, we want to work with the best. So I think it's beneficial. And I think that's a really good way to meet fiduciaries. So the website I put up there was PFAC for Professional Fuduciary Association of California hyphenpro.org, PFAC-HIFAC-PRO.org. And they have a great chapter near me in Long Beach I went to. You talked about the education. And while maybe sometimes those are necessary evils, I remember going to one about, oh, what

was the term they used? Hexted petitions. There was an attorney who gave a and as a real estate agent I don't really know what that was about But what a valuable tool to learn and this particular attorney actually gave a copy of his filing So that when I talk to other attorneys, I say hey, I happen have the filing from this very well-known attorney in Long Beach That you can look at and use and whatever to incorporate into your pleadings and it just was such a valuable experience that to be honest it was more valuable than the networking so I was looking at the topics now a lot of to be very granular for me as a realtor or, you know, appropriate for fiduciaries. But I would definitely say take a look at the education as a way to improve yourself,

rather than just focusing on the networking part, but I think it's definitely worth working. We've also had realtors you could always offer to the chapter. We've had realtors speak, especially, you know, property managers, realtors who also do property management. We've had them come speak and talk to us about liability issues and really the benefits of having, you know, like a property manager versus doing it yourself and the California laws, especially.

But so even realtors, you know, coming and speaking or off, if you want to offer a topic, you know, that's been, we're learning from realtors too. So I'd love to do a speech to a, to a fiduciary attorney's on court-confirms sales. The 35 mistakes. I have a list of every mistake I've seen made on those. as well as in California, just reading the probate notes. I feel like I should be training real attorneys on, I don't know if you get involved in that with the litigation,

but sometimes the attorneys aren't aware that the judge kind of gives them the crib sheet, and if you don't read it, then you're just kind of walking blind. But to me, you kind of tell the judge you're doing if you don't review those. Those are my two pet peeves. So, okay. I'm sure you have yours as well. I don't need to go on. Okay, look, I thought this is really helpful.

I appreciate the opportunity to get into depth. I don't see any outstanding questions. I think we covered everything. So Karen, I think I'm just going to say thank you so much. I know this time of year on one hand, we're busy to wrap stuff up. At the other hand, you're also trying to get at the door to get with their family and friends. So I really appreciate taking time to share with us and educate us.

If somebody had more questions or if they had a particular trust or state that needed professional fiduciary or maybe they had questions about that, what is the best way to get in time of contact with you? to find out. Yeah. I mean, you can always give the office of call or send me an email. I'm more than happy to answer any questions that come up. You know, this life is a learning process and, you know, getting, if somebody wants to know

something about what we do or, you know, it's very juicy and interesting. I think so. I think so. Yeah. Oh, good. Well, again, so the website is lost in financial services. Lassen's the company, the San Mateo office numbers on the top, 650,000, 578, 9030. And the website, I just covered it up because I'm so fancy with my services here.

Hold on a second. It's the whole name, wasan fiduciary.com. Lassan fiduciary. I knew I get the accent wrong, whichever way I went. I was like, which way do you go with that one? It's going to be wrong. Just go with it. Sonia, very nice.

Thank you for time. Karen, thanks so much your time. Happy holidays. Merry Christmas. And happy New Year. and thank you so much for being with us today. I really appreciate it.

Thank you. Thank you for having me. Happy holidays. And for us, this is live streamed onto YouTube. You're welcome to see the replay there as well.

We do this every week now. We're going to be off for the next two weeks for the holidays. So we'll replay some of our best episodes there. But you can go to

Abilchrist Probate on YouTube and see our past episodes. You can go to probate probate weekly. com to sign up as well as see the past episodes there.

I really appreciate you guys time. If I can help with anything, please reach out. And if I'll speak to you. Have a happy holiday. Merry Christmas. Happy Hanukkah and a happy New Year. Thank you, everybody. Thanks so much.