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I've gone to a couple of lawyers and asked how busy they are and WHEN they could get some work completed for me.
I was told in two cases that they could get the work done within two months...
Then I don't hear from them at all.
Two months pass, I email and get no response.
I call and they can't talk to me.
Etc.
One I sent an email to and said forget about it. Then 6 months later I finally got a reply! 6 months!
Is this typical?
When I do business with other people and they promise something to be done by a certain date, they get it done. Or call/email me and say they can't get it done now, but should have it done by such and so date, etc.
That is fine, they are at least letting me know what to expect.
Anyway what is reasonable to expect from a lawyer?
If you have given lawyers a task that they don't know how to do, they might not want to tell you that.
May we ask what, exactly they are supposed to be doing?
It was work on a complex trust. To have some sort of mechanism to take care of the financial and business matters of an "almost" developmentally disabled person after my death (just a tad of ability over what would qualify him for public services). This guy can't pay his own electric bill. Needs help with everything and I currently do all that.
I want to leave him my house (no mortgage) and see that property taxes and other bills are paid for by someone with the income from my investments [at a minimum].
The problem is the people I currently know who can do this will be retired when I die. The person who will do this work is currently in middle school and will need to be appointed at the time of my death.
Anyway I was not necessarily expecting the lawyer to do a trust. Maybe determine it can't be done and something else would be a better idea?*
Also that is what I was thinking, that they did not know how to do the work, so were putting it off. And for some reason could not come out and tell me they did not know how to do this.
These were smaller town lawyers. I think I need to go to the big city and start asking lawyers how many trusts they have done - find someone who does mostly that. THEN pop my questions!
*I have explored many other options, but a trust is looking like the best and only option. It just needs to be "programmed like a computer" in advance for every eventuality which might occur. Therein lies the complexity. Mind boggling if you think about it!
Inflation, investments, keeping trustee from "churning" investments to pad his own pocket, flexibility to rent or sell house - buy a house elsewhere or just receive income. Some mechanism to monitor trustee, fire trustee and appoint new one, etc.
Most tasks lawyers do are done right away. Assuming you are paying for the services, they will want to bill you or apply your prepayment.
If you have given lawyers a task that they don't know how to do, they might not want to tell you that.
May we ask what, exactly they are supposed to be doing?
It depends on what the work being done and the complexity of the issue.
If you are going to trial the work and prep takes a lot more time. A trust can become involved and complex pretty easy.
A divorce can take some time. If it is being contested, more time involved. If trial, even more so.
Simple paperwork like wills, or other contracts can be pretty simple to fairly complex. It all depends on several factors.
Also, attorneys have more than one case going on and several others needing work done too. So what might be simple, is likely so. So they dictate a draft, have a legal secetary type it out. The attorney reviews it, the client reviews it, if it is okay they take the next time.
May we ask what, exactly they are supposed to be doing?
Thank you for asking me that question!
That caused me to write out the situation and problems above... Then I have been thinking about this today and came up with a solution which will make things easier for everyone.
That is upon my death, sell all the "things in my house" at auction. And sell the house. Then just stick everything into investments in a charitable remainder or similar trust.
Then get a charity [foundation] to manage the investments. They are willing to do this in return for receiving the balance upon my friend's death. And they do that anyway for their own investments. The charity (large) is like a corporation which will never "retire", "die", or "go out of business".
And it would be to their advantage to "grow" the fund as they would then receive more upon my friend's death.
And they could easily appoint someone to pay my friend's bills - keep an eye on that person. Fire that person and hire someone else if necessary.
My friend could live in an apartment and the landlord would take care of maintenance, remodeling, etc. (That was a BIG problem if my friend were to live in my house. Maintenance, remodeling, what is a reasonable request and what is unreasonable... etc., etc., etc.)
Anyway now it will just be a simple matter of how much income is there per year, set aside some percentage to increase the principal for inflation (and increased future income), then divide by 12 and use that amount per month to pay my friend's bills.
That should be easier for the lawyer, the charity, and my friend. Let's see how this flies...
Lawyers in my experience aren't very responsive. It may be different if you are a large corporation who has a lot of work for them. The individual, especially the first time client is at the very back of the line. There are some lawyers that are exceptions, but they take digging to find. I've had lawyers explicitly say they would get back to me after sending them sensitive documents, and they never did.
Solution: Work with multiple attorneys at the same time to mitigate the time lost if your chosen attorney is unwilling or unable to do the work. It's the only way to go, and applies to just about every freelance type worker from contractors, accountants, software engineers, etc.
That caused me to write out the situation and problems above... Then I have been thinking about this today and came up with a solution which will make things easier for everyone.
That is upon my death, sell all the "things in my house" at auction. And sell the house. Then just stick everything into investments in a charitable remainder or similar trust.
Then get a charity [foundation] to manage the investments. They are willing to do this in return for receiving the balance upon my friend's death. And they do that anyway for their own investments. The charity (large) is like a corporation which will never "retire", "die", or "go out of business".
And it would be to their advantage to "grow" the fund as they would then receive more upon my friend's death.
And they could easily appoint someone to pay my friend's bills - keep an eye on that person. Fire that person and hire someone else if necessary.
My friend could live in an apartment and the landlord would take care of maintenance, remodeling, etc. (That was a BIG problem if my friend were to live in my house. Maintenance, remodeling, what is a reasonable request and what is unreasonable... etc., etc., etc.)
Anyway now it will just be a simple matter of how much income is there per year, set aside some percentage to increase the principal for inflation (and increased future income), then divide by 12 and use that amount per month to pay my friend's bills.
That should be easier for the lawyer, the charity, and my friend. Let's see how this flies...
I'll get back to this when I get a break at work. Seriously.
Let me start by saying that trust drafting is like electrical wiring. You can do anything. It just takes a little while to figure out the best way to run the wires.
That caused me to write out the situation and problems above... Then I have been thinking about this today and came up with a solution which will make things easier for everyone.
That is upon my death, sell all the "things in my house" at auction. And sell the house. Then just stick everything into investments in a charitable remainder or similar trust.
Then get a charity [foundation] to manage the investments. They are willing to do this in return for receiving the balance upon my friend's death. And they do that anyway for their own investments. The charity (large) is like a corporation which will never "retire", "die", or "go out of business".
And it would be to their advantage to "grow" the fund as they would then receive more upon my friend's death.
And they could easily appoint someone to pay my friend's bills - keep an eye on that person. Fire that person and hire someone else if necessary.
My friend could live in an apartment and the landlord would take care of maintenance, remodeling, etc. (That was a BIG problem if my friend were to live in my house. Maintenance, remodeling, what is a reasonable request and what is unreasonable... etc., etc., etc.)
Anyway now it will just be a simple matter of how much income is there per year, set aside some percentage to increase the principal for inflation (and increased future income), then divide by 12 and use that amount per month to pay my friend's bills.
That should be easier for the lawyer, the charity, and my friend. Let's see how this flies...
It is a complex problem. not because of trust, but because of the other issues. You have to have a trust. The charity would not be able to make the distributions you desire with unrestricted funds under their exemption status. And, restricted funds are still required to be for a charitable purpose which your frind's maintenance would not be.
You also have to consider that you will be disqualifying him from Medicaid and SSI should he later qualify. (You might try again for him. Although the standards are the same, the application of those standards has gotten far more lax).
Finally, you have correctly diagnosed that the house is not a good idea. He can live cheaper and with less risk of calamity in an apartment. I would also suggest that you consider a senior living facility that has all types of assisted and unassisted living. You might be able to "buy him into" one of these for life with a single deposit. Look for religious affiliated places.
I also do not like to have the remainderman be involved in distribution decisions. I know, I know, its a charity and they are all nice people. But, when you put a charity's investment manager in charge of deciding whether to invade principal so your friend can go on a fishing trip, I think it stretches their impartiality too far. Get an independent trustee and name a "distribution adviser" who will have the final say on distributions during your friend's lifetime.
That Medicaid/SSI thing is a serious matter. You could accidentally put him in a position where the money could not be dissipated so as to qualify him for Medicaid, but he could not access enough of it for nursing home care. There is a specialty of "elder law" and I really think you should ditch your small town lawyers and get someone who is actually a specialist in elder law, at least to sort out the Medicaid trap.
I'm not surprised that the local boys do not want to tackle this one. I've been doing this for 35 years and I could not cite you chapter and verse on how to do what you want without a bit of research.
Did you actually "retain" these attorney's, or perhaps just have a consultation with them? If money has exchanged hands then you should have had your work, or at least a phone call back. Do these attorney's have office staff rather than trying to get through to the attorney a good "go between" is always the attorney's assistant.
If Wilson is saying this is a very difficult task than I would go to the bigger city and retain an attorney who is experienced in these matters. You would much rather pay a little more and have piece of mind that your work has been done correctly.
I have worked the majority of my life for attorney's and not one of the attorney's I have worked for would act in this manner.
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