 Thank you for joining me on Think Takawaii. I am Shayna Park, your host for Money Talks. My guest is Amphi Trumpton. He is an attorney that practices in the state planning. Welcome to the show, Amphi. Hi, Shayna, thank you so much for today to share a little more about estate planning. Yeah, I'm so glad you're here to share your expertise. And can you tell us a little more about yourselves and how did you get into estate planning? Hi, local boys here grew up in Kalihi, graduated from Lottie High School and then spent about 12, close to 10 years at the university for varying degrees and then ended up going to law school. I've been an attorney for about 12, 13 years now and then recently became full-time in estate planning. Oh, wow. And what made you go into estate planning? It just made sense in the areas of in my career in terms of working with families. I've been an advocate for families for a long, long time as a social worker. And we do work as well in financial education and making sure that families have proper protection. Part of that foundation of protection is about protecting your estate in that we want to ensure families that work really hard is able to now exercise their liberties in making sure that what they work hard for goes to their family. I think that is very important what you do and the education aspect because we do work. I mean, everyone works really hard but especially in Hawaii, we work really hard to keep up with the cost of living and everything. And it's important to protect our assets. So going into that, I know you have some slides and can you share more about my understanding is that a will is good enough. That's all I really knew about estate planning. And yet I always see celebrities or acquaintances that get taxed or started taxing that happens when they pass away. So why is that? Yeah, it's amazing. When I do presentations or workshops, education with families in the communities and we ask the question of whether somebody has their estate plans, the majority of people which is actually the minority of people would raise their hand. Very rare do I even have 30% of the room share that they have their estate plans done. And then, yeah, those 30% that do raise their hands when I ask them what they actually have and they'll tell me they have a will and a will simply is just not enough. And I'm glad that we have this opportunity to talk a little bit more about this will misconception because you hear it all the time. At my last will at testament, my last ego, a will is not going to do what you're thinking that it will do. Okay, so. Well, right here it says no estate planning equals probate and that word is out there a lot, especially, you know, more talks about too is when celebrities pass away and if they don't have something in place, I always see that word probate. So, you know, can you explain what is probate and how does that even tie into estate planning? Simply probate is a court proceeding where if you don't have your things planned, your estate plans done, it has to go to court. The proceeding itself is called a probate in that now the courts will appoint somebody called a personal representative. This person will be responsible to administer your estate. And then the issues that the probate the whole probate process is that it, there's a lot, a lot of drawbacks and what that equals amounts to is the loss of control. So why is getting an estate plan so important regardless if you have assets or not? You saw the recent articles that just came out with Aretha Franklin, right? Can you see the slide? Yes. And that was pretty amazing that it took, I don't know, how many number of years? I think it was about five years. And this goes back to what we had shared a few minutes ago when we talked about, you know, like what are the issues that come about when you now have just a will? So Aretha Franklin story, I don't know if you heard about it in the news. Last week, I think maybe two weeks ago, the courts finally decided which will they're going to use. Okay, so Shayna, it goes like this. So she had three wills. The first will that she had, she actually wrote it out, she signed it, she put it into a lock container and then she put, placed it in her closet. It was done in 2010. The next will that she did, which you see right there is what she scribbled in a notebook in 2014 and then she had left that now in the seat of her couch. There was a third will that she drafted that actually was done with an attorney and an attorney's office. However, that will was not signed. And then now the wills all say different things. And then, you know, when that happens, just what comes next, right? The family's fight. So all of her sons were fighting as to which will would be the valid will. And hence, when I share with you, like why a will is not enough is in that situation, it actually required the will to be probated, meaning it still has to go through probate court. And there's a lot of drawbacks. If you look at the will that the courts finally decided was going to be valid, was the one that they found in between the cracks of the couch, the cushion of the couch, which is this a, yeah. And if you look at it, can you make that out exactly what she wanted? Not really. Yeah, so amazing, right? And in my years, you said, in order for them to determine out of the three wills they want with that will? Yes, that's how long they tell. And these stories, you know, we hear a lot about it from the celebrities. And so it makes it kind of like out of tune with what happens with all of our modest families. Bottom line, if you don't plan, you don't do your state plan, the state of Hawaii will do it for you. It's just going, what level of probates does it have to go through? And to avoid now, there's many, many drawbacks to that mission before. And it could, it costs a lot of time, waste a lot of money. And then in the unfortunate event, you may not do what you thought that you wanted it to do as like right now with Aretha Franklin, we have no idea what's, maybe what her intentions were, what her wishes were. And when you say too that it took five years for the court to come to its decision, do you know exactly how much, you know, she had to pay or it came out of her estate during those five years? I didn't see it for Aretha Franklin, yet there are many, many examples of celebrities that went through this process, that again, a lot of money, are you talking in the millions to litigate issues dealing with, you know, probates and because of a lack of planning? Interestingly, you know, these stories that come up that gets shown all over the news, I kind of shared this not too long ago with an individual and he said, yeah, people fight, people fight. And my two points were one, that there is many, many celebrities, many people that pass away that you never hear about what happens with their fortunes, what happens with their children, what happens who gets what, you don't even hear nothing. Hey, the reason for that is because they did a proper estate plan. Now, the ones that we do hear about, like for example, you're Aretha Franklin's, you're Prince, you're, you know, the Black Panther, I mean, all these other ones that actually don't get paid is what is now highlighted in the news. And, you know, then we sit there in awe in how much millions and millions of dollars are wasted because the planning was not done. So, yeah. And now that you made that a point, I mean, I keep up with social media and I, you're right, the only people I do see are the names that you actually name because it's, you know, it was a pretty big deal of how much money went to the ports. So what you're saying is that each year that it prolongs, each year you're gonna have to pay or it comes out of this state. Is that what you're saying? And I think more than the financial cost, the emotional burdens that it has on families, the strains, I've seen situations where families are forever broken because now there is fighting. And I don't think parents or even, you know, grandparents or anybody that works so hard to accumulate this wealth in thinking that they are going to provide it to their children, their grandchildren, ever intended now for the families to be forever fractured. How many families do you know? Well, that actually says, yeah, this happened to us. This happened to this, this person's greedy, this person wants this, this person, this person, and so on and so on. And I go, I don't think that's what was the intentions of any one of us, you know, that worked very hard to accumulate a wealth. He's so. And I think, you know, what you're doing, it's such an important job too, because what you shared, it's all about education. And, you know, what we don't know, we don't know, but with you, you know, advocating and helping people out there, you know, what you're saying, not only it saves money, but it saves a lot of emotional time and energy as well. So when we talk about the world misconception, the two things that people should know, very simple. The first thing is, with a will in itself, it does not avoid probing. If you create a will, you still need to submit that will to probing. And when it goes to probing, I think we'll talk about this in a couple of slides. There are major drawbacks of why you don't want it to go to probe. The second will misconception that people need to know about is that a will does absolutely nothing. It's like a will does absolutely nothing to help you when you're incapacitated. So incapacitated means that you are either physically or mentally unable to make decisions. In these situations, a will does absolutely nothing to help you. And then as you know, you know, in our working financial education, a majority of us will go through some form of long-term care or being deemed incapacitated in that situation. If you have situations where now your family needs to access funds to support you, a will will not help you. You still need to go to work. You need to open up a conservatorship and that's a whole different topic. And bottom line, very costly, take a lot of time. And then what a waste of unnecessary cost. So that's the two things that I want, families or people that are listening to us to know when they hear somebody say, I have a will, just know a will in itself is not enough in terms of creating your state plan. And a trust is important, is what you're saying. It's one of, okay? If I'll work here at a state planning group, the next slide please. I'll work in a state planning group is really to look at comprehensive state planning. All of the documents that are required when you look at a state plan is intended now to avoid all of the things relating to unnecessary costs, unnecessary court interventions. And more importantly, the documents create that situation where you now exercise control. Like control in the sense that I want to do what I'm alive and well, the things that I've created for me and my family. In the event I become disabled or deemed incapacitated that this will be used to, my assets will be used to take care of me and my family. In the unfortunate event when I pass away, I determine who gets what, when they get it, how they get it, and all at the same time avoiding all of the unnecessary costs we're dating to, whether it be taxes or legal or court intervention. So yes, a trust, but the trust is again, one of the five other documents that we say is necessary. And if you miss any, if any one of those documents are missing, we say you have a PUCA in your planning. And then when you have a PUCA in your planning, the potential issues with that is going to be probate. So- So what are all the five things to ensure that there's no PUCA in your planning? It would be a revocable living trust, okay? A special type of will, which is a poor over will. Funny, because the last thing I didn't say about a will was that a will, when you look at estate planning and a proper estate plan, should be a safety net. A will should be something we hope we don't ever have to utilize as it relates to our assets, okay? Meaning now, so it's this special type of will called a poor over will, which again, only in the event that we did not properly fund our trust. There is the power of attorney. There is the advanced healthcare directive. And lastly, your HIPAA authorization, which is needed to medical consent. So any one of those things missing more specifically when you look at your trust, the drawbacks for that is going well. It potentially will lead to probate. The problem with probate and the drawbacks of probate is as what we listed here. So some of the things I wanna bring up. So you brought up the fact that, oh yeah, these celebrities spend this much money, this millions of dollars doing this and that, okay? The reason why we know about it is because anything that's probated is a public process, okay? So you know when Prince passed away, we knew exactly how much of what his estate was worth. At the end after, I think it was, after five years, six years, they said, oh well, his estate is worth 150 million. We know that he paid over 60, close to $70 million in estate tax. We knew that of the 45 people that showed up to say that they were either his wife, his spouse, his children, or whatever else. They narrowed it down to six. By the time it was all done, K2 of them passed away. The four now we knew split up the 60 something million dollars that was left. And I go, that's a public process, right? Like people hear about it. And we talked about it earlier. They're, he's not the only celebrity that passed away in the last five years that had a whole lot of money. And I go, why you don't hear about anybody else is because they did their planning. So it becomes a public process. You essentially will put a notice out here that says so-and-so passed away. Anybody, family, extended family, the general public, anybody that's in the LA and wants to find out, can come and find out exactly who's gonna get what, who you owe money to, who's gonna, so it's a big mess. The other thing that I want to talk about when you don't plan, okay? And then now it goes to probate is the laws and the courts will tell you who gets your thing. It also really is not what the person who, you know, passed away would want. So the court ultimately decides if there's nothing in place, where the assets go, right? The laws are any, you know, it's written in the law and they have all the different scenarios, okay? If I ask you right now, right? What is the divorce rate? Okay, step back. If I asked you, what is a nuclear family? What would you say that would be? I have no idea. No, a nuclear family, right? A traditional family is husband, wife, couple kids, a media dog, anyone helps, right? So it's husband, wife, and their children. That is a typical traditional family. That may be true about 20, 30 years ago. Today's type, if the divorce rates for the last 20, 30 years has been well over 50% and people remarry for a second, remarry for a third type, okay? That's no longer your traditional family. Family makeups nowadays are blended. And the more blended your family is, the more the rules and the laws are going to be different if you don't plan. So we call this now when it goes to probate and there is no designation in terms of who will get your things. We call it contestancy, okay? So the Black Panther passed away, right? And he didn't have his state plans done. And so with regards to his estate, his wife and his parents ended up sharing his estate because they didn't have any children. And the rules now, even in the state of Hawaii, it's, there is many things and many of actors. Bottom line is you lose control. It may not go to, and worse yet, if you were the spouse that was supporting them, okay? Like you live, you as a spouse are married and then you guys come from a blended family. You lived in your home for the last 20 years and then your spouse passes away. Lo and behold, that property is not in both your name. Guess what happens then? If he had children that was not in the same, the same children that you guys share, okay? And he had children from a different relationship, okay? The rules would be so different, okay? In that now, if you look at assets, so in this situation, the laws just recently changed, but so you would get it, let's say $200,000 and then now you and your spouse's children would split half of the ass. You've been paying mortgage for the last 20 years, okay? The biggest asset you hold is probably what? Your house. Yeah, definitely, especially, I mean, especially in Hawaii, right? Now, imagine the scenario, your spouse passes away, okay? Then now the property goes into probing, okay? You get, and forgive me, I just forgot the actual numbers, the laws just changed it. Let's just say, for example, okay? You get the first $150,000, this is the old rule, okay? And then now half would be split between you and then your late spouse's children. Your house today is worth a million dollars, okay? That child, that those children that you may not even know about live on the mainland. Well, this is actually things that happen fairly regularly in our office, okay? That live on the mainland. And then they say, where's my share? Okay, so in a million dollar house, let's say now there's eight after you, I'll take $350,000, and let's say there's 800,000 left, that means 400,000 that will put you 400,000 of equals to your spouse's children. Then the children get to demand and say, I am rightfully the heir to this $400,000 estate. Oh, Sheena, you have $400,000 laying around. Almost not, not right now. So guess what happens to your family and your property? Goes to Broadway. No, it gets sold. Oh my goodness. And then because the proceeds, right? As the air, as the beneficiaries, as the airs, you have a right to. And then if you meaning new spouse is not able to find the funds or the resources to pay me off, then now that requires you to sell the property, sell the asset. So very, very, to me, I go as a travesty. It's not like, it creates so many, many problems that can be simply avoided by just doing the plan. And since you have been doing this for a while, what is the general cost of starting an estate plan? What does the process look like? I know each process is different, depending on the individual, if they're married, if they have children. But generally, can you walk us through the process of how fast it'll take, what is the general cost of starting an estate plan? And of course, I know they can reach out to you, but yeah, can you share them? Given what is the potential consequences in not planning, to me, the investment of being prepared and actually taking care of your planning is will be astronomically much, much more beneficial than to wait. For here at our firm, our rates are from 1800 for a single person to 25. Well, let me, we have different levels of planning. Most of our families will fall into either the essential or family type of planning. For a single person is 1800 or 2500. For a family, you know, married couple, it's 2900 to 3900, and that's flat rate. Now, if you want to really look at what does that translate to, let me share with you that the cost of probate, okay, just to do a simple probate cost about $6,000 to $8,000 are ready. And when I say simple, what I mean is nobody fighting, nobody, there's no issues. And I go, but yet the potential, okay, you know, all the potential things that could arise to make it much, much more expensive. So while a simple probate, when no one arguing, $6,000 to $8,000, and to just plan in advance and get, you know, a proper state plan, you said it averages around, you know, 1500s, around, you know, 3000 on the high end. 3900 for a family plan. And now, if it wasn't a simple probate and it went crazy, that is when we see, I mean, of course, celebrities, they have a lot of assets, but that's when it just prolongs for a very long time. Is that correct? Yeah. And if funny you say that, because we see the millions and millions and most, if not everyone would say, yeah, but that doesn't, I don't relate to that. Okay, like I don't have that. I'm simple, I have one house. And I would argue it's much, much more important for all our modest families to do their plan because if the cost is the same, regardless if you are ultra-rich or you have, you know, you have one property, you know, it's a couple of accounts, the cost to probate is the same. And I go, how much is $50,000 to a $10 million state, a drop in the bucket? What is $50,000? And you have $300,000 to pass on to your children is very significant. So I would argue it's much, much more important for our modest families to proper plan. And, you know, when you talk about properly planning, you don't need to own, you know, a house or anything like that, everybody needs in a state plan, right? It's necessary, it's something that's really important. And regardless if you're ultra-rich or, you know, like you said, you have a single home, if you don't even own any property, you should still get it a state plan and the importance of everything that comes along with it. And I know you had one last slide to share, right? And is this your quote that you have? I honestly believe that this is an exercise in liberties. So if you don't plan, as I mentioned earlier, the state of Hawaii will plan for you. So we need to protect our privacy, protect the things, you know, that we want to leave for our families. I feel like whenever I have a conversation with you or, you know, talk to you about anything in life, it's very valuable to me. And I end up, you know, gaining lots of us knowledge from you. And my biggest takeaway from today's conversation is that knowing less can cost a lot more. And, you know, you just don't know what you don't know. So regardless, if we always, I mean, I see it all the time on social media celebrities, but it doesn't, you don't have to be a celebrity where this one happened to you. You could just be, you know, a regular person like me in Hawaii and a state plan is still important. So thank you for all your knowledge, Ampey, and, you know, just taking your time on day to share with me and all of us. Those are my pleasure. Thank you, Shayna. Thank you for being on the show. Hope to see you all at the next episode of Money Talks. I'm Shayna Park, a Gen Z inspiring lives of liberties. Thank you. Thank you so much for watching Think Tech Hawaii. If you like what we do, please click the like and subscribe button on YouTube. You can also follow us on Facebook, Instagram, and LinkedIn. Check out our website, thinktechawaii.com. Mahalo.