EP20 - Black Swans
The Gordian Knot
Ever notice how clients with delicate trust or estate matters fail to tell the truth (or the whole truth)?
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EP19 - Cascading Estates
The Gordian Knot
When multiple generations of deceased owners interests have never been transferred, each interest MAY need to be probated and flow through to current heirs or beneficiaries.
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EP18 - Fractional Interests
The Gordian Knot
This is an introduction to the way we look at Fractional Ownership Interests and Solutions for those who receive no current benefits.
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EP17 - Property With DUST
The Gordian Knot
A quick way to evaluate a property, even before your client’s own issues have been examined.
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EP16 - Irksome Squatters
The Gordian Knot
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EP15 - 8 Properties, No Trustee
The Gordian Knot
Despite a pending property tax auction, these eight beach city properties had no living successor trustee or way to save them from loss, until...
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EP14 - What’s Bad is Good!
The Gordian Knot
How I stopped fearing and loathing California real estate title problems and came to appreciate liens and other problems
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EP13 - PETITO Format
The Gordian Knot
Rick Harmon shares his time-tested method for organizing information about messy real estate cases
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Barry Adams - California Devastation And Rebuilding
The Gordian Knot
Meet Barry Adams. Barry’s practice mainly focuses on probate and trust law and over the course of the podcast, Rick and Barry talk about some of Barry’s more tricky cases and his thoughts on that area of law in general. They also discuss the impact of the fires in California and how it is affecting the people in the region. What kind of cases do you typically encounter? Barry has been doing almost exclusively probate and trust work since 1993 so he’s had quite a bit of experience in that area. Since he’s in the middle of two major regions he gets a wide variety of cases but he often...
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David Shapiro - Tricky Puzzles and Messy Cases
The Gordian Knot
Meet David Shapiro. Rick and Dave discuss David’s trust and estate practice, tricky puzzles he’s encountered in the course of his business, and some of the more messy property cases he’s worked on. What does your practice look like? David’s practice is almost exclusively trust and estate litigation. He represents trustees and beneficiaries from all over the world. No matter what planning people will do, people will die and leave messes behind. As long as there are people around, Rick and David will always be in business. A lot of David’s cases come from other attorneys that refer him...
info_outlineMeet Megan Waugh. Rick and Megan talk about her work as a litigator at Schomer Law in California and how she approaches some of the more interesting cases that come across her desk.
Tell us about your practice
Megan has been working as a litigator for the last 5 years and deals with both contentious and non-contentious cases dealing with fun topics like incapacitation and death.
Megan managed to help Rick out on a case where he had written off the money he advanced that he thought he would never see again. She discovered a situation where the person in the case managed to sign a deed months after becoming deceased. The suspect in the case actually had the ironic last name of Charity.
There has to be a continuous adverse possession of five years, and that can be added together between adverse possessors. The heart of the argument in that particular case that Megan made was whether or not the five periods had run.
Tell the listeners about some of your cases.
Megan sees a lot of will and trust disputes where the family members are arguing amongst themselves about whether the person who signed the document had the capacity to sign. She prefers the cases of conservatorship where the person experiencing capacity issues are still alive. As boomers age, cases dealing with Alzheimer’s and other degenerative diseases and capacity will become more common.
Megan relates an incredible story about Lillian Portnoy and her home in Beverly Hills where it appeared like she was being taken advantage of. She helped Lillian go from living in a dilapidated, rat-infested home to selling her home in one the highest court confirmation sales in that area of California.
How do you forensically determine if a decedent is incapacitated?
Finding out someone has dementia issues while they are flying a plan is not a good time to discover it. Putting someone into conservatorship is one of the most restricting things you can do to someone, short of putting them in jail.
It’s very hard to tell when it comes to dementia and what kind of capacity a person has. There are several tests and experts have to examine and recommend actions in order to judge someone else’s ability to make decisions.
What is your biggest strength that surprises your clients?
Megan grew up in a very adult household and she fell into a mediator role between her family members. Cases involving capacity are essentially like a divorce, and she recommends her clients think of it that way. She tries to get people to avoid having to go to trial and prefers to see them walk away with something rather than bleeding the estate dry in a legal battle.
People grieve in different ways, and some people hang on to a litigation as a way of holding on to their loved one. Those clients can be some of the most difficult to get to resolve their case.
What is something you wish you knew as a new attorney that you know now?
You’re going to get through it, and jumping in is the best way to get through it. You learn best from your mistakes especially in front of your peers.
Stay authentic to yourself, you don’t have to be the bully attorney if that’s not your personality.
Links To Resources Mentioned
310-337-7696
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