How Real Estate Investors Protect Wealth With Estate Planning

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In this episode, host Quentin Edmonds interviews estate planning expert Lauren Klein about the importance of early estate planning, especially for those in real estate. They discuss how proper planning can protect assets, reduce taxes, and build generational wealth.

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Investor Fuel Show Transcript:

Lauren Klein (00:00)
The reality is the statistics say about 30 % of Americans have an estate plan of some sort. From what we see, it’s probably more like 10 % have an adequate, efficient estate plan. So it’s very low. There is a lot of…

risk out there and what are the risks? Let’s just touch on what those risks are because I think that’s where people, the light bulbs start going off.

Quentin (01:34)
Hello everyone. Welcome to the Real Estate Pros podcast. I am your host Q Edmonds and I am excited to be here today. Listen, this is the first time I get a chance to really talk about this subject. think on this part, me myself on this platform, but it’s an important subject. And so I’m not going to tell you what it is because I want you to stick around because I want you to hear it from the expert’s mouth.

because it’s so important. something we should be thinking about. We got to change our mindset around it. It’s something that we tend to think about kind of later on in our years. But no, it’s something that really need to be put in place now because you’re going to save your loved ones a whole lot of trouble. And I have seen firsthand how not preparing and planning for this can really…

destroy and I hate to use such a strong word, but really destroy your family in the wake of some things that happen in the aftermath. So I am really, really excited for you all to get to know Miss Lauren Klein. Miss Lauren, how you doing today, maam?

Lauren Klein (02:41)
I am fantastic and so happy to be here. Thank you.

Quentin (02:45)
Absolutely. I’m glad you’re here. You know, I’m a little jealous of you, they don’t need to know that. But you know what I’m talking about, because you seem like you got your energy. You seem like you’re you’re centered. And so I love it. But I’m glad you’re here. I really am. This is going to be fun. I know how people need what you’re to talk about. And so, Miss Lauren, I kind of just want to dive in. I want you to tell the people what your main focus is these days. I would love if you give us maybe a little bit of an origin story, kind of how you got started, how you got to where you are now.

And then if you don’t mind telling them geographically where you are, people just seem want to know where people are in the world. So if you feel comfortable telling them that. So where’s your main focus, the origin story and where you are. Ms. Lauren, ma’am, you have the floor.

Lauren Klein (03:29)
Fantastic. Like I said, so happy to be here. who am I? I’m Lauren Klein. I am the co-founder of Flourish Law Group. We are a boutique tax and trust in the state’s law firm. And today really we’re going to be talking about estate planning and why don’t now don’t turn it off. Don’t run away. This is not going to be boring. Really why this is important for everyone to know, but especially those in the real estate space. There are a lot of things that you need to be aware of that we’re going to talk about today that can save you and

family money and time and heartache and make you more tax efficient. know, who doesn’t love that? We’ll talk about that too. A little bit about my background. Before I went to law school, I was actually in finance. I was planning on going into the financial space. I was interning at one of the big brokerage houses, but it was 2008 and the world was crumbling around many of us. And so I saw firsthand a lot of families lose money, go through foreclosure.

And I said, OK, what can I do to, one, buy the little time while the market improves and the economy improves? And also, what can I do to help families protect themselves? And so I went to law school not really knowing what I would do or what area of law I would be in. I’ve always loved real estate, so I thought that might be the area I would go into. But I took a wills and trusts class. And I’m now happy to say I teach that same class at my law school, so that’s really fun.

But I fell in love with it. I fell in love with it. And then I took a tax class and I was like, whoa, I did not think I would like this, but I fell in love with that too, because what I realized Quentin is estate planning and tax planning

and all of that, it sounds old, it sounds dusty. It’s really just an extension of the wealth that we’re building. It’s an extension of our financial plan, of our real estate portfolio. And that’s…

You know, I’m really happy that the universe kind of brought me full circle because it’s been impactful. And I know we’re going to dive into a lot of that today. And then where am I? I am located in sunny South Florida. So in the Fort Lauderdale area.

Quentin (06:26)
I love it. I love it. Listen, you set me up for my next statement because Ms. I say this once every part that destiny has no wasted moments. That’s what I say, right? And you said the universe brought me full circle. I love how, and I’m working my way back on my notes. You took a class that you now teach, chef kids, come on, ⁓ before law you was in finance.

Just like your journey, has kind of brought you to where you are now, like helping people with their finances. And you said the universe has brought you here. And I always say, like I said, destiny has no wasted moments. Like as we go through life, these moments kind of build up to who we are right now.

And like nothing’s wasted. Like it builds our mindset. It builds our resilience. It builds our it makes us humble. And so I would love to know from your mouth, what has these moments in destiny taught you about yourself? Like now that you’ve realized you have come full circle, what has these moments taught you about you, Ms. Lawrence?

Lauren Klein (07:37)
my goodness. mean, so, so many things, so many things, but I think one of the biggest thing that all of this has taught me is our, our wealth and our money mindset and the, and the steps that we take to reverse, you know, generational curses from our own family and really build wealth is, is everything. It’s everything. And it’s for all of us. doesn’t matter where you came from, if you came from money or not. I certainly didn’t.

but it’s impactful and we all have the power and the wherewithal to build a team around us and to make decisions. And I know your audience knows this because they’re building real estate portfolios. They’re getting into the real estate game in one way or another. So they know they’re onto something, right? They’re onto something that it’s bigger than your nine to five, nothing wrong with a nine to five, but it’s bigger than that if you really want to.

create a legacy that lasts for your family. And that’s, think, the biggest lesson from all of this. My medium of this and my space is the estate planning space, that piece of the puzzle. But it’s part of a greater puzzle of we’re all just out there trying to take care of our family, build legacy, and make sure that we’re being smart as we move through life.

Quentin (08:57)
I love it. And you’re absolutely right. think the majority of us, I mean, I guess those listening may be different, but the majority of people I know, they have been taught to leverage their time. This is all I have. And so I leverage my time for a nine to five. I work ⁓ five days, some people six days, some people seven days a week. And y’all pay me once or maybe twice a month. So it’s like, I work, work, I work, I work, I work and get paid once.

But the freedom of your time is getting your time back is when you can build something where you work at once, get paid, get paid, get paid, get paid. And so I think you’re absolutely right. Like we all have the propensity to change our minds around wealth, around finance, around money. And I think what you’re doing is a necessary step for people to kind of change their mindset. And maybe they have been good about money so far, but

How is your estate planning? Like, you given me much thought about it? And so that’s why I’m glad you’re here. so flourish law group.

I want you to tell me like, what is the next real goal for you guys? What are you looking to solve next? How are you looking to really impact people?

Lauren Klein (10:47)
So think the biggest thing is right now we’re in a very unique time in the world. We’re in the great transfer of wealth right now. It’s already happening. There’s money passing from baby boomers and similar generations down to Gen Z, millennials, Gen X, you know, so on and so forth. And so we’re at a very unique opportunity in history to

take the steps necessary to protect ourselves and not miss out, right? Because one of the ways that we build generational wealth is to have our financial house in order. And part of that is estate planning. And so one of the biggest things we’re working on right now is just education, podcasts like this, ⁓ sharing what we know and what we see behind the scenes with our clients, and just helping as many people as possible in a responsible way while still providing.

a very high level of legal services. came from, you know, one of the biggest law firms in the country. My law partner came from one of biggest trust companies. She was a corporate trustee and attorney. And we’ve seen a lot. We’ve seen a lot of families go through a lot of stuff and whether the planning’s good or the planning’s bad and how that impacts everyone. And so we just want to be able to, you know, for those we can’t work with, we at least want them to have the education of here’s what you should do next. Here’s things you should be aware

Quentin (12:04)
Yeah, now I love it. know, and I hear so much care in your language when you talk about the clients and the people that you serve. And one of the things that you said to me, and hopefully you don’t mind me mentioning, is that sometimes lawyers can talk down at people, you know, talk down, make them feel like the question you asking, like, you know, like, why would you ask that? You know, that’s just as my, I don’t know. I don’t know who uses that voice, Ms. Lauren, I don’t know. But what I feel from you is that there is a real,

care for people. Like you said, you want to educate, you really want to help them out. Even if they’re not taking, know, hiring your group is like, okay, you know, how can we help? And so I want to get your perspective on relationship building. You have clients, you talk to a lot of people. ⁓ How do you go about building relationships and is relationships important? Do you put a premium on it? Like give me your vantage point on relationships specifically with what you do and how do you think about relationships?

Lauren Klein (13:04)
Yeah, it’s a really good question. you know, when it comes to our clients, you we are, we are fiduciaries. We are held to a higher ethical standard and we are caring for our clients. And so the relationship is incredibly important. We’re dealing with, you know, we’re getting all of the information on their finances, all of the skeletons in their closet, all of the things that they may not necessarily want to share. And so there’s, there’s a extremely high level of trust. We’re also being trusted with, you know, reviewing their assets and

how to structure things properly and ask them the right questions and introduce them to the right partners, the right financial advisors and CPAs and corporate trustees and things like that. So relationships to us, it’s everything. Without it, we can’t serve our clients.

Quentin (13:52)
Yeah, I love it. I love it. Miss Lauren, I want to ask you, how does adversity look in your field? ⁓ Is it like people not giving you all the information? I smiled when you started talking about information that they give. Like, do you run into people not talking about children that they have that they need, they should have disclosed, you know, to their family? Like, how does adversity in your world show it’s ugly? Well, not ugly here, because adversity, it helps us grow, but

How does it virtually look within what you do?

Lauren Klein (14:25)
You know, it’s interesting. Usually once the client has decided they’re going to, you know, work with us or work with an estate planning attorney, the walls usually come down. The hardest part, I would say the most adversity is just getting started, feeling like, okay, I’m worthy of an estate plan. What is an estate? What does that mean? Do I need to have, you know, $30 million? Do I need to have 40 investment properties? When am I ready for this? And people, it’s way sooner than most people realize.

I think the biggest adversity or pushback we get is just getting the ball rolling. Usually once the client engages us and we move forward,

they open up. Yes, sometimes there’s some family secrets that they’re trying to hide. And maybe then if that’s the case, if you have that family secret, maybe you hired the lawyer and not with your spouse. So you can disclose that confidentially to your lawyer if that’s the way you want to do it. But that’s the biggest thing I see, people just not knowing

what they need and just not, you people will wait six months, a year to hire us because it’s just like a mental hurdle they have to get over.

Quentin (16:16)
Nope, I get it. And if anybody, if you listen, if you’re on the fence, get off the fence, just go in higher. Like you’re going to be analysis by paralysis, know, paralysis by analysis. Just get off the fence, go in and hire. So we’re to get to our contact information later. But Ms. Lauren, I do want to ask, is there any topic that I have not asked you about that I have not brought up that you would like to talk about?

Lauren Klein (16:26)
Yeah

Quentin (16:37)
Or is there any kind of other words of motivation, education, inspiration maybe that you want to leave for the people? I just got to open a floor up. Is there anything on your brain or your mind or even in your notes that you’re like, I’m going to make sure I talk about this, but I kind of just want to open it up to make sure we’re not missing that.

Lauren Klein (16:54)
Yeah, yeah. mean, think the biggest things that I would want the audience to take away from this, a couple of things. One, I talked about the adversity of just getting started.

reality is the statistics say about 30 % of Americans have an estate plan of some sort. From what we see, it’s probably more like 10 % have an adequate, efficient estate plan. So it’s very low. There is a lot of…

risk out there and what are the risks? Let’s just touch on what those risks are because I think that’s where people, the light bulbs start going off.

One, who’s receiving your assets if something happens to you. If you don’t have anything, the state decides. So a lot of people already are like, ⁓ whoa, I don’t want the state deciding who receives my assets. Even if the state would decide, let’s just say you have a spouse and you have children and you’re like, okay, that’s who I would want the assets to go to.

Do you want your children to get a real estate portfolio or a brokerage account or a life insurance policy in their individual names at 18? What if they get married and they get divorced? Are they gonna lose half of that? What if they get sued by, and there’s creditors? Do you want everything you’ve worked so hard for just to poof, you know, go away? These are the things that we start to think about. How do you structure the portfolio in the proper way? How do you structure your other assets in the most efficient way?

putting assets in a trust can be very, very, very impactful. ⁓ Now, let’s say you have an estate plan, but let’s say you haven’t retitled, you haven’t put assets in a trust, or you haven’t moved your LLCs or your real estate into a trust, you haven’t named beneficiaries even. What happens is in order for those assets to get to your loved ones, even if it’s the same people you would pick, there’s a process called probate. And I’m sure some of your audience has gone through that with their family.

And probate essentially is a court process where, let’s say I kill myself off all the time in meetings. So let’s say I pass away and I didn’t do anything and my husband has survived me and everything was in my name. In order for the assets to get from me to him, for him to even pay bills, he has to hire a lawyer, at least in Florida, it’s different in every state. has to hire a lawyer. Everything has to go before a judge. It’s gonna take.

the minimum six months, more likely a year, a year and a half, two years for there to be full access to assets. Everything becomes public information and then now everyone gets it out right with no protection, no creditor protection, no protection for your children and it’s quite easy to avoid but people just don’t know.

those would be the biggest things that I would really want your audience to think about. It’s just about getting started. My recommendation would be meet with a couple of estate planning attorneys. It’s like dating. You want to find someone that you really like, that you feel comfortable with, and that you can see yourself meeting with, hopefully, at least on a every three year basis. We meet with our clients every year. Because estate planning is your financial plan, right? It evolves. You don’t set it and forget it.

you keep your eye on it, you have your professionals around you. So those would be like at a very high level, the things that I see often clients having light bulbs around ⁓ of how impactful all of this is. And I will say if there’s any families out there that are blended families in particular, meaning maybe there’s a newer spouse and children from prior relationships, it becomes that much more important because

And we see it all the time. it’s not that there’s even strife or drama. Everyone gets along great. But let’s say stepmom says, but if dad goes first and now I’m here with stepchildren, who we get along fine, but now we have this giant real estate portfolio, what happens? Who receives what share? What do we do? Is there going to be a forced sale because we didn’t do things properly?

things like that that just you need to consider every family is unique. But if you don’t talk about it, then again, the state is deciding the court is getting involved and it can lead to litigation. And like you said, know, families being destroyed and you can avoid that most often. So that’s really what planning is. It’s so much more than people realize.

Quentin (21:10)
Absolutely. Ms. Lawrence so well said, listen, if someone wanted to reach out to you, connect with you, collaborate with you, how can they get in contact with you,

Lauren Klein (21:20)
Absolutely. So the best place to get in touch with me is really honestly Instagram @lawyerLaurenKlein or @flourishlawgroup. can also go on our website flourishlawgroup.com. There is a contact us button. We are only licensed in Florida, but I always open this up. If there’s someone listening in there in California, Massachusetts, Georgia, we have contacts all over that we trust. So if we can’t help you, we can connect you with someone.

who can so you can get the ball rolling, understand what it is that you need to do, and then just do it. You just gotta rip the band-aid and make it happen and you’ll feel, I have a signing after this and the clients always leave and they’re like, my gosh, I just feel so much better. It’s like this weight off your shoulders that you know you needed to do. ⁓ It’s really great to see.

Quentin (22:11)
Absolutely. Well, listen, Ms. Lauren, let me do this. Let me say three things to you. First, thank you for your time, because we talked about time before. Time is our most precious commodity. You could have been anywhere in the world, but you came here. You gave us your expertise. So thank you for your time. I am not accepting any bills or any what they call it, what you call it, where somebody writes you a, I’m losing my train of thought, but.

Thank you for your time. I’m sorry to make a joke, but thank you for your time. Don’t bill me. That’s what I’m really trying to say, Ms. Lauren. Don’t invoice. That’s what I was looking for. Don’t send me no invoice, Ms. Lauren. But no, honestly, thank you for your time. But thank you for being here. Thank you for your time. You, of all people know, you can put a premium on your time. You can put a value that has a price tag to your time. So thank you for your time. Secondly, just thank you for your narrative, for your story. ⁓

Lauren Klein (22:46)
So worried.

My pleasure.

Quentin (23:05)
Even thank you for just leading with transparency and integrity. Really appreciate that. I tell people all the time, I put a premium on stories. so stories have a way of planting a seed in people. We might never see the growth, but they planted a seed. And so I know today you planted a seed, planted real value. So thank you so much for that. And lastly, thank you for your mindset, for your perspective. You paid a good penny for the way you think, for your expertise. So thank you for bringing that mindset and that perspective to this podcast.

I greatly appreciate you, man.

Lauren Klein (23:36)
My pleasure. I’m so happy to be here. This was a lot of fun. You have a great show.

Quentin (23:40)
Absolutely.

Appreciate it. Thank you so much. Well, listen, y’all heard Ms. Lauren. Look in the show notes, get in contact with her. Let’s start planning these estates. All right? Listen, just take the wisdom and go ahead and get in contact with her. See how she can help. But definitely make sure you are subscribed here because I promise you, we’re going to continue to bring up amazing people just like Ms. Lauren. So ma’am, thank you again. And everyone else, listen, y’all have a fantastic day.