Lessons in the Ladder Days

Candace Long: I'm Candace Long with Lessons in the Latter Days, offering biblical commentary to make sense of the times we're living in. I'm doing something very different today because most of this episode will come from a recorded interview I did with Don Pendleton, President of Protect Wealth Academy, one of the top asset protection advisors in the country.

Now, I have a very important disclaimer to make before we begin because one thing the Lord told me early on when I began Lessons in the Latter Days was not to feature anyone where there was an agreed-upon monetary exchange. So, I need to say up front that if you listen today and end up contracting my guest, there is absolutely no quid pro quo going on. I declined to receive from him a percentage of anything.

Now, you may ask why because it's pretty standard practice in talk radio for a host to receive compensation to promote the work of someone else. I understand that, and it's their choice to do. It's just a practice that's not for me and this show.

Now, I could have just not asked him to be on the program, but that conclusion disturbed me even more. My biggest reason to interview Don Pendleton is that absolutely no one is talking about the financial ramifications of an imminent Rapture. What would happen to the legal system? What would happen to everyone's assets who will be taken when Jesus comes at the first resurrection?

Asking difficult questions seems to be something the Lord has called me to do, and I needed someone I could trust to answer my questions and not think I'd lost my mind. I have known Don Pendleton for over 10 years. I've contracted him myself, and I know his heart to help people of faith. So, I've asked him to simply respond to my questions regarding the times we are living in and what he advises to help us to think through today's topic, which is how to get your affairs in order before the Rapture. I'm going to take you inside my interview with him and make side comments from time to time as necessary.

Don, I have really been looking forward to this interview. You and I have known each other for over 10 years. You and your company have trained me for many years, and I am very grateful for what I have learned from you. But let's start by having you first tell our listeners what you do on a regular basis because, as you and I have discussed, I'm going to take you outside of your comfort zone of what you normally do. We are in the latter days, and my radio program is Lessons in the Latter Days, so I'm all about biblical prophecies on the end of days. So, we need to look at our topic, which is how to get your affairs in order before the Rapture. Before we get into that, explain to us what you do.

Don Pendleton: I'm a trainer, I'm a teacher. I'm not an attorney, I'm not a CPA, although I've trained attorneys in almost every state. Asset protection and estate planning are very unique. We want you to use good qualified attorneys. Attorneys are good at what they do, but they're not always good at explaining things, and that's maybe where we come into play more than anything else. I've written books and pamphlets and lots of articles, but we also run the longest-running asset protection training class anywhere in the nation. That's sort of what I do, and I spend a lot of time on the phone answering hotline questions, so individual consults, trying to clarify how their legal entities ought to be structured.

Candace Long: Who are your clientele mostly? Are they people that are wealthy that are wanting to know how they protect themselves in all manner, whether it's reducing their taxes or planning their estate?

Don Pendleton: We get all sorts, but mainly people that are worried about lawsuits, worried about income tax reduction, worried about estate planning. We get a lot of doctors who are in a high likelihood of being sued. We get real estate investors, we get business owners, and then we just get a lot of people that want to build wealth and do it as tax-free as possible with an eye to estate planning. We get a lot of people around the time in their 50s and 60s where they're dealing with probate from their parents' estate and going, "Oh my gosh, this is a mess. I don't want my kids to have to go through this." So, I guess that's who we deal with more than anybody.

Candace Long: Let me set you up here because I'm kind of a unique animal in that I bring up topics that people haven't really been thinking about. Because I have been studying the biblical end of days for over 35 years, and in 2021 I began to see that we are really living these days, the prophecies are unfolding, and I began my series, Lessons in the Latter Days, and have listeners all over the world.

I believe that we are living in unprecedented days. According to my research, I believe we are a little more than a year from what Christians call the Rapture. I could be wrong and have stated that, but I'm a chronicler. I chronicle what I see unfolding. So, when Jesus comes to the clouds and calls up those that he's coming for at the first resurrection, that's the event that most Christians believe is coming at some point or another. I have always known that I will be going. And so, I have been given specific insights into God's word about these days and am met with all kinds of reactions.

The three reactions I get mostly are, number one, deer in headlights, people who've never thought about this. Number two, a lot of denial with people with the misinformed belief that we're not supposed to know. And number three, the shrug of shoulders in what I call the pan-millennium thinking, which is it'll all pan out in the end. The reality is that at some point we will stand before Jesus as the Messiah and give account not only for what we have done in this life but give account for what we've been given as assets. So, where do we even begin to start, and what should be a realistic timeline? What are we looking at cost-wise generally? So, that would be kind of where I would start.

Don Pendleton: That's a really good question, and let me preface with, as I've read through the New Testament multiple times and read through the parables, I've noticed that more than half of them talk about money and being good wise stewards. And so, I think that we have the precedent to be able to do that and know that estate planning is not about you because you're not here, either in the Rapture or death or whatever. It really is about our loved ones, whether they're with us or not, but it's more about, and it's not just about, taking care of our stuff. It's about creating a legacy and telling a life history.

With almost every person, I always start with some type of an estate plan. For most people that have wealth or real estate, we're going to start with a revocable living trust. That's state-specific. It'll be organized in the state, although it's not filed with any state agency. It's a private document. But that becomes the foundation upon which we build everything. If they're trying to reduce their taxes, they might have a corporation or they might have a business. If they have assets to protect, we might use LLCs, but everything is going to be tied to the trust.

The stock of the corporation will be issued in the name of the trust, and I guess you could set up the corporation first and then retitle the stock certificates later. If you have an LLC or limited partnership, the ownership of that is going to be tied somehow down to the trust. Who owns your 50% interest in that LLC when you die is an important thing to do, not just protecting the assets and safeguarding running the business now, but we always tie it to a succession plan.

In a perfect world, I know that's not the case, but in a perfect world, we would always start with the end in mind, which is the revocable living trust. We're starting with the estate plan.

Candace Long: Let's say the Rapture happened next week. If we can imagine millions of people disappearing and they've not got their affairs in order, they don't have anything together yet, the entire legal system, I believe, will be shut down. The people left will be battling for "Mom promised me this," and "I get the house," and all of that because nothing is written down. The whole probate system is going to go to you-know-where in a handbasket because there will be so many legal challenges because people have disappeared. So, you're saying because I love what you're saying and where you're starting because the main thing would be to set up this trust that will not go through probate.

Don Pendleton: Or use some other type of tool, and I can cover the six different tools that we can use to avoid probate, but I completely agree with you. It would cause a complete mess. Right now, we know about how many people are going to die in a year, and the probate system is set to do that. If there's a big influx, either war or Rapture or whatever, that's going to totally overwhelm the probate system.

Candace Long: I know one of the wise things that you all told me to do was to set up my trust, my living trust, and everything goes into that pot so that if the Rapture occurs, you don't have to prove a death certificate. But if you've got your stuff organized in this living trust, which you describe as a bucket, then I think that will be helpful to people to know that that's the structure they need rather than just a will.

Don Pendleton: I do often use the analogy of a big popcorn Tupperware bowl because everybody has one. Yours might be red or pink or yellow, and maybe you're always going to keep it in the pantry or in the cupboard. But you're never going to put it in the pantry or the cupboard empty. You're going to put all the little Tupperware bowls inside of it, nest it, put the lid on, shove it away. That's my analogy for the revocable living trust. Because yes, I might have a home. We're going to retitle that in the name of the trust. I have stock or I've got a brokerage account or I've got a business. I'm going to retitle that. If I'm not here, who owns that business?

I helped a little lady a couple years ago. She was from Texas. Her husband had passed away, leaving her as a 38-year-old widow with four little kids. They owned a business. It was a water drilling company that would come in and drill a big water well on your land, and it was worth about $4 million. Oh wait a minute, they didn't own the business. He owned the business. It was a single-member LLC. Well, who owns the business now? Well, it's going to go through Texas probate because there wasn't a succession plan for it.

What we could have done is, in the operating agreement, we have an assignment of interest clause that says upon my death, I want all my rights and interest to go to, and it could go to the trust, it could go to the wife, it could go to the brother. It could go to somebody. But when it goes to nowhere, it is going to go through probate, and likelihood that business is not going to be worth $4 million after a year of probate. That's not going to happen.

Let's say husband and wife both die at the same time and you've got a million-dollar life insurance policy. If the kids are minor children, do you want to dump that on the children right then? No. Or do you want to dump it on them when they turn 18? No. So, what I've done with my policy is I'm not the beneficiary, my wife is the beneficiary of my life insurance plan, but the trust becomes the contingent beneficiary. Put everything into the trust, and it's in that trust where we put on age restrictions and we put in spendthrift clauses that say, okay, if one of the kids, one of the beneficiaries, is in the middle of a lawsuit, the trustee can't distribute to them. If they're in the middle of a divorce or if they move to a community property state, no spouse gets half.

We could put in limits on successor trustees, what they can charge and the time limits. They can't drag this on forever and ever and ever. We could have some generation-skipping clauses where I want some assets to go to my kids, but I like my kids, but I really like my grandkids and I want to provide some provisions in there. It's in the trust that we really establish family values and we go, I believe in education, I believe in traditional marriage, I believe in church activity, I believe in military service, but they don't pay a lot in the first few years and childcare doesn't pay well, but here's some benefits to pass on the values that you're trying to do. I can't do that if the life insurance policy goes directly to the kids.

The same thing with an IRA or a 401(k). For me, the IRA was set up for my benefit when I retire. My wife is the contingent beneficiary, but then I list the trust as the second contingent. If neither of us is here, then it goes into the trust with values established and with safeguards. So, the trust really does become that big popcorn Tupperware bowl that there's no reason for probate because nothing is in limbo. We've added a clear succession plan to everything that we've done.

Candace Long: Talk about the difference between a revocable and an irrevocable trust.

Don Pendleton: The term sort of says it all. Once I create an irrevocable trust and I put the assets in it, I'm not getting the assets back. I get the benefit from it, but I've poured wet concrete and I don't get those assets back. For most of the time, and there's a reason for irrevocable trusts, but most of the time for our estate planning, we want things that can change because life is going to happen. Kids are going to get divorced and kids are going to make stupid mistakes and people are going to die and we're going to add a grandchild or two. We like things that can move and change and we like to be able to amend as we need to. I don't amend my revocable living trust; I haven't amended mine for probably five or six years, but if I need to, I can do that.

Candace Long: One of the things that I have done in light of the imminent Rapture, because what a lot of people may not understand, because I didn't understand it at first, is that the will, or what's called a pour-over will, I think you refer to it as, is really what I want done with all my stuff. And that document then gets put into everything that is assigned. I can change that at any point while I'm still alive. But once I die or am disappeared, gone, then it immediately goes into effect bypassing the probate. That's what was attractive to me. Am I on the right track here?

Don Pendleton: A revocable living trust is a document that you can change and amend and we really want everything funded or put into or we take our stuff and we retitle it. The trust doesn't do any good if we didn't put the stuff in. And so, we retitle the house, we retitle the bank accounts, the brokerage accounts. We put all these in the name of the trust.

And then the trust document is actually a whole bunch of little documents. Procedures at death: I want to be buried, I want to be cremated, I want to be I don't know whatever. There's a personal property memorandum saying, yeah, I might want everything distributed equal, but the rose-colored china, I want that to go here. But there's also funding documents, but there's advanced healthcare directives: I want to be a donor, I don't want to be a donor, here's who I want to be in charge of making medical decisions. There is a financial power of attorney in case I'm incapacitated. That kicks into power and somebody else can file my tax return or sell my car or run my business.

Candace Long: Can any lawyer do this? Do what do they ask for? Do they say, "I want a living trust"? Is that what they ask for?

Don Pendleton: Most of the time they're asking for a revocable living trust, and we always encourage you to have a really good estate planning attorney. The tough questions: what happens if your kids get in a bad marriage? What happens if your grandchild is on drugs and do you still want to distribute to them? A good trust is a contingency plan of all the what-ifs that could possibly happen. What if they move to a community property state? What if they want to serve a mission or serve in the ministry? What if? And again, we're taking our family values. And so, you're looking for a really good estate planning question that's going to ask you some tough, tough questions. It takes a lot of courage to do an estate plan.

Candace Long: What I'm looking at is if we're looking at an imminent Rapture, I've got a clause in my pour-over will that here's what I want done with whatever. Because I've got intellectual property, I've got copyrights, I've got this, that, and the other. I've got my house, whatever I have. And so, in Plan A, if I die naturally, then this is the way I want things divided. If, however, the Rapture has occurred, then I have specified in this will that I want Plan B. And here's what I want in Plan B because the charities or whatever that I may be giving people or designated in my will, they'll all be gone. So, in that event, then what do I want done? And so, I've got a Plan A and a Plan B. So, I guess my question to you is that if, for my pea brain, that I'm looking at an imminent Rapture, I don't care if somebody has four or five divorces, I want certain things done and not done.

Don Pendleton: The estate plan will depend a little bit on the complexity of your estate. If I've got a multi-million-dollar estate, I'm expecting to pay $5,000 to $10,000 to have a well-drafted estate plan done. If my estate plan is just simple, and maybe I can get by without a trust, maybe I can get by with a payable-on-death certificate for my bank accounts and a transfer-on-death for a piece of real estate. Those things are very simple things to do.

What we really want is we want the distribution clauses of the trust to handle everything. And then the will really only handles the things that a trust can't do. For instance, you can't retitle the children in the name of the trust. So, we provide guardianship in the last will and testament. And there is a pour-over provision in the last will and testament that says, "Oh yeah, all other personal property belonging to Candace in case he forgot something to put into the trust, all of the little stuff, the silverware in the drawer and you know the couch and the chair and the lampshade, all of the personal stuff, that goes into the trust too." So, the pour-over provision, it looks over, scans over, pours over your entire estate and says, "Oh, and that's in there too." And so, we're giving the trustee the power to control the entire estate. And for a small estate, it doesn't have to be expensive, but a normal trust for most people probably plan on $2,000 to $4,000 for an average-sized estate.

So, we teach a three-day asset protection class that is free. It used to be a $3,000 class. When we could do it on Zoom, we can invite as many people as we want to. You would register for that and see the whole schedule at ProtectWealth.com. This is what we do. We train how to do proper estate planning.

Candace Long: I'm Candace Long and you've been listening to my interview with Don Pendleton, President of ProtectWealth.com. I'll put a link to their free three-day asset protection class in the notes to this episode. It is well worth your time. To forward this to others, go to CandaceLong.com/podcasts and look for this episode, How to Get Your Affairs in Order Before the Rapture. You've been listening to Lessons in the Latter Days. God bless.