For this week’s episode we are joined by Diana Khan, she’s the owner of DK Law Group. She also owns several other businesses such as a brokerage firm and a title company. Together with Ryan and Nick, they discuss the legal side of real estate; the ins and outs of law; and her experiences being a lawyer, realtor, and entrepreneur at the same time. You wouldn’t want to miss this one!
For this week’s episode we are joined by Diana Khan, she’s the owner of DK Law Group. She also owns several other businesses such as a brokerage firm and a title company. Together with Ryan and Nick, they discuss the legal side of real estate; the ins and outs of law; and her experiences being a lawyer, realtor, and entrepreneur at the same time. You wouldn’t want to miss this one!
So why do you think there are people out there who don't have trust? Do you think it's just like a lack of understanding of how it works?
Speaker 2:I think it's three reasons. The first is it's expensive. Everybody's like, oh my gosh, trust can cost anywhere between four thousand and ten thousand dollars to create, depending on my entities. You're right, that's expensive. But if you own a hundred rental properties and you're freezing the capital gains on just one of them that you're going to sell in the future, you're saving so much more. It's just it's expensive up front. I think the other misconception is that, at least when I was growing up, I was told that, oh, trust fund babies have a lot of money. Like, trust are for people who have money, trust are for people who want generational wealth, who want to protect the wealth for those that they're building it up. And when we change that mindset, it's how we can allow people to actually see trust as a different utility. And I think a lot of people are like I don't have money, I'm fine. Okay, you don't have money right now, you might still have debt if something horrible happens. And the third is nobody really wants to talk about their own demise.
Speaker 3:Welcome to the everyday millionaire show with Ryan Greenberg and Nick Calvis. All right guys, welcome back to another episode of the everyday millionaire show. We're here with Diana Khan. Diana, Diana, Diana.
Speaker 2:Diana.
Speaker 3:How you doing, diana Great, sorry, it's a whole new set here. It was an hour and 15 minutes. Well, actually maybe two hours now of setting up. Thank you for being patient.
Speaker 2:Of course, don't lie, though. You did this just for me. You wanted to change it up.
Speaker 3:Yeah, we're going to change it up again next week for the next podcast. So every week we're going to go with a new set, but it's great, nick, how you doing man, good Good.
Speaker 1:Thanks for coming, of course.
Speaker 3:So I had you here, because my lawyer cost me $450 an hour to talk to and I figured hey, if I have Diana, I can ask all the questions. I was going to pay my lawyer. For free Now. Diana is my lawyer, so now I can get all this free law information.
Speaker 2:I am so glad he outed himself this early in the podcast so now I can talk about all his crap because I know all his secrets. I'm really here to dispose it.
Speaker 3:So Diana owns DK Law Group.
Speaker 2:I do.
Speaker 3:What do you guys focus in? Why don't you give me a little elevator pitch?
Speaker 2:Yeah, so I actually own several businesses. I own three real estate brokerages, I own a property management company, and law was sort of the thing I wanted to do long term. But the problem with law is that, as you know, it costs $450 an hour to get hired and then you can't really help people in our industry the way I wanted to. So I started the brokerages, I started a title company and then I started helping people on the law side and I could kind of choose and pick my clients. So our law firm started doing all of real estate. I've been a real estate for 15 years so I've done everything from regular transactions I'm a real estate broker Assumptions, loan modifications. I've personally negotiated about 9,000 short sales. So I've done sort of all of it right. And the good news about that is that, if you call me, there's really not a situation where you can be like, hey, I have the situation, what do I need to do? And people are like this lawyer doesn't know what they're doing. I just, for example, went toe to toe with some of the sorry the Coldwell Banker corporate attorney at a mediation and she said something and it was completely wrong. And I just looked at her and I was like, with all due respect, that's wrong. And she just stared at me and I was like it's not even that, you don't want to be rude, but I've been here for 15 years. You're not local to Maryland. Anyway, we won that.
Speaker 2:Outside of real estate we do all sort of business formation. A lot of you probably have your own LLCs. I know you do, obviously you do. The problem is all of you guys call me and you're like I have an LLC, I can't get sued. So I realized that this is true probably 20% of the time, because whoever started your LLC didn't give you those formation docs. They didn't like protect you, the litigation, operating agreements, all that stuff.
Speaker 2:That starts out so commercial law with like residential, all of it. And then my new niche is trust and estates and estate building to kind of tie in all of us in real estate. If you're not doing your estate planning, you're really not protecting your wealth. You're growing your money but you're not protecting wealth for those coming after you. And that's kind of where my new focus has kind of been on to get people who contact me for real estate contact me for property management, hey, let's talk about how to save that money over the course of whatever. So when Nick's three-year-old turns 18, he makes sure that whatever he's built will stay around and not just go away.
Speaker 1:So at what points should somebody looking into getting a trust? Oh right away. Can you explain?
Speaker 3:first what a trust is yeah. Just like a brief summary for somebody that doesn't.
Speaker 2:Yeah. So the easiest way to think about it is all of your stuff and all of your stuff. You're walking around with your stuff in an envelope, right? Just picture all your money, your residential properties, anything you could possibly equate that you're worth is in an envelope and it has your name on it. Has your name on it, right, like your name, first, last name. So if somebody sues you, somebody comes after your stuff, they come to this envelope, they come and grab stuff out of that envelope because they're suing your assets.
Speaker 2:So when you create a trust, you're essentially creating another envelope. Now that envelope no longer has your name on it. We name it whatever we want and we make a contract and we say while I'm alive, I control the assets, but I'm no longer the owner of that trust. Basically, I just am. I'm the vehicle that controls it. During my lifespan, I still have access to my money, I still have access to everything, but what I'm doing is I'm actually giving it to my family or I'm giving it to my children prior to death and I'm doing it now. So I create this new envelope. I put all my stuff in it. Now my personal envelope. Your personal envelope is empty.
Speaker 2:So if you ever get sued. On paper your assets are zero. They can't go after that trust. So you're essentially creating this ability to avoid litigation. For the property management people, those who own rentals if you do what's called a irrevocable trust one that you can't change and you put your rental properties in it, it freezes the tax assessed value. So in very simple terms, baltimore City you buy a house it's 100,000, put in a trust. You want to sell it in 15 years. It's now worth 450, you're paying capital gains on the 100K when you created the trust. So, long-term investing it's great. Litigation-wise it's great. It also allows you to control what happens after you die.
Speaker 3:So one question would be when you're setting up a trust and then you're going to the bank to ask for loans, do they get to see that as your assets? Because, as real estate investors, we're trying to go to the bank, we're trying to get them to give us money and leverage to buy more real estate. How does the trust look on your balance sheet?
Speaker 2:So it depends on how you're doing it right. If you're doing a hard money loan or anything like that on your business, the trust owns the business, but the LLC is still its own entity, so you can still prove income and assets. That way, all you're doing is just kind of separating it from yourself. If you're doing it as a personal entity, your trust only has assets, but it has no debts. So if you're doing like a paycheck or those of us who are not 1099 or like making money, your DTI is still going to come in for your lender because you're still making money as your own personal person.
Speaker 2:When you want to prove that the bank account for the trust belongs to you, lenders will accept that, because all I'll do is I'll issue a document that says this is yours, you're the primary trustee, you have full authority to it and most lenders will accept it. The issue you're going to face is when you buy the house, you're not going to be able to put it in the trust name right away, because you can't take out a loan for somebody who's not making income right, but you can flip it into the trust as soon as you're done buying that house. So you basically buy it as Ryan or Nick. Two minutes later you're just like. I'm going to quick claim, deed it into the trust to provide that protection. The deed of trust, which is the lender, will still have a deed of trust on the property and as long as you stay current, you can keep it in the trust in your name, in the trust's name, and keep paying the mortgage. You're fine.
Speaker 1:Could you buy it in your LLC and then do the same transfer into the trust afterwards too?
Speaker 2:Yeah, so when we create a trust where there's LLC involvements, we essentially do a business trust where the business trust will own the LLC. So you can still kind of do the entity as an LLC. But what that allows you to do is partnerships. Right, you can do a lot more with just outside of your operating agreement to make sure that, hey, if I die and we have a partnership, our business trust is going to talk about what part of the LLC is covered after my death and then there's no taxes on that for your family and there's no taxes for your spouse or your kids or anything like that.
Speaker 2:You can also do things. That I like a lot is if I own several businesses, I don't want to die and that legacy to go away. Maybe it's just me, but if you have a business trust, you can say, when I die, my portion of the business is not going to be sold, or we're not going to sell this company for five years. Or you can put your intentions prior to death, which some people like, because if you guys own a business together, you have a kid. You may say after I die, my portion of the business, you're going to maintain that business for the next 15 years and 10% of my profits. Instead of going to my spouse or my girlfriend, you're going to put those in investment stocks for my kid when they turn 18. And you could do all that upfront. So if you get hit by a bus tomorrow, you have your intentions written out.
Speaker 3:And so can you sell a trust to somebody else, or can you just pass it along Like does that have to be predetermined?
Speaker 2:So you don't have to sell a trust. You can just switch the trustees. You can't really make a profit off of it, but you're the main trust to your trustee. You're the trustee, you're the controlling factor. You sign so you have the chance to change it any time after you create it. So you can make somebody else a trustee. You can say a portion of the funds I still make all the decisions but a portion of those funds go to another person. It's really a contract that you're creating for your future and you can kind of make it whatever way you want.
Speaker 1:And are there any loopholes for somebody to come after the trust that have your assets in it but technically you're not the owner?
Speaker 2:Not really, because trusts are supposed to be kept private and they are definitely protected by the court systems. The only things you're going to look at is if you're doing like Medicare or Medicaid planning for those who want to create trust later in life. Again, if your envelope is zero, you qualify for government benefits, right? So a lot of people will put all their savings in a trust so that when they get older they can still qualify for Medicare or Medicaid because they don't want to put that money away. So if you do that with the intention to avoid debt or the intention to avoid, like, be able to qualify for that, there's essentially a way to break it. But if you do it ahead of time and you plan ahead of time, then good luck breaking that. You're not getting sued or anything like that.
Speaker 1:So why do you think there are people out there who don't have trust? Do you think it's just like a lack of understanding of how it works?
Speaker 2:I think it's three reasons. The first is it's expensive. It's not. You want to will go to rockitlawyercom. They spit them out for $250. You shouldn't really do that anyway, but it's expensive. And everybody's like, oh my gosh, trust can cost anywhere between $4,000 to $10,000 to create, depending on my entities. And I'm like okay, you're right, that's expensive. You own a hundred rental properties and you're freezing the capital gains on just one of them that you're going to sell in the future. You're saving so much more. It's just, it's expensive up front.
Speaker 2:I think the other misconception is that, at least when I was growing up, I was told that, oh, trust fund babies have a lot of money. Like trust are for people who have money. And I am trying very hard to break that. I'm trying to say trust are for people who want generational wealth, who want to protect the wealth for those that they're building it up. And when we change that mindset, it's how we can allow people to actually see trust as a different utility. And I think a lot of people are like I don't have money, I'm fine. Okay, you don't have money right now, you might still have debt if something horrible happens. And the third is nobody really wants to talk about their own demise.
Speaker 3:So for the one that you freeze, you know your tax assessment now. When you go to sell that in the future, is it getting sold out of the trust and then the trust no longer exists after that? Or is it getting sold to just some random?
Speaker 2:person. So you know, and for those of you who have done title, it depends how you label the trust right. Normally what I say is, for every house you should have a separate trust just for that house, so that when you sell the house that trust no longer exists. You're sort of closing the loop on liability, yes, but you would sell it out of the trust. And in Maryland you basically just have a document that says you know, my name's Nick or my name's Ryan, I'm the trustee for this trust and I have the right to sell this property. And the title company just wants to see that, they want to see the trust, to see that you can make those decisions. And then you sell it just like that. You just sign your name as the trustee instead of just your personal name, with nothing else, unless, of course, your trust says something like you can't sell it because you need permission from your spouse or something crazy.
Speaker 3:So what would you pay like if the house right now is worth $100,000, what would you pay to put it in a trust?
Speaker 2:Usually the transfer tax consideration on 100k is about one to 2%. So you're looking at the trust costs plus the 1%.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so can you amend a trust at any time to add additional properties to it that you already have properties in?
Speaker 2:And that's the difference between most lawyers, right, most lawyers will be like no, once I create the trust for you, like you're a solid. The way I see it is like for those of us in real estate. Right, we don't charge people to just amend the contract, and I find it the same way. You have to change the trust, but I will either make it easily available for you to contact me and just add that house as part of your assets or to give you the ability to do it yourself. Your trust in general has what's called like a magic wand provision.
Speaker 2:Attorneys are horrible, they come up with the weirdest words but it's like. You know we magically. Anything I own now and in the future goes in the trust. So the house would be included. But again, for those of you who are doing investments, like we are, I would still advise you to have an attorney create just a singular trust for that rental property. My law firm will provide those kind of free of charge. Of course I'll be like hey, do you want to use my title company, since I'm doing the recordings? But for the most part, you know you're getting a service where most lawyers will charge you God knows how many hours and it'll take you like seven weeks to get an appointment.
Speaker 3:Okay, so one trust per property is what you're recommending, and then in those trusts there's some sort of provision. I'm just like trying to summarize it because it's a lot.
Speaker 2:It is a lot, I spoke a lot.
Speaker 3:But for that trust there's a provision that says you can sell it or you can't sell it. So, like if we had a, if I had a kid, and I wanted them to keep that as, like a legacy property, I could just say this house can never be sold It'll, it'll just have to be in the family forever. That's correct.
Speaker 2:Yep, you can do whatever you want. You can even say it'll be sold when they're 33 and married. I've had people right trust that their cats will stay in the property till the cat die. So how does?
Speaker 1:so let's say years, like let's say years go by and let's say 30 years or maybe in 50 or 60 years and, like you said, you can't sell the property, does it just come up in the title search and that's like a part of like the document that says, hey, this was in a trust, you can't sell this property at all.
Speaker 2:A title search will just show that it's named in the trust, right. So any title company who wants to sell it will need copies of the trust to see it unfold. Now remember, when you die, a will is public right. The moment you die, everything you willed and you've put in writing, anybody can look it up. A trust is completely private, so you have a little bit more privacy, except with the title company. The title company will need to see it to ensure that you know, hey, this person can sell it, so they can find and title that it's titled in the trust. But they'll need to look at that trust to confirm it.
Speaker 2:And that's another reason I always push for one property, one trust you know, sort of if you can think about it's a scale you have the family trust, which is your family legacy, and then we just kind of branch off in smaller trusts that just handle each property individually. So when you need to sell, you know this property or you know one of the properties. The title company is just reviewing the trust for the property and you're not outing yourself and all your you know huge network.
Speaker 1:And how long is the document that they have to read to determine what are their rules of?
Speaker 2:it. So it's usually about 10 pages if it's just for the house. If it's for everything it's like 130 pages. But in the state of Maryland at least, in Maryland, you can have what's called a certification from a law firm that just says my name is Diana Khan. You know I drafted the trust, or I've reviewed this trust, on behalf of XYZ. On page X it gives them the right to sell, and then I signed that and most title companies will accept that as a document instead of reviewing the trust, as long as it doesn't come from you directly. And the reason being is because you know they can't really trust that. The trust says XYZ, they have trust issues, they have trust issues right, a lot, of, a lot of trust.
Speaker 3:So, to go on the other end of the spectrum, what is the liability of having properties in? Because you know there's better loan products for your personal name, right? So what's the liability of having properties in your personal name and is there a way to protect that outside of the trust thing? Now that we've talked about trust, is there another way to protect with, like umbrella policies or anything like that?
Speaker 2:So, yeah, I mean in general. I don't know a single lawyer that doesn't have an umbrella policy. So anybody who you know currently has insurance, you guys should consider an umbrella policy. Umbrella policies in general are like a walking talking coverage wherever you are, whatever you're doing.
Speaker 2:However, in rental properties, I get very nervous when somebody tells me my rental property is in my personal name. The reason being is because if you have something happen in your house, whether or not your tenant trips or they're just a-holes right Like, either way, you're getting sued. The problem is, everything you own is now on the line to get caught up, so they can literally do a list pens against your personal property and says that, like you know, they're suing you for, let's say, two million, and it's a complete BS claim. You're now tied up in court with your personal assets that are also in your personal name and, as a lawyer, if somebody calls me and they're like, hey, I want to hire you to, you know, sue, ryan. Okay, the first thing I'm going to do is do an asset search on you. That's within two minutes. Just put your phone number and the systems I have. I can see what cars you drive. I can see all of your social media that's tied to all of your emails, I can see what you're worth. I can see sort of a gauged idea on what's in your bank account and all of the properties you own. So if it's all in your personal name, somebody says I would like to sue him for X, right?
Speaker 2:First thing I'm doing is seeing how much you're worth and if you're worth a lot, it's more worth my time to chase a BS claim, because I know that for you to defend the claim when all of your stuff is in your personal name means hourly fees from a lawyer. It means you know you're going to worry about your house. Even if it's a BS claim. You're looking at 15 months of filing something in circuit court and a lot of the time as lawyers. We're like he's got a lot of assets. He's likely to settle for less if we just, you know, push them. Now if it's in your LLC name, again, I can't do the same asset search right, cause it's supposed to. They're supposed to be a veil and LLCs are great if you do them right, but I will tell you that 85% of people maybe 90 don't have their LLC set up right.
Speaker 3:Well, we're going to have to get our LLC operating agreements over to Diana after this.
Speaker 1:Oh, for sure. So if you have an LLC and somebody sues your LLC, but everything that your LLC owns is inside of a trust, does that protect you from them suing that LLC?
Speaker 2:So it doesn't protect them. But I will tell you that. And again, some lawyers going to watch this and kill me. But we're lazy as lawyers and what I mean by that is we just talked about me searching up Ryan by his phone number. Right, if I do a search for a rental property that's in an LLC, and then I do, you know, I check S that and I check all this and I see the trust owns it.
Speaker 2:Now, in order to go after personal assets, I have to prove not only that you know the law is not a personal property, but I have to, you know, I have to pierce that corporate veil, which is three reasons why it might be pierced. Then I have to prove the trust is there just to protect you from liability. I, as a lawyer, now have 10 times the hard job to get to the personal reference of the person. And when I see that you have an LLC, that's just for one rental property I know some investors say three to 10 is safe. Whatever you know you're doing as a lawyer, I'm going to be like that's way too much work. The person's claim has to be way worth over their value for me to say, yeah, I'm going to take this claim on right Cause.
Speaker 2:A lot of these lawsuits are contingency based. I'm getting paid 30 to 40% of whatever I sue you on. So if I see that I have to go through an LLC and I have to go through a trust and I have to, like, break all these barriers Now I'm thinking time versus energy and you know somebody's going to watch this and be like man. Lawyers are assholes, but it's the truth Like we also make money off suing, so you're less of an easy target.
Speaker 3:Okay, so what is your? What is your thought? You said three to 10 per LLC. Is there? Is there a number? Should it be separate LLCs or should it just always be trusts?
Speaker 2:I think you should have a separate LLC for each of your rental properties, like you should have a separate business that handles your rentals. At the bare minimum, it's one trust that can own all the LLCs, if you want to kind of do the double layer Cause we have one LLC that owns all of the properties minus a couple that we have in our personal names.
Speaker 3:But like that was like the ones that we bought, that we lived in.
Speaker 2:Do you have an operating agreement?
Speaker 3:Yes.
Speaker 2:Do you co Okay? So the problem now is all right, let's talk about that. I usually say one LLC per rental because what you're doing is, let's say somebody wants to sue you and they get hurt, right? If that LLC owns 10 properties, you have 10, you know, to 15 properties that have equity in the house. So again, if once I file in the state of Maryland that I'm suing you for that one property, I'm suing the LLC, I can now make claims on the rest of your rental properties and I can essentially freeze the ability for you to sell them or move them or anything else which is going to get you to settle with me quicker, because all of a sudden I'm holding hostage all of your properties.
Speaker 3:But that's like bookkeeping for every single one, new tax returns for every single one, Like my bookkeeper would charge me. Yeah, how much money we would spend in bookkeeping. How do you get around that?
Speaker 2:So I have a lot of people who what they'll do is they'll just do one trust account, so it'll just we're funneling it, so each LLC gets income in for the rental right and then you essentially pay into the trust every month or whatever your net equity is, and then the CPA just focuses on the trust money and a CPA can do that for you. It's a little bit harder, yes, it's a little bit more expensive. Your CPA probably would kill you with the amount of properties you have, but most normal people don't have a hundred properties.
Speaker 3:I don't have a hundred, he's got a hundred.
Speaker 2:Most normal people are not Nick.
Speaker 3:That would be insane to file a hundred tax returns.
Speaker 2:If anything, focus on doing less. Like you have 90, something I think you said so I would focus on maybe doing 10 to 15 on each, so that you're not putting all of your eggs in one basket, and that's sort of what worries me, right. And then you have to look at how do we pierce a corporate veil, right? And those are really three things. You don't have an operating agreement that you're following. Either you don't have an operating agreement or you're not doing minutes once a year for yourself. You're not computing everything in that operating agreement that's required in the state of Maryland to be considered a valid LLC. You're not doing those things. I can say it's basically you created the LLC to protect yourself and I can pierce that corporate veil.
Speaker 2:The second one is how much money is your LLC kind of holding? Again with you? I'm not too worried. You have 90 properties. You probably have a lot of money in that LLC account that's kind of swinging every month. But those people who have one rental or two, you know they keep that cash very flush in that account, like very low in that account. That's a red flag. A judge will say well, why do you only have $2,000 in a business account? And they'll say this business is clearly just a funnel money into your personal account.
Speaker 2:And then the third one that we always see that happens is the commingling right. Most of my clients in Baltimore City. They'll hire somebody to go do a quick job like, go, hey, go handle my property, I need something painted, I need the tub cocked, something very simple. This man goes, he gets it done and all of a sudden he just takes cash up, right, and you're like okay, let me just pay him. And you pay him from your personal account for a rental that's now in your LLC. You just commingled funds, not intentionally, not on purpose, but as a lawyer, that's what I need. I just need that one time where you paid somebody, not out of your account, even if they didn't take cash up, and then maybe you did it twice, and the first time you follow the rules in your operating agreement, but the second time you did it. Now I'm showing that you are commingling and that commingling is so easy to break. It happens all the time for investors.
Speaker 3:That's interesting. That's an easy one to mess up, because I can admit I shouldn't, but I've done that in the past, not this year, not this year.
Speaker 2:But it's just human right. When we live our lives, we don't think about what a lawyer is thinking about, right? When you ask me, I'm like, yeah, you should definitely have a contract for all those things, but that's not how humans operate. You're not thinking like I do. But if you're not talking to me about this stuff, right, there's ways for us to make sure your operating agreement is loose enough that you can cover some of those incidents. But if you just get an operating agreement off Google, you're not doing yourself a favor.
Speaker 3:So for all of those people that are listening and saying, oh shit, my operating agreement is probably terrible, can you amend them? Can you change them? How do you fix that?
Speaker 2:So you can amend them, but I usually just what I'll do is I'll just create a whole new one and have all the people who are part of the LLC or the S-Corp, C-Corp that you have just signed that the new one is the one that follows.
Speaker 3:So to just completely get rid of the other one Yep, and then my law firm.
Speaker 2:I'm sure other lawyers as well. I know you're not going to read 130 pages of an operating agreement or 60 pages or whatever it is. So I give you what's called the LLC playbook. If you have an LLC, and it just goes over like it's five pages long and it says these are the things that you're required to do every single year. This is how you do them, this is how you should do them, and then I just give you that and I'm like this is what you care about. Like this is right. Here is what's going to protect you from a lawsuit.
Speaker 2:So if you haven't worked with a lawyer, who's given you that again, it's not expensive to talk to a lawyer. It's not at least now, if you work with a law firm like mine you know I give myself one out to my clients. You can text me general questions. I don't want to make money off you off a general question. I want you to use me for that building of wealth. I want you to use me when you start a new business and I'm not going to make money if you call me and I charge you $400 to answer general question.
Speaker 1:So when I first created my LLC for the rental property was about six years ago and I didn't create an operating agreement for like two years after I started it, and it was only because there were certain title companies that would allow me to purchase properties in my LLC without an operating agreement. And then I would go to like other title companies and they would ask for it and I always thought it was. I thought, always thought you need an operating agreement when there's multiple owners of the company. So they would ask for it and I'm like I can't, I don't have it. I've closed with this title company and they didn't require me to have it. They're like well, we need one or we can't settle. So then I just I had to create one at that point, but for the longest time I didn't have one.
Speaker 2:So what Nick just admitted for any tenants and his properties is if you sue him, his operating agreement is off Google he's probably like 10 pages long. Call him.
Speaker 1:All right, I'll get it amended. Tonight I'm trying to rent out one of Nick's properties, so you can't call me because this episode won't be out for another two weeks.
Speaker 3:So let's just hypothetically speaking, if I rented one of Nick's properties right now and tripped and fell, I could. I could probably take them for a lot right.
Speaker 2:Oh yeah, just call me.
Speaker 3:How many vacancies you got.
Speaker 1:Too many.
Speaker 3:I'll get one for me, one for Marcus over there We'll get one, Diana will grab one.
Speaker 2:And the thing is We'll split them all up. If you guys have insurance, I'm sure you do right, like, just again, if you have one insurance policy versus a hundred. As a lawyer, I'm like, man, this guy owns 90, some properties, that's a hundred policies that I can basically make an argument across that this company owned all of them. And try to open up more deep pockets, Cause, remember, it's a numbers game. People are like, well, that's not legal. And I'm like you know what, if I have the time to serve a hundred insurance companies, one of them is going to be like, yeah, make this go away.
Speaker 2:So, for example, we had a fire in one of our rental properties. It was completely my tenant's fault, like a hundred percent. They set a fire. It was in a condo where we had like an HOA, a condo association, and then you know they had rentals policy and nobody wanted to pay it out except for and then you know the renters insurance was like we're not paying it because this guy was negligent. So I'm sitting there like, okay, how do I protect myself from having to be responsible for basically almost burning down this building when nobody's insurance covered it?
Speaker 2:So I went to the rental insurance company and I said, hey, I get it. You don't want to pay this. This guy was negligent. Here's some bullshit legal argument. And I literally spammed them with like three pages of legal arguments that were complete BS. And they came back and basically called me out on it and were like this is BS, like we're not, we're not paying this.
Speaker 2:And I said, cool, thanks. You know, I noticed you're in Denver and I'm a lawyer in Maryland and I just made a legal argument. And the thing is, if you tell me that it's not true, but you're not using legal knowledge and you're not quoting the law, you're not responding in a legal fashion. So it's cool. I don't know if you can do that, but can I get your insurance number in Maryland? I'm just going to go ahead and file a complaint with the MIA that you're performing law, because I just don't think you're doing that right. I kid you not. Two days later they called me and were like we've made an executive decision to pay the repairs on this. You know, let us know if you have any questions. And the reason they did that is because they now know they have to hire a lawyer here at $400 an hour to argue my bullshit claims. I basically got away with it.
Speaker 1:So is it better to have higher leverage on these properties versus than having properties that are paid off?
Speaker 2:in those situations, if you're getting sued, you know insurance companies are not going to want to pay and with your operating agreement, there's no good answer. Yes, usually higher is better. But I worked for an insurance company when I got out of law school and 95% of my job was to deny insurance claims by looking at operating agreements and power of attorneys and like life insurance claims, just to find people who use head BS documents. And the reason that that was my job is because, in the eyes of the law, when I say the word operating agreement or I say the word negligence, a lot of people are like oh, that's an easy word to understand. That's a very different word in Maryland than in Virginia, than in Louisiana. So I would deny claims just based on using general documents that you didn't realize had statutory definitions.
Speaker 3:Well, there's a lot to think about here.
Speaker 2:I'm stressing these guys out.
Speaker 3:They're both going to call me after this and be like um. You know I did have a lot of other questions.
Speaker 2:Now I'm just I can't stop thinking about all these things that are going on right now. I think what you're saying is I just made you a client.
Speaker 1:Yeah, no, no. This is important too, and you made me a client as well, because after this, you're going to sit down here with me and write this agreement.
Speaker 2:All right, I mean, I'm down for it.
Speaker 3:I think it's something that I've definitely overlooked, especially in the beginning, I feel like you're grinding to build a business and you barely have any money. I had negative money for so long, like just borrowing money, buying houses, building the business that the last thing I want to hear is like, hey, do you have four grand to put your stuff in a trust? I was like, well, I don't have any stuff, that's what I thought, right. And then snap your fingers and fast forward a couple of years and now you have a bunch of stuff and it's pretty much all just unprotected.
Speaker 2:Right. And then I'll be very honest. I own seven businesses, which means I have seven LLCs. And I'm in the hot seat too, because when I started I was grinding, just like you. It's human nature. You're starting a new business. You're thinking about how am I going to market myself or how am I going to do all these things? And then you don't think about this because at that time you're piss broke. You're just like, yeah, I'm just going to like throw shit and see where it sticks and see how I can, like go out and be on my own.
Speaker 2:And then next thing, you know, like three, four years later, you're like why don't I have a lawyer in my arsenal? And then that's when you realize so I was guilty of the same thing, even though I am a lawyer. And now I'm like okay, my operating agreement has to change too. It's just part of the business. And the more we think about it and put it as part of our yearly checklist of things that we need to make sure are okay, then that's okay. If you have a lawyer like me, I'll send you an email in December and be like hey, there were no laws changed about operating agreements. Or hey, I'll just take care of this for you, and then you know it works out. But a lot of lawyers are not as savvy, or maybe they'll just charge you a lot. And then the perception of $500 an hour. I can't afford that.
Speaker 1:So I guess, in terms of operating agreements, how does the wording change from like let's say, there's two people who are buying rental properties and they're very similar, like. What would change as far as like the wording in the operating agreements?
Speaker 2:So the big things about having two partners in an operating agreement is when you don't have one right, or you do have one and you don't focus on things like what happens if one person wants to be bought out.
Speaker 2:So I have a client who actually just hired me. She didn't have an operating agreement but her other business partner has decided I don't want to do this anymore. And she doesn't want to do it because they're literally fighting over stupid shit, like they're just being petty. I think you know the person who was in the car with me. When I took the call after I hung up she was like wow, why is that person being such a bitch? For, like you're literally being hired because one person's being a bitch. And I was like 100%, so they didn't have an operating agreement, so this check goes into the business account and empties out half of it and takes it right. And then she said we're not doing any more events. They have commitments to the end of the year.
Speaker 2:And this person hired me and was like what can I do? And I was like well, where's your operating agreement? And they're like well, we have one now. It doesn't address any sort of arguments or issues about partners or buyouts. We didn't do any of that because we thought we were going to be all good and I'm like well, now you got to hire a lawyer because you're stuck to whatever the state of Maryland says, and the state of Maryland says that if you have a disagreement and you don't have a, how do we handle the situation? You got to wait for the court to decide, which is a 15 month timeframe in Baltimore City.
Speaker 1:Now, if you're a sole member, llc, is the operating agreement a lot shorter? No, or can it be just as long?
Speaker 2:No, because the whole idea behind you is even though you're a sole member, llc, remember. Llcs are made to be able to give you multiple partners. It's a hybrid vehicle that we've now created for businesses. So the whole idea is yes, you're a single member now. You may not be in the future, so we're creating an operating agreement that's going to show that you intend to grow your business. So it needs to cover things like how to.
Speaker 2:When I die, what happens? How are my clients going to be handled if I no longer want to do this? So a lot of us who have operating agreements is like yeah, man, like I own the business, the end. But really, if you get audited or you get an attorney involved, they're going to look at did you have the consumers in mind when you created your operating agreement to protect the future? And the answer is no. They'll be like well, you didn't have an operating agreement to run a business. You literally created this just to create, you know, create that boundary to protect yourself.
Speaker 2:And as a lawyer, I'm just looking for anything to sort of break that veil, and it's not one thing, but I'm looking for a pattern. If you're operating agreements not good, then you pay that guy with cash app and you know you have like 90 properties in one LLC and then you've put some money, or like you've paid yourself sometimes or you've gone drinking and I didn't see that expense as like a business client expense. Maybe your QuickBooks is a little weird. Now I found four, five, six flaws and I can suit you easier. Will I win in court, maybe? But guess what? I've got time. You don't 15 months of putting you through the ringer. You're going to eventually settle with me and that's that's the game. The game is that when somebody hires a lawyer, they're like this person's working with contingency. Nick's got a hundred properties. You want to go like absolutely, let's see what we can do and he'll settle quickly because all your properties are tied up now.
Speaker 3:Hmm.
Speaker 1:Interesting, very interesting.
Speaker 2:Nick's going to hire me after this. This is worth the drive.
Speaker 1:I have two weeks. We're at the drive for you for sure.
Speaker 3:So okay. So as far as businesses and business partners do you say that you should have some sort of buy sell agreement before or like, is that in the operating agreement?
Speaker 2:Yeah, we have basically like a buyout clause or like what happens if one dies, those kinds of things right, like, just have it because it's from a consumer standpoint. Did you protect the consumer? And two, did you have the intentions to grow the business? So you should have those in there, even if you're a sole member. If I die, such and such person will do it. And remember now, virginia, we're not a Virginia, but Virginia now said that in a lot of these LLCs you have to essentially name the person who's going to take it over in your operating agreement.
Speaker 2:Um, and then you're looking at issues I'm sure all of you have been heard open your LLC in Delaware, or open your LLC in this state because you're paying less taxes. This is very true, right, where you're operating in your main home is, is that's where your tax basis. But if your rental properties are still in Maryland and your operating agreement isn't focused on Maryland statutes within it saying if we get sued for this and jurisdiction is Maryland, you know we'll cover these bases. What you're now doing is you're stuck in Delaware law, whereas the person suing you is stuck in Maryland law and they're going to win because your properties are here. So you have to sort of address that across the board, and it's not every state right, but you should have an attorney review it. If you're doing business outside of the state, your LLCs are just having an attorney look at it and be like, hey, is this good, if I get sued here, do I need to add any verbiage in my operating agreement that's going to cover me?
Speaker 3:Okay, for business owners or partners or even, I guess, single person business owners, do you suggest having life insurance as well, and can you explain that a little bit more, cause I've been going through this process recently and just like I'm, I guess, getting sold on life insurance right now.
Speaker 2:Oh good.
Speaker 3:Um, because and you can correct me if I'm wrong cause both my partner and I are key men, or key people, I guess, to be politically correct.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 3:Don't want to be. Uh yeah, women can operate businesses too. Look at Diana.
Speaker 2:There, you go.
Speaker 3:Um so, because if one of us died, then the the business would. It would struggle to like go on. So we need some sort of like financial, like reparations or something like. Is that right?
Speaker 2:Yeah, so you should have life insurance in general. Right, a lot of us are entrepreneurs so we have to have our own policies. So I'm going to kind of go from work kids and then we'll talk about entrepreneurs as well. For those of you who have kids, you should get them life insurance at a young age. I know that sounds really weird. People are like I don't want to think about my six month old dying right, but to out myself. I have an autoimmune disease. I'm type one diabetic. I got diagnosed when I was eight, at 18, when I needed to get life insurance. It's almost impossible to get it without paying a shitload of money. I mean I'm talking like a thousand 2000 a month just because I'm type one diabetic, not because I'm unhealthy. It's literally you have three kids. This is your age. This is how much it's going to cost and the amount of money I make a month to cover what life insurance would cover.
Speaker 3:The fees are so it goes by what you're making.
Speaker 2:So it's how much coverage you want, right? So for me, if I get life insurance.
Speaker 2:As a primary breadwinner of my house, I know what threshold my husband would need, right, If I demise. So I'm like if I need life insurance, I need to think about the total coverage that's going to get paid out. And then I also have this autoimmune. If you get life insurance for a child at the age of 18, they have two options. They can kind of buy out and get some of the money that you've put into the life insurance since they were little, or they can continue that coverage after 18 at the price you were paying when they were six months old.
Speaker 1:Do you know what percent that they would get if they choose the buyout option at 18?
Speaker 2:I don't, but I can definitely get that answer and get you back.
Speaker 1:What do you think? It would be Just like a guess.
Speaker 2:I would assume it's anywhere between 50 to 60% of what you put in.
Speaker 1:And are you? If you get life insurance for your kids, are they locked in at that same rate throughout their whole life? Is that also a benefit, right?
Speaker 3:Because if something happens to them, so the older you get, the more expensive you get.
Speaker 2:Right. So again, if my parents had gotten it when I was like three years old I mean just using numbers today I have all three of my kids, in short, and I'm paying like literally 20 to 30 bucks a month. It's very small because I got it right when they were born. But if they get type one diabetes, like I did when I was eight, at 18, they wouldn't see that increase and they could continue that coverage, which then even if they say, okay, we're going to increase it for like fluctuation and we're going to make it 130 bucks. Now they can't look at your medical history, which is the big factor for your kids. It's a big benefit for them because you just don't know what, if anything, they might get diagnosed with. And life insurance is not something we're thinking about. At 18 years old, most of our kids will be like, yeah, I'll just take the buyout. But as parents, we can say, hey, don't do that, keep it going, it's not that expensive, we'll maintain it for you. You just don't know.
Speaker 1:Well, whose option is it? Is it the 18 year olds or the parents?
Speaker 2:option. It's the 18 year old, but I would hope that. Oh, really, yeah, I think your 18 year old would ask questions though. Yeah, and again, you can also do things like if you had a trust and you die before they turn 18, you could say that you know the portion of your wealth is not going to them unless they continue the life insurance policy. So I could create that for you, just you know. Going back to that Now, if you have a work insurance plan which I think most people who are not entrepreneurs this is what they see One of the issues that you're going to find is that you really life insurance.
Speaker 2:In the state of Maryland at least, the requirement to pay out is much longer in an employee plan than a private plan. So the problem is right. If an employee plan doesn't have to pay out your claim till 12 months, you're dealing with whatever company your employer chose. So Trans America usually pays out pretty quickly, but some others don't. So the problem then is you die. You have employee provided life insurance. They have 12 to 24 months to pay out. They may examine your medical record. When did you start the job? Did you have medical like? There's a lot of questions they can look at, while your spouse or your children now have a $30,000 burial that they have to force and also make up the income while they're waiting for that life insurance policy. Whereas private, private life insurance has different payout requirements and it's much quicker, so that, in of itself, people are like I'm covered by my job and I'm like you should get a second one. Like, just do it, it's not going to be much. Make sure you know how much your employer is actually covering.
Speaker 3:Yeah, Because that that to me is like huge. Because the quickness of the payout, because if you know your business partner dies and you're both fully operating the business together and it's doing a couple of hundred thousand dollars a month and you don't have somebody to do that you could go broken a couple of weeks.
Speaker 1:So are these life insurance companies similar to attorneys in the sense that they try to find any not loophole but like anything to penetrate reasons why they shouldn't pay out a life insurance policy Absolutely.
Speaker 2:I worked at Trans American Life Insurance when I was in law school and a little bit after. It was a very nice corporate job, nine to five. I couldn't do it because my job was literally just in high life insurance claims. I kid you not Trans America is probably going to sue me that I say this out loud. They had me go through medical records. They had me look at was there a beneficiary change in the last 10 years that this person? We had situations where it was like that this person have a beneficiary change where maybe somebody died or they got divorced and in that case, if they had dementia, look through their medical records and see if it's possible that it got diagnosed late and can we make an argument that they weren't in their right mind when they changed the beneficiary? They literally dig through all of that.
Speaker 3:That's so scummy.
Speaker 2:That's why I'm not working there anymore. Yeah, it was a nice job as far as pay goes, though.
Speaker 3:Oh man. So with a business you're getting paid pretty quickly, though when you're yeah.
Speaker 2:So if it's like an independent insurance, then absolutely, and you have several different ways you could do it. I always say like if you have a chunk of cash, you could do like one of those term insurance where essentially you buy into it and then you could take out as you get older. But there's also outside of just life insurance you guys should invest in I can't remember the name, but it's basically insurance that'll cover you if you need like hospice stay or any sort of like rehab stay. Those kind of things you don't need till your 60s or 70s. But getting enrolled, the closer you get to Medicare and Medicaid, it's very expensive and, just as a personal note, my mom is 60, 70, and she got really sick really fast last year.
Speaker 2:It was completely unexpected. She went to Cancun. She was in the hospital three days later and then she was in ICU for seven months and then she needed rehab care. And I very quickly learned that if she wanted to go to one of these care places, we were looking at $15,000 to $20,000 a week and she had Medicare and Medicaid and still wouldn't cover it. And they started talking about asset protection. They were like, do you have insurance to cover this day? And I was like yeah, my mom barely like can pay her bills, like no, she doesn't have insurance. So if she had her house and a trust, then we would worry a little less about it.
Speaker 3:Okay, so we learned trusts and operating agreements so far.
Speaker 2:And insurance and life insurance and life insurance Right.
Speaker 3:Okay, I have another topic, quick one maybe Marriage.
Speaker 2:Oh, I love this one.
Speaker 3:So you let's just hypothetically say you have a couple of businesses and a couple of properties and you have a business partner and then you get married and just something doesn't work out and you get divorced. Right, if the person doesn't really have any money but the business has a lot of money, can that spouse still go after the business? And how did you do that? If like, how does it look? I guess essentially like if you get sued and you have all your money in your business not saying this is me or anything Of course not.
Speaker 3:But most of your money is in your business accounts and it's tied to somebody else completely because you have a business partner. Can they literally say like okay, well, if you have 500 grand in your bank account, you got to empty out your 250 and split it with them.
Speaker 2:Yeah. So there's actually like bank assessment, people that a lawyer will hire to look through your bank statements, figure out how much your business partner put into that. They'll figure out how much your business partners put into them, you know, basically figure out what their portion is. If you don't have an operating agreement because you could stop that in an operating right you could cover those bases. But if you don't, we basically hire somebody to look through finances and determine how much is your soon to be divorced business partner worth in that business and then, whatever that portion is, she has rights to it, she or he.
Speaker 2:But just to give you an idea again, maryland is a little bit different. We're an equitable state, so a lot of people are like I brought into the marriage, therefore it belongs to me. Not in the state of Maryland. State of Maryland, once you're married, it's all marital property. It's equitable, which doesn't mean split 50-50, right, like if you're bringing 60% of the income into the marriage, we make an argument you should get 60% out, but my husband's never leaving me because I owe $200,000 worth of student loan debt and if we get divorced, according to the state of Maryland, he's responsible for half.
Speaker 3:I got to get some debt, some more debt, so okay.
Speaker 2:But post-nuptials exist, and I do those as well.
Speaker 3:Okay, so not a pre-nuptial but a post-nuptial.
Speaker 2:So that happens after the marriage.
Speaker 3:Now, what about? Is marriage the only thing that makes that? Because I know I forget who it was, but a friend of mine, their friend is doing some sort of like. They've been living together for X amount of years, they're not getting married, but they're domestic partners or something like that. Is that a thing?
Speaker 2:That's a thing it's called a common law marriage.
Speaker 3:So can that person go after your business too after a while?
Speaker 2:Yeah. So that's my argument. If it quacks like a duck and acts like a duck, if I'm acting like I'm married to you, I've invested everything. Now I will say that that is very turbulent to politics because common law marriage was a bigger thing when same sex marriage wasn't legal right, because we couldn't make an argument that you could have gotten married if you wanted to, right. So now we're seeing that less and we're seeing judges be a little bit more. If you wanted to be married, you should have gotten married. But we still see it and again, same sex marriage may not stay legal right. I mean the Supreme Court could reverse the decision. It could change with politics. So common law marriage is not going away, which is just the idea of if you're acting like you're married, you live together, you have shared expenses. You could make an argument for that.
Speaker 1:So can a trust come into play in anything that we just discussed in terms of having your business in a trust? Would that protect if you got a divorce?
Speaker 3:Yeah, but it had to be in the trust before you got married.
Speaker 2:Well, no, you could do it after, like, because again, if you're transferring the ownership from your envelope to another one, your intent is there. So you can say that this business we just make the trust irrevocable, meaning like it cannot be changed. And you just say that, like, this is between me and a business partner, it's not an asset for anything else. And that's why some business partners prefer that trust, because it protects more than an LLC right, because those are two parties' intentions. You created a contract, you essentially created all that ahead of time, and now your spouse can't touch it because there's a document that protects it more.
Speaker 1:Wow but so in that scenario it's protected, but not if you got sued through LLC that's in a trust. It's not as protected as that.
Speaker 2:So a trust will protect you the most. In most cases, the big issue that we're going to look at is when did you create the trust versus when did the lawsuit or the divorce happen? Right, I've had people that call me and they're like I'm getting sued. Can we do a trust right now? And I'm like we can, but if somebody looks too closely, they're going to notice that you got called into a deposition and then two days later, we created a trust. So that's why I always talk about do it sooner rather than later. Do it before the conversation of divorce comes up. Do it before these things come up, and think about 10 years, 15 years from now. If you're not thinking outside of a year or two and you're not thinking worst case, you're not building your wealth, you're not protecting your wealth.
Speaker 1:So is a pre-nub very similar to an operating agreement as pertains the business.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:Pretty much like the same thing. You just outlined how you want things to happen, yeah.
Speaker 2:So before we get married, your stuff is my stuff. We decide what happens if we have kids. What happens if we get divorced. Who keeps what you sort of lay it out on the table? The only big thing with pre-nubs is kid-wise they're not going to let you disadvantage your kid. So what I mean by that is if you then get married and your pre-nub says we're not going to pay child support but the other person then gets a divorce and is like I can't take care of my kid, the state of Maryland is going to be like no, it doesn't matter what your pre-nub says, you brought this child into the world. We're going to invalidate the pre-nub when it comes to children because it's our duty to protect them. Outside of that, you're pretty safe. And again, the threshold for child support is so little so your pre-nub can say I'm not paying you more than the minimum required by child support, which protects you if you have a lot of money to basically have that.
Speaker 3:Yeah, you hear of all these famous people that are getting hit with $200,000 a month. Like child support or whatever divorce things and they have it written into the thing. That's like $20,000 for hair products. Like I'm not even exaggerating. I don't think. But you see all these crazy numbers and you're like God damn, nobody needs that much money to live. But just because they were living this way, they deserve to keep living this way.
Speaker 2:The idea is you provided a quality of life. If I was a stay-at-home wife and I provided for you, without me you would have never been able to accomplish all this. So just because we're now getting divorced, you're worth this much because I supported you through that. So my quality of life shouldn't diminish now because I gave up my life to support you. So a pre-nub actually will allow you to waive spousal support if you wanted it to, and then so ask us that you bought before you're married.
Speaker 1:Is that still split 50-50 if there's a divorce, or is there like a rule that?
Speaker 2:says it's equitable right, so you can make an argument. That was mine beforehand, but the other spouse could argue right, Because-.
Speaker 3:But you managed it the whole time that she was supporting you.
Speaker 2:Right, exactly, so it's equitable, right. That doesn't mean 50-50, but a lot of the time I tell people like, listen, if you're divorcing somebody who's got a lot of stuff, you've got a lot of wiggle room, you've got a lot of wiggle room to argue. So that's why those pre-nubs and the post-nubs are so important and the trust for, you know, post-op trust.
Speaker 3:We're gonna be forking over like $20,000 tomorrow to DK.
Speaker 2:The good news is I take Apple pay, so so people that have Android phones? No, I mean, I don't like the green.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I don't even know. She didn't represent you. I just had the message on what's up, you know what.
Speaker 2:I met you guys both at a bar a couple weeks ago for the first time. I think I texted Nick afterwards just be like, hey, it was nice meeting you.
Speaker 1:He didn't respond so we're not even texting me. I want to respond, if you were at the last everyday millionaire meetup.
Speaker 3:Nick had a really good time.
Speaker 2:He did. Yeah, nick was feeling good at the end of that night.
Speaker 3:Okay, so we do. We are gonna have another meetup coming up, so you guys are gonna have to sponsor that.
Speaker 2:I.
Speaker 3:My brain is so full of I've like, I feel like I have so many things to say, but I'm the words that you said today. It was like there was so many.
Speaker 2:Did I also mention I do real estate, so call me for that too, if you want me to throw a couple things in there.
Speaker 1:You do property management.
Speaker 2:You said so, yeah, my husband does, I'm an owner to it. But really I Don't like it very much. I like to be on the legal side of it. So you know, if you want to like evict people, you want to talk about, like, hey, licensing issues, all that, like I don't like to really represent tenants. But I will preface with I Am seen as one of the top real estate lawyers in the state, right, and I'm not. I'm not just being full of myself like it's so what?
Speaker 3:what are your? What do you want people that are listening to this Show to call you tomorrow and say this is what I need from you, like, what are your top services that you're trying to get out there to the world?
Speaker 2:So my client base is really the people who are like you guys, investments, who are doing a lot of stuff, and I Kind of do the one-stop shop, like I'm not gonna do drama law, I don't. But you want to set up a trust, you want to protect your generational wealth, I'm there for it. And the other thing is don't call me after you get in trouble with your rentals, call me now. Let me look at what you look like and we'll talk about where your flaw points are. And once we start having that conversation You'll find that like, even if I'll tell you things like don't do this right now, but maybe think about it five years from now Like this is if you get sued on this, this is the issue and sort of the thing you're looking at.
Speaker 2:The other big thing is, once you have me on retainer, if one of your tenants wants to sue you and they come to me, there's a conflict issue. So there's a lot of people who have me on retainer who then I usually get contacted with by tenants for lawsuits because, again, I'm kind of highly rated on the real estate aspect there. So I have the ability to kind of call you and be like I can't tell you why, but you're getting sued. Somebody contacted me. You're my retainer, so there's a conflict. But I'm telling you right now Maybe check out your property at XYZ. I have done that a few times.
Speaker 3:Okay, good to know. So DK law group and you practice just in Maryland, right?
Speaker 2:Yes, my title company does Virginia. But come on, that's boring yeah.
Speaker 3:So alright, so trusts real estate law looking at General businesses and seeing yeah. I know we're gonna Nick and I are both gonna do that, so how can they get in touch with you?
Speaker 2:So I give my cell phone out to all my clients. I think that's how I sold you, ryan, my cell number 443 739 6 7 24. Shoot me a text I'll get you the rest.
Speaker 1:But you're literally gonna get a thousand texts in two weeks from now. You're gonna wonder why that's fine.
Speaker 2:I mean I, I have a staff who handles it, but I don't believe in giving you a bullshit number. Like I'm a human, I might take a day to respond, but I'm not gonna put red tape like text me, we'll talk.
Speaker 3:Yeah, that's one of the reasons that I was just like alright, this is who I'm using, because my other the lawyer that we've been using that we went through a big lawsuit with that and all this stuff. It's a nightmare trying to get in touch with these people, like get a talk to the assistant, it talks to this person and then they leave a message and then they call back. My one collections lawyer was like you know, she's a nice person, but I messaged her with like a really big problem that I had about a collections case and she sent me a calendary like Link, and it was like two weeks out that I could like schedule a phone call with her and I'm like this is not okay. So that's when I told my assistant Jocelyn. I was like do not send this other attorney any more documents like wait for Decay to hit you guys up.
Speaker 2:It was look, I've got assistance, I've got a calendar, I've got all that. But if you just have a quick question, I'll answer it. You know like, if I say like, hey, this is like way outside the scope, I don't want to text you legal advice, it still won't be, you know, two, three weeks out, unless it's something where I'm like, yeah, you got nothing to worry about, I'm going on vacation, but I'm available and I will answer your text.
Speaker 3:Awesome. So DK law group. Diana, thank you so much for coming on. I learned a lot. My head is gonna be spinning all night long On our new set. So you guys know this is all gonna be filled up with stuff. We're gonna be offering ad space, so we'll put your logo up on the wall. We're gonna have some shelves. We're gonna have some cool stuff. So if you're looking to advertise, with us Coming soon, we're building the set.
Speaker 2:So they're gonna have to pay for my services, so you're gonna see my ad space up there. Yeah, just as an IOU. There you go right.
Speaker 3:There you go. It'll be front and center DK law group.
Speaker 1:So then, and I'm protected, keep an eye out for our next event. By the time this comes out, this will probably be what early December. Yeah, so our events gonna be in January? I think, yeah, I think.
Speaker 2:January 11.
Speaker 3:We're thinking so we'll announce it officially soon, but last one was a huge success. Had over 100 people there. It was super fun. We're getting a bigger venue, more sponsors, more people, so it's gonna be a good time and I'll be there and I'm gonna go for the TV this time and and that's gonna win a TV maybe there you go. All right guys, until next time.
Speaker 2:All right you.