Certified Probate Experts like Sherri and Melanie are a unique type of real estate professional. They are especially equipped to guide you through complicated probate situations. With only around 1200 of these experts in North America, their special knowledge is super important.
Here are five big reasons why these real estate professionals are more valuable than you might think:
Making Probate Simple: These realtors help families with complicated probate stuff, making sure everything goes smoothly and helping with legal and money stuff.
Lots of Ways to Downsize: They don't just sell houses. They help in many ways, like suggesting changes to make a house better or finding smart ways to make a property more valuable.
Solving Family Problems: In tough times, they talk to families and help them agree on things. They're like peacemakers in the family.
Finding Buyers for Tricky Properties: They're really good at advertising hard-to-sell properties, making sure the right people know about them and the property gets the best price.
Planning for the Future: They work with other experts to make sure selling a property fits into bigger plans, making sure everything works well together.
Disclosure: The information shared on The Probate Podcast is for educational and informational purposes only and does not constitute legal or financial advice. We strongly recommend consulting with a professional for advice specific to your situation. If you need help finding a professional, feel free to reach out to us at www.willowwoodsolutions.com/contact.
Please consider kindly rating this show so others can find it!
Certified Probate Experts like Sherri and Melanie are a unique type of real estate professional. They are especially equipped to guide you through complicated probate situations. With only around 1200 of these experts in North America, their special knowledge is super important.
Here are five big reasons why these real estate professionals are more valuable than you might think:
Making Probate Simple: These realtors help families with complicated probate stuff, making sure everything goes smoothly and helping with legal and money stuff.
Lots of Ways to Downsize: They don't just sell houses. They help in many ways, like suggesting changes to make a house better or finding smart ways to make a property more valuable.
Solving Family Problems: In tough times, they talk to families and help them agree on things. They're like peacemakers in the family.
Finding Buyers for Tricky Properties: They're really good at advertising hard-to-sell properties, making sure the right people know about them and the property gets the best price.
Planning for the Future: They work with other experts to make sure selling a property fits into bigger plans, making sure everything works well together.
Disclosure: The information shared on The Probate Podcast is for educational and informational purposes only and does not constitute legal or financial advice. We strongly recommend consulting with a professional for advice specific to your situation. If you need help finding a professional, feel free to reach out to us at www.willowwoodsolutions.com/contact.
Please consider kindly rating this show so others can find it!
And just took that and took notes and made spreadsheets and met people for coffee and just said, how can I help your business? How can we do this? How can we make it happen? And now it's a year later and we have a whole referral business. So it's awesome. We found the silver lining. We really did through all the grief and the pain, we found it and I'm here to share it....that was one of the things that really impressed me with the Certified Probate Experts program that we did, and we became certified through was the level of compassion and empathy and how much that was stressed, that it really is about the person on the other side. Asking 1st, what do they need? And really listening, developing the skills to listen to that. Yeah, you and I both have backgrounds in health care, so the holistic idea of looking at the person and even the dynamics within the family unit to help them get through this process. Yeah. It was interesting when you and I talked before to start to see how many similarities we have in our background. Yeah, it's pretty incredible, actually. And you know it's it really is about when you sit down with somebody in their home, we work with the remainder people. You're sitting down with them. They might actually be in California. They could be in Vegas for all we know, it might be a Zoom call, but you know, You sit down with people, hopefully in their living room, and you just say, What is it that you need? You know, Where are you at? Are you financially able to do this? Are you able to pay a mortgage if there's a mortgage payment on it? We have taxes, insurance, we have utilities, we have lawn care, pool... all these things and HOAs that we don't really think about when people are going through it. So we like to go in holistically and find out where they are financially, what they need first. And then, that emotional aspect bears itself to you. So, you know, Where they are where they're at, what their vulnerabilities are, and a lot of people don't want to deal with that and they don't want to talk about it because it's too much. And we're trying to normalize that. It's okay to sit down and talk to people at a table and say, Hey, you know, we're specialists in this and we can help you! What do you need? What is it that you need? How, are you with your siblings? Who's on the deed? Who's on the will? What's going on? What is your paperwork? And to really find out what's going on and not just sell a house. We're here to help people get to the next level. And I know you know what I'm talking about, because you do it as well. And it's rare. It's rare. People don't take that time to do that. And this is about relationship building and finding out what people need, and then referring them to the correct individual that can help them. It could be a home clean out, could be estate sales, it could be they want to paint their house and sell it, which we can help them do. So, you know, There's a million different things. And so that's what 1 of those resources that we talked about earlier, that can help this person that is trying to juggle all the things. What's something that we could take off of their plate? So, 1 of the things that is frustrating to me when I hear a traditional real estate agent say "well just clean out your house and once your house is cleaned, and then we can..." but that's putting 1 more thing on her plate. Can we talk about the Probate Nurse and how you ude your experiences to, to create the Probate Nurse and what that is? Yeah, sure. So the Probate Nurse obviously came out of a few years of going through it myself and transitioning my business over to helping other people. So really what we do you know, with being a senior real estate specialist, we help people with families that are transitioning and that could be anything that could be downsizing to a smaller place that's more comfortable for them and less expensive. It could be transitioning after loss, after divorce, things like that that are traumatic. And what we do basically is we are a vertically integrated referral network. And what that means is that whatever families are going through at the time, we can help them. So if they need an estate company to come and do an estate sale, we do that. If the remainder person needs to go into assisted living, we can help place them. If they want to paint their home and sell it, we can do that. We do junk haulaways. We have title companies that work with people who are going through probate. You know, I'm meeting with a probate title agent on Monday. I'm meeting also with New York Financial. They're very interested in helping clients with pre-planning and long-term care with, you know, we can, if someone calls us and says, Hey Mel, I need I just inherited some money. What should I do? Hey, you know what? We'll get you to one of our financial advisors that is not in my lane. And if someone lives say out of state or out of their city, we can help them with their home preservation. You know, If it's summertime, we want to make sure that the utilities are on. We want to make sure the air conditioner is running and that moisture is coming out so it doesn't damage the home. Is the pool being cared for? Is the lawn being mowed? So we do all kinds of things and we are just, a huge referral network. And again, we only work with people that we know, love and trust. And so how I meet all the people that are on my team is I go to all the networking events and I go frequently. Every week I go to a couple. So it keeps me current on what's happening with Medicaid, Medicare keeps me current on what's going on in the home and how we can assist people. So it's really just a large community of people who are like you and I. They really care about people. They're empathetic. They want to make sure that their clients are taken care of, that the remainder of people don't suffer, are not taken advantage of, which is something you see a lot of here. In Florida, people will sign their, sign their deeds over, things like that. So we're there to help make sure that doesn't happen and people's vulnerability that they're not taken advantage of and that they're basically escorted to the people that can help them no matter what their problem is. And if we don't have someone, we will find someone. Right and I think that you probably do something similar to me. My first choice is to refer them to someone that I have vetted. Like, I need to know that that empathy and compassion is there. Professionalism is important, but when somebody is vulnerable, I am super protective of them, so the person that I refer needs to not dump any more thing on, on that plate, Take some of the things off of that plate and make it easier for them. That's what we're here for. And so when I go to the networking events, like you're describing, that's the kind of person that I'm looking for and that I schedule coffee dates with, because those are the ones, those are the referrals that I want to hand out. No, absolutely. 100%. And, and then joining. As joining EXP recently to now we have national coverage for agents that are in other states as well as the, the probate experts to our national as well. So we've got people that can help you not only here with our local roots, but we can go national and work with people like yourself if I have a client in Texas. So it is, it's just amazing what's transpiring out of what my family went through and what your family went through. And it's, it's just interesting that people gravitate toward that thing that they know was missing or that they just know that they can help other people with. And everybody that I have met in the senior care community is outstanding. They love what they do. They're very passionate about it. So no matter who you know, refer you to their vetted, just like your clients and referral partners. And that they're going to take care of your client. It's just amazing. And it's wonderful. And one thing that I did get out of all of this, one of my greatest referral partners is now an actual partner. And so we actually help people with their estate planning so that they don't have to do it after someone passes away. We've made it our goal to make sure that the remainder people get the software and they start the software. Filling out everything and they can put it in a vault, and it also helps lawyers as well. We can talk about that. It's just really interesting software. Yeah, that's neat. The more services, yeah, that we can help to make this transition easier helps this remainder person. What do you call it? Like the surviving spouse? Children. There's so many different things. Maybe you have kids that are involved in four out of the five of them say, sure, let's sell the house. And one says, I'm holding out, and there's just ways we can mediate and get them in front of lawyers and help them get through that type of sibling rivalry or whatever is existing there for them, their childhood traumas, so we work in that aspect as well. So.. Do you have a typical client? Typical clients are probably right around my age, it might be like 45 to 60. Parents are living here. They're in another state. They don't know what to do. A lot of people find me online. I've had a nurse client that found me online who is probably in her mid sixties and she said, I called you because you're a nurse and this is what I have going on. N S And it's just amazing the stories that you hear things that keep each other and families and the vultures that come out and try to take, so.. Yes, and like you, you had, we had similar our siblings got along so that the transition did not explode in that way. But I have experiences with people and that's not been their case. And so to have yeah, to have the discord among family members even makes it more difficult, which underlines, the necessary steps to pre plan and to get that stuff done ahead of time. Absolutely. 100%, and within the estate software, you can put everything in there, whether it's personal items. Everything you're from your 401ks, all your utilities, and it's just, everything is in there. So it does help families when that time does come and maybe their mom, passes away five years after the father, and now they don't know what to do, everything is there. So I encourage people to do that planning, to avoid probate number one and to avoid any kind of animosity between siblings, because I don't care how wonderful your brother and sister and cousins are. When someone passes away, their traumas come up. They're, maybe that would, I don't even know how to say it, but there's so many things that, that well up inside of someone's mind and in their heart at that time of loss. And people act out on anger and then they just can't get past it. So having this in place prevents that. It prevents a home from going through probate. It saves the the estate a lot of money, six 70. State and then, in getting them in front of a wonderful estate planning lawyer. It's just, it's what needs to be done, especially with the baby boomers, right? I'm the last year of the baby boomers. We need to get our estate planning done. We have to. Yeah, we do. We do. It's the loving thing to do. It is a loving thing to do. And I tell you, it was the best gift my parents ever gave us. We did not have to do that in our moment of severe grief and loss. Right. We just showed up. We went to the meetings and we did what we had to do. It was wonderful. As much as it could be during that kind of time, but it was a lot easier than having to choose a casket or that because it's not a good time to do that. It's so hard. Horrific What do you think is the hardest part about settling someone's estate? Besides sorting through people's like personal properties and whatnot, it's figuring out all of their assets. Where are your assets? What do you own? And family members don't even know what their brothers, sisters, parents, and siblings have. They don't know. So I think that is very difficult. Learning, we learn a lot when we take on our clients and we see they, they might own a couple of houses. They might own two or three houses. They might own storage units. It might be investors. So that's the hardest part is like that accumulation of everything that everyone owns and then figuring out what to do with that. Besides the emotional aspect, obviously but getting assets taken care of is very difficult. Who gets what, and who's calling that chair and who's calling that necklace. The craziest things that people fight about. That's the hard part dealing with the siblings. What do you think people misunderstand about probate and what you do for families? Because both of us are in this new space. We found an area where there's a need, but there's not a lot of people doing what we're doing. 1200 people nationwide. That is. Just a few people in each state and that's crazy. It's not like we're dentists or chiropractors where everybody's okay, I know what that is. So what are some misconceptions when you're trying to describe to others what you do? Have you had people say, oh, so you do this or oh, so you do that? Have you come across that? Yeah, people have no idea what I do. They look at my name. A lot of misconceptions, they think that you're a realtor, they think that you're just wanting to sell the home. They don't know that we are, full fledged concierge service with extensions to our community and that we work with our communities. But yeah, a lot of misconceptions about what we do in our business. I would say that's number one. When I would talk to people about helping people through, I'd go to a networking event and, what do you say? It's hard to put what we do into a 30 second elevator pitch. But I had so often, at least once a week, I would be, what do you do is the thing. And so I would say something about probate and they would be smiling and nodding. And I said, You know what probate is? No, I don't. I know that I should know what probate is, but I don't. So, you know, When you and I talked before, we talked about how language around end of life topics, part of our job, part of our purpose here is to normalize these conversations and to talk about things that are hard to talk about. Because that allows people to get educated and start to plan for themselves. What, is there anything that you would like to say about that? Yeah, like people are really afraid, number one, to talk about death. You know, oh my dad died, now what? And people are very hush about it and people disappear. Even your best friends will disappear. But it, we need to normalize it. We need to let people know that it's okay. Hey, we all are, we are all going to pass away at some point. So let's... Make it normal to say, Hey, dad passed away, no, my brother's terminal and he's not doing very well. And I've had those conversations with my best friends and their son, they don't know what to say because it's taboo, you know, your son isn't supposed to die before the father. So for me, it was. That, but it's okay to to say those words, Hey, what are we going to do for our state planning? Mom and dad just passed away. We better put our home in trust. I have these conversations with my friends now, and they're like, what a great idea. We're all in our fifties now. And yeah, that's a great idea to do that. So for me, it has just led to opening up doors to let people know that these are things that need to be done. And we don't want to leave that for our families. We don't want our children, our nieces and nephews to take care of that estate and deal with the monies that are involved in that when they're in their grief stricken state. And it's okay to normalize death. It's okay to say, I need help. It's okay to grieve. It's okay to ask for help. It's okay to meet with a lawyer and say, Hey, I need some help. What do I do? So the normalcy is there. The more that you and I talk about it, the more that we educate our clients or our YouTube videos or whatever it is that we're doing. I want it to be, just like, Hey, you know, we're going to a hospital or I'm having surgery. Hey, someone just passed away in the operating room. Okay. Now what? And it's okay to talk about it. It shouldn't be taboo. It should be brought up at dinner. That's the best time to bring it up. And in fact, with the holidays coming up, this is the best time for all of us to sit down at the table with our families and say, we've had a kind of a rough year or, you know, what are you guys doing to avoid this situation? This is the best time of year of the holidays. I know it's weird, but it really truly is because everyone's there and then you can just follow up after the holidays. So yeah, that is a really good point. pEople are afraid of it. They're icky and gross, but it's not. It's really about it's a gift for your family. It really truly is. And that's I think what you and I are trying to bring to families. We're trying to do. And that's one of the reasons why the Probate Podcast is here to bring up these conversations. If somebody wants to hop on an episode in the privacy of their own home, they can learn from somebody like you that's been through it and hear the terminology and hear what grief is like here that there are grief counselors. That's the purpose of this podcast is to be that resource, not just in Texas, but anybody that can find it. Yeah. And guide your clients through probate. They, probate exists and people don't know what to do. And, we can get them to the right lawyers and say, Hey, this is what you need to do. And, most people, I'll be honest with you. Most people don't even know here in Tampa and Hillsborough, you have to produce a will. If there is one, you have to take it down to the county building. People don't know that. They have no idea. So we are about making that checklist. And I'll tell you when we left after my father passed away, we were given that little checklist by the hospice. You need to go to the funeral home. You need to do that. But we were not told what to do. So we didn't really know.
So that's why we're here:
gaps, we're filling in those voids and showing people where to g addresses, places, pictures, video, this is what you do Yeah. So we've talked about some heavy things, you and I, Melanie. So what do you enjoy about what you do? What? I think I really enjoy the most just knowing that. We can help people in their time of need. Honestly, just it's that nurse, in me, once a nurse, always a nurse. And you always want to be that person that's compassionate and help people out no matter what it is. We want people to know that we're here to help and in any way that we can pretty much. Yeah. And so if there's somebody that that is on the fence and they're wondering. Maybe they're in Florida, maybe they're not right because in today's age, anybody can call you from anywhere. But what would you say to someone who's on the fence? About an end of life topic or a service that they might need, or maybe they're recognized signs of depression, and they don't know what to do. What would you say to them to help maybe edge them off of 1 side of the fence? Yeah, I think if there's any uncertainty, or there's questions about what you need to do definitely. Reach out to people like myself and yourself who can at least get you to the right and correct individuals, I always tell people, do that Google search if you don't live in Tampa and I can't assist you, I can try to, connect you with someone else that is in your home state and hometown, but do that Google search. And one of the biggest things right now is senior resources, look for that under Google. And that's how I found. My community of senior caregivers and advocates as I went on and I found I did a lot of searches. I found groups and I started attending. So yeah, you want to be with those groups. You want to show up. You want to reach out to someone that can help you. And there are plenty of resources available and people don't know, but we can get you there. Don't sit on the fence. Don't think about, Hey, I feel stupid. I'm, I don't know. And of course we don't know we're human. We don't know everything. And I reached out for that help and I'm glad I did really. I encourage everybody to do that. Just reach out to us or to your local services for seniors. There's so many people that help. I had no idea. Yeah it's like that room that we talked about earlier where you step in and you find... last weekend. I was at a caregiver conference and there were people that came by my table and I would, I asked them, are you currently a caregiver? And they said, no. But, mom's getting a little older and so we're just getting educated and we're just and I said, good for you. You are being proactive and sometimes we have time to be proactive and we act on that. Sometimes we just find ourselves in this situation and we don't, we don't have time, but we don't. And, I think one of the things that, that I will mention here is that, we are going into our community and we are doing a state planning seminars and we're holding them at various places. We're going into hospices, we're educating physicians and social workers about pre planning and financial preservation and things like that. If your family members have to go to assist the living, there is a way to protect your home. So we are. We have a panel of people who are absolutely amazing from our estate planning lawyers over at Mortallero Law to our downsizing people that will help with, downsizing your home and packing and moving. We use Pathfinders for that. I've got home concierge people that will, come to your home. So it's just amazing the things that you can find. Yeah,. If you come to these events. So yeah, yes. So check out those events. So how can people find out about those events and how can they reach you Melanie? Yeah, sure. So, info@theprobatenurse.com that is my email. You can find me on Facebook, LinkedIn. I'm on TikTok, I'm on Instagram, Pinterest, all those, all the socials. My website is a great way, if you want to fill out a contact form, I'm at theprobatenurse.com and I also have Link Tree at the probate nurse you can call me, you can email me. So there's just so many different ways that you can get ahold of me, but I prefer to be to have an email honestly, at this point. So that I have a hard copy of anything that anyone needs. So info@theprobatenurse.Com or my website would be the best way just so I have all that information in front of me when you call. Perfect. Is there anything that you feel like that we haven't had a chance to talk about that still needs to be said. Is there something that you. You wish that I had asked or.. Interesting. I think that people aren't really fully aware that there are multiple ways to sell their home. It's one thing that you don't have to just list that there are other ways that people can help you out of a situation. Right up if you're going through foreclosure, we can help you, right up to just a couple of days before or the day before you know, our teams are designed to assist you whatever, whatever you're going through. So that's one thing. And we're trying to think what else we may have missed. We covered a lot today. What else? We covered a lot. We covered a lot. You know, through this, Through this situation, I have I am now working with Life Path Hospice and I've joined their women of giving group and I can't tell you how amazing that has been. And I encourage people to look for those types of groups, whether they're support groups or people that you can volunteer your time with and just it takes so much of that trauma and grief from you. And it helps you. Help other people get out of whatever it is they're going through. So the hospice has been absolutely amazing for me. And it, we are helping them change the way they send clients home because of my situation with checklists and, one person can make a huge difference and that could be you, it could be me and it could be you, Sherri. So, you know, I, I just encourage people to get involved at whatever level, volunteering is, is huge. IT's just amazing. And it fills such a void in your heart if your loved ones pass away. So I encourage that it whatever it is, whether you're sitting, you're visiting, an elderly person in their home, you're delivering meals to them, or you're taking them for their medication to visit the doctors. Honestly, it is life giving work that you're doing. And I highly recommend it. I really do. I really do. It's helped me immensely. Yeah. Yeah. That's great. Great news to hear. And a good suggestions too, because there's need everywhere, right? There is. And I want people to understand too, if you're going through probia, you're going through the state planning, don't be afraid to reach out to those lawyers because they do consultations and they will find, they'll get all your information. And they don't charge for that, most of them do not. So don't be afraid to ask for that help. Especially if there's some sort of sibling rivalry or, arguments going on in your family. That's what they're there for. They're there to help either protect your wealth and help guide you the way we do, closing of your estate. I can't say that enough. That's good. That's good. Okay Melanie, we have covered all the things when it comes to caregiving and helping people with estates. So you have been a wealth of information. I so appreciate the time that you've put into developing skills within yourself and really leaning into empathy and compassion and seeing how you can pass that on instead of just keeping it all to yourself. You've got so much to offer. Your community and I know that you're doing a good job there and I appreciate what you're doing. When someone does a little bit of good, I think it ripples out. And so, the good that you're doing in Florida is blessing me in Texas. And so I appreciate that. And vice versa. Yeah, everything I see you doing to it just, you know, it educates me a little bit more as well. And thank you for the opportunity. This is something that really needs to be spoken about. So thank you for the opportunity and helping to educate your clientele and future clients as well. So thank you for having me. Yes, you're so so welcome. And maybe we can have another conversation down the road about some other things. But again, thank you for your time today. And we'll talk! Have a great rest of your day. Yeah. No, I think I appreciate it so very much and best luck to you as well on this journey because it's phenomenal. Okay, so that wraps up the show today with Melanie Hands and the probate nurse. Thank you so much for joining me. I hope that you got a lot out of today's episode. Again, this is a part two episode. The first half about Melanie and her experiences as a caregiver as she took care of her brother and her dad and her mom. So, I hope that you're able to join us for both episodes. Thank you so much for coming to the Probate Podcast. Come back next time and see what we've got to talk about then. Take care.
