Jonathan White on Inheriting a Firm Rooted in the Salem Witch Trials

What happens when a young man whose hardworking grandparents helped finance his education and left a trust fund that set the family up right goes to law school, becomes an Assistant Attorney General for Massachusetts, spends ten years in the courtroom on personal injury and property and insurance cases, hangs his own shingle in 2009, In this episode of the Trustcast Show, Zane Myers speaks with Jonathan White of Jordan & White, LLC — a firm whose lineage traces to 1938, when Sumner Lowe Raymond, a direct descendant of John Proctor who was hanged during the Salem witch trials, opened his practice in Danvers, Jonathan walks through the single biggest misconception he battles every day: the belief that having a will means your family avoids the probate court. The opposite is true. A will guarantees your family goes to probate. A trust avoids it — because the trust is a separate legal entity from you, and the assets inside it are not yours when you die, so there is nothing to probate. He also explains the critical step that most people miss entirely after signing a trust: actually funding it, which means recording a new deed at the registry of deeds so the house is inside the trust, retitling bank accounts and investment accounts, updating beneficiary designations, and signing what he calls the magic wand — an assignment that moves all personal property without paper title into the trust in a single stroke. Skip this step and the trust you paid for will not do what you built it to do. They also discuss the two ways families lose their home to long-term care costs — the voluntary choice the owner always has, and the Medicaid estate recovery lien that nobody explains until after the person dies and the government sends the family a bill for every dollar it spent on their care — how an irrevocable Medicaid Asset Protection Trust with a five-year look-back period keeps the house out of the probate estate and out of reach of that lien, why a revocable trust does nothing to protect the house for Medicaid purposes regardless of how many years have passed, what happens to your trust when you do not fully trust your children with the trustee role and what limited special powers let you fix that problem without losing your protection, and the creative ways people actually pay for estate planning when their wealth is in the house and not in the checking account. Jonathan White is the founding partner of Jordan & White, LLC, with offices in Salem and Medford, Massachusetts. The firm's lineage traces to 1938 when Sumner Lowe Raymond — a direct descendant of John Proctor, hanged during the Salem witch trials — opened his practice in Danvers. Jonathan is a graduate of the College of the Holy Cross and Suffolk University Law School, a former Massachusetts Assistant Attorney General, and a trusted estate planning, probate, and real estate attorney serving the North Shore of Massachusetts. Connect with Jonathan White: jordanwhitellc.com Email: [email protected] Phone: 978-744-2811 70 Washington St, Suite 312, Salem, MA 01970 Also serving clients from offices in Danvers and Medford Chapters 00:00 Introduction to Jonathan White 00:13 Sitting where your clients sit — experiencing estate planning from the other side even when you are already the attorney 01:38 From fixing broken estates to getting in front of them — how the family planning moment expanded the practice 03:29 Inheriting a firm rooted in 1938 in a town famous for the witch trials — and who Sumner Lowe Raymond actually was 03:51 The fire, the burnt files in the drawers, and Dana Jordan's mother running down Washington Street looking for a lease 05:53 How to open the uncomfortable conversation about aging parents and a will that has never been written 06:09 The belief statement, the curated agenda, and why the client should be doing most of the talking by the end 09:00 The three-meeting system — what happens at each meeting and why they are structured that way 10:04 Will versus trust — and the biggest misconception Jonathan has to dispel every single day 10:16 A will guarantees your family goes to probate — here is exactly what a will actually does and does not do 12:25 How a revocable living trust works as a separate legal entity and why that makes all the difference 13:10 The work that is not done when you sign your trust — funding it is the step most people miss entirely 14:05 The house — recording a new deed at the registry of deeds and why you cannot just write it into an exhibit 15:20 Bank accounts, beneficiary designations, 401ks, and the magic wand for everything else 15:57 Tax implications of revocable living trust planning in Massachusetts — and why most people are surprised by the answer #JonathanWhite #JordanWhiteLLC #TrustcastShow #MassachusettsEstatePlanning #SalemMassachusetts #WillVsTrust #ProbateAvoidance #MedicaidAssetProtection #NorthShoreMassachusetts #EstatePlanningMyths