If you are an IndyMac depositor, there is no need for you to line up at the bank as many others have done and demand the return of your money.  This is a pure waste of your time and only contributes to the unnecessary drama and fearmongering happening out there.

IndyMac Bank has been put under the control of the federal government and deposits are insured by the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. (or FDIC).

You should read this from the FDIC to IndyMac depositors to determine what you will need to do to submit a claim for your funds.

As long as you had less than $100,000 in the bank, all of your deposits should be fully covered by the FDIC insurance.

In some cases, like if you have a properly drafted and funding living trust, you may qualify for even more insurance coverage.  This is exactly the type of situation where you want to contact your Personal Family Lawyer to make sure you’ve done everything right to maximize the protection of your assets.

In fact, Personal Family Lawyers throughout the country are providing trust reviews for a limited number of non-customers at no charge.  Contact your Personal Family Lawyer to determine whether you can get on the calendar for a free FDIC-coverage review of your estate plan.

There’s no need for you to start withdrawing deposits from other banking institutions either.  Your mattress is NOT the safest place for your money.

Here’s what you should do to make sure your money is as safe as possible.

1.  Use the FDIC online calculator to determine the amount of insurance coverage on your accounts.  If you need help with this (it is a bit complicated), contact your personal lawyer for guidance.

2.  Maximize your FDIC insurance coverage!  A properly drafted and funded trust can get you a whole lot more insurance coverage than an account owned in your name.

3.  If you have more than $100,000 in cash accounts, talk with your Personal Family Lawyer about how you can protect the excess in case your bank fails too.

More than anything, do not panic.  Be proactive and get the information you need to be smart.  And, don’t act from fear.

What should you do?

Well, before we talk about that, let’s talk about what you absolutely shouldn’t do.  And that’s just to bury your head in the sand, leave your keys on the counter and walk away!

It’s not only the chicken way out, it also leaves you in the worst possible situation because you have options and, if you don’t seek them out, you are making a bad situation worse.

So, here’s four steps to take if you are facing foreclosure or think you might be in the future:

1.  Ask for help!

There is no better way to get what you want than to ask.  Most of us are too afraid or ashamed to ask for help and so we give up and give in before exploring all of our options.

You have nothing to be ashamed of and you don’t need to be afraid.  When you ask for help, you will get the help you need.  But, you’ve got to ask first.

2.  Don’t get conned.

You do need to be aware of people who will try to prey on your circumstances.  This can be a time of confusion, worry and fear for you.  And you must not allow this fear to cause you to make bad decisions.

But how do you know what’s a bad decision?

Well, first off, never sign any legal documents without having them reviewed by a trusted lawyer.  While you may think having a personal lawyer is not accessible or affordable to you, it’s not true.  A personal lawyer can save you tens or even hundreds of thousands of dollars over your lifetime by saving you from bad decisions.  Find a lawyer who won’t bill you hourly and you can turn to throughout your lifetime before making important financial and legal decisions here.

And never, never, never sign over the deed to your home without talking to a lawyer.  Doing so could cost you and your family dearly.

3.  Get help from trustworthy sources.

There are some trustworthy sources to turn to if you are facing foreclosure.  Start with these:

Gold Cross of America

USA Freedom Corps

Neighborhood Assistance Corporation of America

Homeowner’s Hope

Acorn Housing

And, even when working with a trusted resource, don’t enter into any agreement without first talking to your own personal lawyer first.  This is a scary time for you, but with good advice and trusted guidance, you can come through the other side in a better position than before and ready for massive success in your life.

4.  Keep your chin up!

I know this seems like the worst thing that could possibly happen to you, but you can choose to see it a different way.

Look at this as an opportunity for growth and learning and see it as the first step on your journey towards the life of your dreams.

Many famous and very successful people have experienced bankruptcy and faced foreclosure.  And several of them have even been heard to say that it’s a rite of passage.

The real test is whether you can get back up, brush yourself off and create something even more amazing.  You can, but not if you bury your head in the sand, don’t take responsibility and act like a chicken!

Hold your head high, take responsibility, ask for help and make this the turning point of your life.

And, before you can do that, you have to want to.

So, ask yourself right now how your financial fears are holding you back in your life.  I know that for me, financial fears have impacted my life in a number of ways.

When I was in financial fear, I didn’t feel worthy of everything the world had to offer.  I found myself waiting in long lines, sitting in middle seats in the back of the airplane, hiring the wrong people, or - even worse - doing everything myself, associating with the wrong people, even marrying the wrong guy.  How are your fears holding you back?

You see, my fear of not having enough resulted in me feeling as if I was not enough.

As a result of this fear, I often felt grumpy, impatient, and frustrated.  I imposed these feelings on everyone around me, from my kids to my team members to my spouse.  I was resentful and angry.  All because I was afraid of running out of money.

Financial fear is one of the most insidious fears there are because from the outside it can seem justified.  The whole world seems to be screaming RECESSION, GAS PRICES, GROCERIES, TAXES.  Conserve your money, hoard it, save it for a rainy day.  Cut your expenses.  Financial fear is not only supported, it seems to be encouraged.

You watch the nightly news, and all they can talk about is the doom and gloom.  And, like I did, you are buying into it.

Over the next few weeks, I’ll share how I broke free of the lack and limitation mentality that was holding me back.  Today, I feel at peace, confident, secure, and free of worry about not having or being enough.  I’m not saying it was easy.  To the contrary; it required a huge reprogramming of the junk that’s been drilled into my head since I was born.  But, if I could do it, you can too.

Let today be the day you stop buying into the propaganda and recognize that he sky is not falling.  You are not going to run out of money.  You are resourceful and live in a time of abundance and plenty.

For the balance of July (hereby declared freedom month!), my Family Wealth articles will center on your financial freedom.  First, we’ll talk about financial freedom if you are facing foreclosure, then financial freedom if you are drowning in debt, and last how to start your financial freedom now and retire the right way, sooner than you think possible.

If you have particular financial fears you want addressed during this series, be sure to post on my blog so I can personally help you.

For now, I recommend you stop watching the news and reading the newspaper.  And, if you just can’t do that, look for the good in what you read.  It’s out there.

I’m not going to lie, I am mighty impressed by the business acumen of the lawyers who started LegalZoom. Generally speaking, lawyers are the worst business people, but not these guys. They are smart.

And, I’m pretty impressed that the’ve got the American public thinking about proactive legal planning for their businesses and their families. It’s a great first start considering that 69% of you haven’t even named guardians for your kids!

What concerns me though is that people are relying on legal documents alone and not getting legal guidance and they think everything is good to go, when it’s often not.

The truth of the matter is that oftentimes creating your own legal documents provides a false sense of security and the breach is only discovered when it’s too late to do anything about it.

It’s kind of like if you built your own house during the summer when the weather was really good and you thought you knew what you were doing, but unknowingly overlooked a key element like putting waterproof felt between the sheeting and the shingles (who would know that, I thought you’d just put the shingles right on the wood).

You might not find out right away that you had overlooked this important item, but a couple years later the sheeting would start to rot away and by the third winter you’d have rain and snow in your house and by the time you figured out what you had done wrong, it’d be too late to do anything about it.

It’s the same with do it yourself estate planning, really.

It will seem really easy and as if you’ve done everything your supposed to do. And, you’ll go through your life thinking that you’ve done a really good thing for your family or your business. But then, a crisis will come, like a lawsuit, hospitalization or even worse, a death. And your family will be scrambling to figure out what to do and quite often, they’ll find out they’re screwed by something simple, but integral, you overlooked.

Like not titling the ownership of your house properly. Or, not signing the bylaws for your corporation. Or not issuing the share certificates. Or, not signing your Will properly. Something that seems dumb, but is super easy to miss. Even for lawyers.

Sadly enough, it doesn’t only happen when you do it yourself; this false sense of security can happen when you work with a lawyer too. In fact, most estate plans in place today are in grave danger of failing. My own father-in-law spent thousands of dollars on an estate plan and we ended up in Court probating his Estate anyway.

I’ll tell you more about what happened and what to look for in your own estate plan to make sure that doesn’t happen to your family next week.

In the meantime, if you are going to do it yourself, take this advice:

1. Get whatever you do reviewed by a lawyer. It’s better to know than to wonder.  Contact a Personal Family Lawyer to review your Do It Yourself Legal Documents (Suze Orman Will & Trust Kit, LegalZoom, Trust on the Web, any of them) and if you use certificate code DIY, they’ll waive the $950 existing plan review and consultation fee.

2. Make sure you do the whole job, not just part of it. For example, if you incorporate yourself, don’t think filing documents with the State alone is the final step - you need corporate operating documents, you need to issue stock or membership interests, you need contracts and board resolutions, meeting minutes and a registered agent. If you don’t have all of these things (and more) your personal assets are not protected from your business risks.
3. If you have kids, make sure you’ve adequately provided for their care.  Most do it yourself legal products (and lawyers themselves for that matter) don’t adequately plan for the things parents really care about.  For less than $15, my book “Wear Clean Underwear! A Fast, Fun, Friendly - and Essential - Guide to Legal Planning for Busy Parents” will guide you to exactly what you need to do and help you fix whatever you may have done wrong.

Doing something is better than nothing, but doing something wrong and thinking everything has been taken care of is the worst of all.

You can ensure you have chosen the right guardian, by following three straight forward steps:

Step One: Make a List of People

Make the longest list you can stand of everyone you know who might possibly be a good guardian. When considering whether someone should be on the list, ask yourself, “would they provide a better home for my children than the foster care system?” If the answer is yes, include them.

Step Two: Decide What Matters Most

Choose a few factors that are most important to you and rank their order of priority. Here are some to consider:

* maturity and patience
* parenting style
* integrity and stability
* presence of children in the home already
* religion or spirituality
* relationship with your children
* marital or family status
* willingness to serve
* physical well-being
* social and moral habits and values
* availability of “free” time to raise children

Obviously, the perfect choice would score highly on every measure. But, because we are all imperfect, you will likely have more success in choosing the few characteristics that are most important to you. As you make your choice, consider that some factors can be influenced by you and others cannot. Integrity is something you cannot change. But if having an at-home parent is important to you, your prospective guardian might be willing to come home to raise your child if you make it possible through a well-structured and funded plan. Do not focus very much on financial resources as a factor - it is your responsibility as the parent to provide enough financial resources, either through insurance or savings, to provide for your children financially if you are not available.

Step Three: Match People to Priorities

Use the factors you chose in step two to narrow your list of candidates to a handful.

Listen to your body and feelings as you consider each person or couple as guardian.

You’ll need to rank in order this short-list into the people you would want first, second, and so on. If you select an attorney experienced in helping parents of minor children, be prepared to answer the following question whenever you have named a couple: if the couple divorces or, because of death or incapacity, only one can serve, would you like either one to be guardian, or would you prefer to move to the next name on the list? Guardian nominations can be simple or as complex as you choose.

Regardless of which spouse’s family or friends appear more frequently on your final list, it’s important to keep both families involved. One way to do that is to name members of one family as guardians to care for the children, and members of the other family as trustees, to manage the assets for the children. If there is a likelihood of conflict between these family members, be sure to share this with your attorney so that your guardianship can be customized to encourage them to keep the lines of communication open.

If you are still having difficulty, the very best thing you can do is find a neutral and objective third party to work you through this process. A friend who is totally not emotionally connected to the issue or a trusted advisor, like a Personal Family Lawyer, would be a good choice.

These documents were prepared by a traditional estate planning lawyer who sent her the draft documents for review before she signs them.

Right away, I had the feeling this was not going to be pretty. Why?

Well, to begin with the lawyer was her husband’s lawyer from before she was married to her husband and the lawyer didn’t spend very much time with her explaining the planning options or the way things were being set up.

Then, he sent her draft documents to review. Frankly, that’s just nutty. Unless I am working with a lawyer who specifically requests drafts be sent to him or her before signing, I never send drafts. How can this lawyer possibly expect my friend to review over 150 pages of documents and understand whether they do what they are supposed to do? Impossible.

The lawyer should have sat down with my friend and her husband and reviewed the documents with them before they sign them - not sent them to his client to review on her own.

My friend said she was told the documents will make things easy for her at the time of her husband’s death. And, she was ready to sign them because she had no reason to believe anything else. It just so happens she mentioned to me she’d had documents drafted and she was reviewing them and I offered to take a quick look.

Uh-oh. These documents have a lot of problems.

Here’s just a couple of things I saw:

1. When her husband dies, his half of the assets go into a trust that she does not have full control over at all, though she was told she would. In fact, she has to go to a Special Trustee for distributions from the Trust.

2. There is a mandatory division of the assets after her husband dies, which will require her to set up multiple trusts, even if tax law doesn’t warrant it based on the size of their assets at the time of his death making the administration after his death more complicated and expensive.

3. The plan does not adequately provide for her child from a prior marriage. If she were to die, he could potentially be taken out of their home and into the arms of strangers until the authorities could figure out where her family is and what to do.

4. After her death, the trust leaves all of the assets outright to their beneficiaries when they turn 25, 30 and 35 without making sure those assets would stay in protected trusts that the beneficiaries could access, control and use but couldn’t be lost to divorce or lawsuits.

Of course, my friend couldn’t know any of this just by reading the documents. She’s not a lawyer. And, I’m going to give her husband the benefit of the doubt and assume he didn’t realize what these documents said either and didn’t know his options for doing things differently. Maybe he thought he was making things as easy as possible for her. But, he wasn’t.

Estate planning isn’t about signing form documents you don’t understand. It’s about having a relationship with a trusted Personal Family Lawyer you will be able to turn to for guidance when something happens.

My advice to my friend is the same as my advice to you … make sure the lawyer who prepares your estate planning documents is someone you absolutely, totally 100% trust is going to be there to guide you and hold your hand when something happens to someone in your family. Don’t sign documents prepared by someone you barely know who may not be looking out for your best interest. This is about so much more than the documents.

If you don’t take this advice, you could be the one left holding the bag when your spouse dies.

If you’d like a review of your estate planning documents and a consultation with me to discuss what they say and what will happen when your spouse dies, I have a few limited consultation times available nationwide. The review and consultation are $950. Contact support@familywealthmatters.com if you’d like to get on my calendar.

Whereas “estate planning” is about preparing and passing on your financial assets at the end of your life, Family Wealth Planning is about making the right financial and legal decisions for your whole family wealth throughout your lifetime and leaving the world a better place after you are gone.

It’s about capturing the assets that are most often lost when someone dies … the intellectual, spiritual and human assets that make up a great majority of our family’s wealth and passing them on as well.

When my dad died, he left behind a bit of money, but the rest of his wealth was lost, uncaptured.

I have no letters from him or recordings talking about his hopes and dreams for my future.  My children will never hear his voice or know what was important to him.

I suspect it is the same for your family.

And while there are gobs of websites and businesses springing up to help people capture these assets and pass them on, in my experience we are just too busy and it rarely gets done.

I’ve found the best way to make sure this happens is to make it part of your legal planning.  When you are working with a lawyer on your family’s “estate” planning, if your lawyer is only preparing a plan to pass on your financial assets, he or she is only doing 1/4 of the job.

What you want is a lawyer who will help you capture the wealth that is most often lost and most difficult to plan for … your intellectual, spiritual and human assets or who you are and what’s important to you.

Through a simple Family Wealth Legacy Interview process at the end of your planning together, your Personal Family Lawyer will help you capture the most valuable family wealth you have and pass that on for successive generations by building a legacy library that will be far more valuable than any dollars you could ever leave behind.

But, there are some checks and balances you can put in place to ease your mind.

1. Name Different People to Be in Charge of Your Money and Your Kids

Many times, people I’m meeting with want to name the same person or people to serve as guardians to take care of their children and Trustees to take care of the money left behind.

They think if they would trust someone to raise their kids, they should trust that person to take care of the money too.

This is not necessarily the case.

The qualities you are looking for in a guardian are not necessarily the same as what you are looking for in a Trustee AND if you name separate people, then they can watch out for each other.

Your children’s guardian would be entitled to regular accountings of Trust assets by the Trustee and could monitor to make sure everything seemed right. And, on the flip side, the Trustee would be in regular communication with the guardian to ensure your kids were getting proper care.

2. Name a Bank or Trust Company to Serve as Co-Trustee

If you don’t have two separate people to serve as guardian and Trustee, you may want to consider naming a Bank or Trust Company to serve as an administrative trustee, responsible for all of the tax-filings, investments, and other compliance issues.

You could give distribution power to the guardian or other family member plus give that person to the right to remove and replace the Bank or Trust Company serving as administrative trustee so long as they were replaced with another independent entity.

3. Begin a Relationship With a Personal Family Lawyer When You are Young and Healthy

When you work with a Personal Family Lawyer to establish your planning while you are young, that is a relationship with will last you a lifetime. And, ideally, your Personal Family Lawyer will continue to guide your Trustee after you are gone so that you can have the peace of mind of knowing your Personal Family Lawyer know will ensure your wishes are carried out.

If you use one or more of these checks and balances, you’ll have very little to worry about when it comes to the care and feeding of your financial wealth after you are gone.