Roy: Hi. Good afternoon. Roy Oppenheim here, for Oppenheim Law. We’re again here at Zoom at Noon. For those of you who’ve joined us before, you may know the format by now. This is the 10th time that we’re holding, 10 weeks in a row, Zoom at Noon, since the COVID-19 crisis has basically changed everyone’s lives and turned all our lives literally upside down, and in some cases, even inside out. Today, we’re gonna be talking about the three tenets of safely going back to business, liability, insurance, and asset protection. As usual, I wanna thank Paola Vergara, Ellen Pilelsky, my wife, partner, and Jeff Sherman, my partner, and of course, Lance Oppenheim, who’s been assisting us. And even Wendy Oppenheim, today, who is assisting us with this presentation, and Mia Singh, my associate. All of us work together to put these presentations together for you each and every week, trying to figure out what the latest trends are, what’s going on. Trying, just getting a little bit around the bend, around the curve, so we can figure out what’s coming and what’s happened in the past so we can figure out how to conduct ourselves in such a way that we can remain safe as well as productive as we proceed through this whole crisis.
Things are starting to open up, we all know that. And so, we have to figure out how we’re gonna navigate this process in terms of our own personal safety, our employee’s safety, our customer’s safety, and trying to figure out how we do this in a way that we move forward and not backwards, individually and as a society. So going back to business, as safe as it can, weekly unemployment and crisis status update, travel and hospitality industry, retail spaces, schools and colleges, revised CDC guidelines, liability, insurance, and number eight, asset protection.
This is a continuation, actually, of last week’s webinar. For those of you who had joined us, there are many areas that we were unable to touch. And of course, I also wanna mention that Ken Morris of Southeast Group is joining us, again, today, Southeast Morris Group, who is going to, once again, be participating and assisting us in this process. So we can go over to the next slide.
Let me just briefly remind those of you how this all works. We look for participation, we look for comments, we look for criticism, we look for questions through this whole process. It’s kind of hard to run this without any true interaction from you, the community. And so, when you have something to say, please say it, and if possible, we will integrate it. If it’s a good question, obviously, we’re gonna try and answer it. And if it’s a very personal question, we’ll try and answer it afterwards if it’s something that you don’t want the whole world to know about.
As you all may know by now, we’ve been in practice for over 31 years. Ellen and I formed this firm. We went through the last crisis and represented thousands of people during the foreclosure crisis. And again, we are now representing hundreds of people who are trying to figure out what to do with their leases, what to do as a landlord, what to do as a tenant, what to do if they can’t pay their mortgage. And if they have a business, you know, how to navigate that through the various government programs that exist out there and to figure out how that integrates with their business. As I mentioned, Ken’s gonna be joining us. He’s been also practicing for over 30 years. He’s with the Morris Southeast Group, a full-service commercial firm real estate firm. This is the third week that Ken will be joining us today. So let us get going, if we may.
Our last session was a discussion about the best practices businesses must implement to avoid liability on the reopening process. This week, we will further our analysis on the three tenets of going back to business, liability, insurance, and asset protection. And when we talk about liability, we’re talking about what the best practices are as an employer or even as an employee, and what we need to do to shield ourself from later on being questioned if we did the right thing and if we protected our employees, did we protect our customers, did we protect our vendors, or were we doing something that was just far afield and wasn’t reasonable and is gonna open us for exposure, So the idea is to figure out what the best practices are, what we all should be doing that’s reasonable, that will allow us to proceed as a society.
Can I go back one? Sorry. I wanted to mention what Jeffrey Sachs, Director of Center for Sustainable Development has said at Columbia University. “By being smart…” I can’t read that, the picture is in the way. “By being smart and fair, we could look forward to new high-tech industries, more shared leisure time, shorter commutes, cleaner skies, universal access to affordable healthcare and higher education and a guaranteed living wage for all workers.” That’s wonderful. It sounds utopian. But there will be changes that come out of this. Typically, out of these kinds of crises, out of these pandemics, many wonderful things came about historically. For example, good sanitation, sewage systems, delivery of potable water through municipalities, are all things that came out of the various pandemics that we have had through humanity. And so, good will come out this, the question is, what good will come out of it? If we see the pictures of India and other parts of China, and other parts of the United States, like, Los Angeles, and how the cleaner skies are proceeding, we’re seeing that there will be some benefit that comes out of this. At this time, of course, we are not sure what those will be.
Okay, let’s go over the unemployment numbers because they are rather staggering. As we can see, they were rather low before the month of April, up through 2020, through April of this past year. And then, of course, in April, they shot up, and then they shot up through all of April. Now they’re slightly coming down. That’s the number of people filing. The reason they’re coming down is because so many people are already unemployed, 36 million. Also, it’s because many of the systems that take the unemployment applications have not been successful in filing the claims. In particular, in Florida, there’s been huge criticism in terms of people not getting paid who have filed their claims as early as March, or even April. And that could become a huge crisis in terms of landlord-tenant relations if that problem is not fixed, and not fixed soon.
I wanna talk a little bit about where people are going from New York because these migrations are gonna affect many things. It’s gonna affect the economies long term, it’s gonna affect politics. For example, you’re seeing that one of the major places that folks from the North East are coming is Florida. The question is, are they gonna bring the virus with them or are they gonna quarantine? What impact is this gonna have on the real estate market? What impact is it gonna have on the real estate market in New York versus in Florida? And those are the types of things that we’re gonna see. It’s also gonna see, you know, how many people are gonna register to vote and become permanent and not go back? Those are the kinds of questions that these kinds of pandemics have that can be long term, and have tremendous implications.
I wanna talk a little bit about what we’re seeing in the stock market. What we’re seeing is that certain stocks right now are starting to actually go up. The S&P 500, for example, was not doing as well as some of the stay at home stocks, but now we’re seeing that folks are starting to think that because we’re opening up, companies that maybe weren’t doing as well are gonna be able to do better. For example, if we go to the next slide, we’ll see that Peloton which was doing really well because it’s stay at home stock, same thing with Netflix, are not necessarily doing as well. Activision Blizzard, the same thing. GrubHub probably will continue to do well regardless. When we go in the next slide, we’ll see that Zoom, you know, has been dropping a little bit even though many folks will continue to use it regardless. Slack, kinda the same thing. Let’s go to the next one, if we may. And then we’re seeing that the airline stocks are starting to take off again even though they were doing very poorly because it senses that people may feel comfortable to start flying again at some point in the future.
Next slide. And let’s talk about hotel stocks real quickly. We have the same thing here. There are certain hotel stocks, while they were 90%, 95% off, they’re starting to see increases in reservations. And so, to that extent, we’re seeing that those stocks also may start to do better than they have been in the past. And that’s a reflection of…that there’s hope and anticipation that things are going to get better. Of course, as we’ve talked about in the previous slides, we’re not sure if there’s gonna be a double-dip or even a triple-dip. And of course, that all has to do with how quickly the vaccines are gonna proliferate, or to the extent that we hit hard immunity, and that we have many people with the antibodies. There are studies coming out right now. They are suggesting that people with the antibodies are, in fact, gonna be immune from getting the disease for a period of time. The question is we don’t know how long because those people haven’t had the antibodies for a long enough period yet.[inaudible 00:08:17]. Next. I’m gonna bring Ken in now if we can. Ken, are you there? We’re gonna talk about travel and hospitality. Are you there, buddy?
Ken: Yeah, I’m here.
Roy: Perfect. Perfect. If you wanna take over for a little bit, I’d love you to do that. We’re on slide, 15 or 16. Thank you.
Ken: Sure. Well, you know, again, clean hotel rooms is where it’s at. If we’re gonna get people out, and we’re gonna travel, the first thing they’re gonna be concerned about is safety. I think the hotel industry, for the next 12 to 18 months is really in trouble. One of the things that the hotel industry has to be concerned about is the amount of debt in the system and what debt they have. So, we’re talking about seamless entry, faceless services, trying not to talk to anybody, or get coughed on by anybody. Hotel amenities are gonna completely change. But back to the debt, it’s CMBS debt, commercial mortgage-backed-security debt. They’re already in trouble because most of these hotels, a lot of ’em have CMBS financing, which means there’s no one to talk to. If you wanna get a deferment, there is no deferment. It goes into special servicing. So, expect a wave of special servicing and foreclosures in the hotel market over the next 12 to 18 in months unfortunately.
Roy: Yeah. One thing I just wanna mention is, I read this morning that Starbucks has asked their landlords for basically a 12-month reprieve on rent. No one is saying how big the reprieve is, but they’re basically saying that they’re not gonna be able to cover their rental cost for the next 12 months and maybe their… No one knows what they requested, but it was an across the board request, so virtually every landlord in the country that has a Starbucks, and there are a lot of Starbucks in the country.
Ken: Yeah. [inaudible 00:10:05] it was all the company-owned stores. And I think that’s gonna backfire on them. I understand their concern, but, you know, I think that’s gonna hurt their brand. Many of the stores are high performers, they do very well. And, you know, it’s very hard to pay five bucks for a latte or whatever you wanna call it [inaudible 00:10:29] and then ask landlords, you know, to give them a break. So I think the jury is gonna be out a little bit to see how it plays out for Starbucks. A lot of their stores are single-user buildings that were built specifically for Starbucks. So I think they’re trying to twist the arms of the triple net lease asset landlords that they do business with across the country.
Roy: I agree.
Ken: It’s not gonna be a good picture.
Roy: Two things I wanna mention. One is, for those folks who haven’t been on this webinars, all the old webinars are on our website. They’re all on YouTube. They’re all there. You don’t have to write everything down. You can capture it all whenever you want. And I know there’s a lot of dents and information here. I wanna go to the first question, Ken, if we can. And the first question is about hotels and Airbnbs. Can I read the question?
Ken: Okay.
Roy: If you plan on traveling this summer, are you more apt to stay at a hotel or at an Airbnb? That is the question. Are you more apt to stay at a hotel or an Airbnb if you’re gonna travel at all this summer? And your choices are, hotel, Airbnb, or you don’t plan on traveling just yet. Ken, I want you to guess which people are gonna say first, just for fun here.
Ken: I’m gonna say not planning to travel this summer.
Roy: Well, you’re right. But we can’t hear you but you did say not travel, right.
Ken: Not travel.
Roy: Right. Right. Over half the folks said that they do not plan on traveling just yet, 17% said Airbnb, 31% said hotel. So I see there’s a lot of work that has to be done. And it’s really just too early because we really just don’t know where this is all going. I know there’s tremendous optimism, and I share that optimism. But I think that optimism has to be couched with realistic caution from what the medical community is telling us. And, you know, that part is not a political process, that’s pure science. And, you know, I still believe in science, and I know you do too. And so, I think that’s where we get our best information.
Let’s go to the next slide, page 18. If you would continue, Ken, please? Also, by the way, I need questions and comments, guys. I’m not sure if we’re getting really any. So, you know, it kinda defeats the purpose if we are not getting questions from you all, and I really would appreciate that. Okay, question 18. Page 18.
Ken: Airbnb is…and private rentals, have really been a big driver of the residential community or investing community for quite some time, especially in vacation-type areas. In South Florida, the Coast, the Carolina’s, etc., I’ve had several people reach out to me over the last week, two weeks, about their vacation rentals, what risk that they were facing and what they should be doing. And, of course, I said if you’re an Airbnb, you have to follow the regulations, you have to have a minimum of three days between stays. And, again, going back to where the hotels are at, it’s all about cleanliness. I think that’s the winner. If you can price your vacation rental or your Airbnb at a level, and give that comfort level that it is absolutely clean, you’re gonna be okay.
But, a lot of people bought properties based on having that income stream that right now are gonna face a struggle because less people are gonna travel. I know a lot of people are itching to get out of their houses, a lot of them will. But back to science… I believe in science, and I think we all should as well. A lot of things we don’t know yet about Coronavirus. How long do we get immunity, how long it takes? How long it will get to get to hard immunity and how long its gonna take to get a vaccine, we just don’t know yet.
Roy: I mean, the reality is, science got us into this problem. I mean, you know, the technology of the industrial revolution, you know, the way we created energy, I mean, that’s all science. It may be old science, but science got us into it and it’s gonna be science that gets us out of it. And that’s the great irony here. It’s just a question of how we channel that science. But, you know, whether it is coal burning or other fossil fuel burning or the use of our automobiles. That’s all technology. It’s all science. That’s what got us here, and ultimately, that’s the route out. You can’t think there’s a route out that isn’t through the process that you came in. It may be a different way out, but it’s still the same continuity of getting out.
I do wanna mention something about hotels versus Airbnb, and that is many hotels have elevators. And the use of elevators is really, really controversial right now. In fact, I heard, and it may just be a rumor so don’t repeat it just yet. But I’m hearing that at the courthouse in…and I won’t even say which one but it’s in South Florida. They are thinking of only letting one person in an elevator, at a time. If that occurs, I don’t know how you have jury trials, I don’t know how you even get the lawyers and your witnesses up. I don’t even know how you even get the judges up. Or the judges have their own elevators, I suppose. But the problem is you can’t really run a courthouse that way. And you really can’t run a hotel that way.
And so, the question is… And most people are saying that, you know, there shouldn’t be more than a few people in an elevator at a time. They have to be wearing masks. If someone was in an elevator that wasn’t masked, you should step out. I mean, you aerate the elevator each time it’s used. I mean, the problem is it’s a very enclosed container, and so, the load of the virus, depending on what floor you’re on, could be rather high if you’re on a high floor and it stops and goes out. Of course, if it opens…the door is open a lot, there’s air pressure that comes out that flows the air out. But that doesn’t happen, you know, you could have issues, and you literally have to wear a mask and make sure that other people are wearing a mask when you’re in an elevator. We do have some questions. Ken, why don’t you comment on that and then we’ll go to the first question.
Ken: Yeah, you have two traffic jams, especially in the large buildings that have vertical transportation. You know, call it 10 to 50 or 100 floors, especially in the big city centers. It will take you half-hour to get to work and then you’re gonna have another 45 minutes to an hour in the lobby waiting to get to your floor. And some of these older buildings have sky lobbies, which means you have to take an elevator to get to the lobby, to take another elevator to get where you’re going. So, it just doesn’t work yet today until we figure it out. It’s gonna…
Roy: Oops.
Ken: …at the office market in those downtown highrise buildings, is under severe pressure right now to figure that out.
Roy: Ken, we got a question here which I think I’m gonna try and answer. It’s from a fellow lawyer and a friend. What liability…who exactly doesn’t believe in science? I guess is the question. And I’m not going to answer that, it seems like a rhetorical question of sorts. So I won’t even try and entertain that. But this is another good question. “What liability does a business owner have if a customer or employee of a restaurant gets COVID? Is there insurance to cover it?” And then, “Is the owner of a retail business potentially liable if a customer does not wear a mask and another customer gets COVID?” We’re actually gonna address how that exactly happens and works.
And we have examples of some experiments and some studies of how people in restaurants and other parts of the world did get COVID. But in terms of employees, typically, if an employee gets hurt or sick on the job, that’s typically covered by workers’ comp insurance. And so, in terms of employees, I think that’s not necessarily always gonna be the issue. But you still could have landlord liability issues because employees of buildings can sometimes not just sue their employer, but they can also sue the owner of a building if the building didn’t take proper precautions.
In terms of customers, we talked about it last week, that it’s gonna be a little bit like getting food poisoning. And you’d have to prove that, you know, you’re not the only one who just happened to get sick because then you can’t prove that you got sick at that particular location. But if there was a cluster of where you went as a customer, could be a hairstylist, could be a restaurant, and a whole bunch of people got sick at the same time, there’s gonna be overwhelming evidence that it occurred at that location. And then we’re gonna have to figure out how that happened and if the employer or the purveyor of the establishment took proper, necessary precautions that a reasonable person would do so that they weren’t falling below the standard of care, which is typically called negligence. Next question, or let’s go to the next slide.
Okay. This is kind of interesting for travel. You know, this is the CDC telling you to get travel insurance. I think that’s really hysterical. I don’t know if the travel insurance was lobbying the CDC. But the great irony is most of these travel insurance policies are going not to cover COVID-related events. And why is that? Because the definition of insurance is to happen to an event that is unforeseeable, in the sense that you didn’t know it was happening, it’s not a preexisting condition. So you can’t insure something that’s preexisting because that’s not insurance. That’s indemnity, but it’s not insurance. And an insurance policy is supposed to insure you for an accident. Well, if the accident already has occurred, then how are you gonna get insurance to cover that? And so, rest assured that these new policies are not gonna cover this pandemic. Will they cover future pandemics that aren’t on the horizon? Maybe. But I think a lot of people…and I’ve an article, I think it was in “The Times” or Wall Street Journal over the weekend, that suggested that people are not gonna be buying this insurance anymore because they are so disappointed by the coverage, they’re so disappointed by the service, they’re so disappointed by the wait time, they’re so disappointed with the reimbursement policy. And so many people did not get what they bargained for.
What’s interesting is that the cruise lines are actually offering different kinds of reimbursement plans in terms of cancellation insurance. Because a lot of this has to do with cancellations, and they’re providing their own cancellations without insurance now. And the airlines are doing the same. So I wouldn’t wanna be betting on the longevity of travel insurance unless they reinvent themselves. Of course, they’re also saying, “Watch your health for fever, cough, and troubled breathing. And if you get sick, call or dial…” This is what your CDC is telling you. Anyway, I’m not gonna comment on this. Let’s go to the next slide. It’s ridiculous. Okay. New trends of travel. Ken, why don’t you talk about that on page 20, please?
Ken: Yeah. Back to health and safety. I mean, again, everything is changing. Less people flying in airplanes, more people getting in the car because it’s perceived to be safer. I think the new luxury is really gonna be health and safety. And I think you’ll see the major brands rolling out, sort of, [inaudible 00:20:56] related to cleaning. They’re gonna come out with new advertising related to what kind of cleaning systems they’re using and how sanitized their rooms are, and, you know, how many nights of [inaudible 00:21:09] each room has between guests. You know, that’s gonna be the name of the game.
Roy: And if I may, what I’m also hearing is that there could be third parties, like good housekeeping seals of approval, you know, on products they use as good housekeeping [inaudible 00:21:24]. They have third parties that are going to assess the sanitation and disinfectant processes of each major hotel chain to determine if, in fact, they meet certain levels and standards. And so, that’s gonna be very, very interesting to see, as opposed to them just making claims that aren’t necessarily accurate or provable. Next slide. Let’s go on, 21. Welcome back to the future. That’s your’s Ken.
Ken: Well, that’s actually not a picture of me in that chair, sipping…I think he’s sipping wine. You know, I’m not a big fan of RV travel but you are gonna see the RV industry explode in a positive way. And you’re gonna see a lot of people hitting the road and doing it this way. All I can say is that it’s not for me.
Roy: But it is for some people. And if you are an RV…
Ken: It’s gonna be with some people because… Especially, the demographic or the people that buy RVs are gonna be the ones that are most susceptible to COVID, and that have the ability and the financial wherewithal to deploy money into owning RVs. And also, the rental market’s gonna increase.
Roy: Right. Well, I was gonna mention that most people really aren’t buying RVs. Most people, like, rent an RV for a week, two, or three weeks. I mean, most of the RVs on the road are actually rented. Most people don’t know that.
Ken: That’s right. But, again, there’s dealerships, even locally, that are doing quite well. And I think you’re gonna see this… It’s gonna be more of that bunker mentality, where people are gonna say, “Okay, I’m gonna get on the road, but I’m gonna be a road warrior in my own urban combat vehicle.”
Roy: Anyway, we gotta push on here or we’re gonna end up rolling over for our third week. Okay, let’s talk about restaurants here. As you all know, restaurants are offering a 25% capacity. You got the minimum requirements of 6 feet and, you know, can only have parties of less than 10. Tables and other areas should be cleaned and disinfected. Preference for paper menus, reservation-only model recommended. Outdoor dining preferred. Bars closed. No self-services. This picture is great. I think it’s from somewhere in Holland, I believe. And they’ve created these little glass hubs. The question is, do you have to clean the glass each time because people’s breathe and sneezes all condense on the glass? And then the question is, are those surfaces that need to be cleaned? So it’s kind of interesting, would you aerate them? But, I mean, it’s a cute little concept.
Lemme go to the next question, if I may. It’s a question concerning…assuming you’re going to go to a restaurant, are you willing to eat inside, just outside, or takeout? That is the question and people already have responded. And the answer is right here. Okay. Inside, 4%. Outside, 45%. Takeout only, 35%. Don’t plan to eat out at all, 28%. Okay. So, it looks like about 38% are willing to do takeout. Outside, over almost half. Inside, not many, 3%. And don’t plan to eat out at all. So in terms of not eating, people who were willing just to eat inside and not out, and don’t plan to eat out at all, you’re at 31%. But outside, about half of us are willing to eat outside. And takeout, only about a third.
So, I think the folks who have inside spaces are gonna have to reassess those. I think we talked about, last week, that New York City is talking about closing major streets and turning those into, like, the Rambler in Spain, Barcelona, where literally, you’ll have just enough spacing for people to walk around and eat outside. And that should be interesting. That also goes for bicycles and scooters that are gonna be used in the city. And so we’re gonna see the reinvention of the city. We’re gonna see reinvention of city space and urban spaces. But the real question is, you know, how many folks are just gonna give up on that model and just move to the burbs? Which, of course, is gonna be good for the realtors who are selling houses out here.
Next slide, slide 24. Okay, actually, slide 23 is really an interesting slide. We talked about this. This is a study…I forgot where this was. It says Seattle and King County so it must have somewhere out west in the state of Washington. And what we’re seeing is… If we can take the cursor. We’re seeing that right here is the air conditioner unit. This black thing on the right here, excuse me. That right here. There we go. The air blew that way, blew from right to the left. And what we’re seeing is… Move those pictures please, is that the folks with dark…were red, got the COVID, right? So the source of outbreak was the individual here. Everyone else with the red circles also got it. If you follow the airflow, you’ll that the people with the white circles, who were at the restaurant, did not get sick. But we’re seeing that the airflow, actually, was responsible for getting people a lot of people sick at that one restaurant.
And so, airflow is gonna be really important. And, of course… If we go to the next slide. This may help a little bit. These plastic dividers, you know, between tables. And I’m just not sure how effective that would be necessarily, if you’re gonna be somewhere for a long time. A problem again is the load. How much are you gonna absorb from an individual if they’re shedding the virus? And the question is, you know, is it just gonna be for 10 minutes or is it gonna be for an hour and a half? And so, if you’re outdoors, the likelihood is that it would disperse sufficiently and you wouldn’t have to be dealing with these issues.
We have another question. “No matter what they do in a restaurant, they cannot control germs. They are kidding themselves. What about a $3 per hour employee, constantly touching and readjusting their masks and touching your metal silverware, dish, cups, etc? We’re moving way too fast. Numbers are going to spike very shortly. This is nuts.” You know, that’s a very realistic opinion. I’m not gonna say you are right or you are wrong, that’s an individual question. Obviously, these people, normally make more than $3 an hour because of tips. But it’s gonna be a tough question, and it really just depends on whether or not you have the antibodies. Because if you have the antibodies, maybe you’re willing to eat in there. I mean, if enough of us have the antibodies. If we hit, 50%, 55%, half of us could go out to eat and not really worry about these things.
So, I think it’s all gonna depend on whether you have preexisting conditions, how old you are, how you feel good about yourself. I mean, there are just a lot of questions here. And until we get a vaccine, I think it’s all gonna be touch and go. And while you’re very striding about your opinion, there are other people who may feel that they’re willing to take that risk at this point in their life. Now, let’s talk about, if we can, retail spaces. Let’s go to page 26. Ken, let’s talk about malls a little bit.
Ken: Okay.
Roy: And let me say, I have… What’s this question? Oh, okay, let’s talk about malls, and then we’re gonna have a question. So, you go first.
Ken: Okay. Malls, enclosed malls, probably dead. As we understand it today, I think there’ll be a couple of outliers, like, locally, like [inaudible 00:28:35], given the population that surrounds it. In Miami, they get a lot of international visitors. But I think the whole mall game is gonna change. Most malls are gonna fail. They’re gonna have to be repurposed or demolished and the land used for something else.
Roy: Or you can, like… Forgive me. But you could have, like, the Sawgrass, which has a very out of… You know, half of the mall’s now an outside mall, then you got the inside mall. It’s conceivable they could repurpose the inside mall as an outside mall too.
Ken: Well, yeah. That’s just gonna require significant amounts of capital expenditure.
Roy: Right.
Ken: I think no matter what, in order for people to feel comfortable going into any retail store, even if it’s an outdoor mall that you don’t have to walk inside because that’s how, you know, how they work, you are still facing the same issues. And I think retail, in general, is under tremendous pressure because… It was before, because of the internet and E-commerce. Now, specifically, only the strong [inaudible 00:29:41] survive. Most department stores are done. They’re gonna continue to fall. And it’s just not how people shop anymore. And pretty soon, you’re gonna be able to stand in front of your mirror, get scanned for your dimensions, and you’ll be able to order, you know, whatever you want.
Roy: But let’s be clear, these trends already laid their seed before this crisis.
Ken: That’s right. This is an accelerant. You know, what’s happening now is an accelerant for so many trends related to the office, market, working from home. All those type of things were basically pushed much faster, maybe a decade faster than what was expected.
Roy: Yeah. So let’s see if people agree with you what you’re saying here, to some extent. This is about malls. Have you been to the mall or do you plan to go to the mall during the next week? Seven percent have been, 86% ha
ve not been, and 7% are unsure. So, maybe you had a cheat sheet in these other responses already, but you’re actually correct. I mean, the seeds have been sown here.
Ken: I wanna go back to one thing that one of the people that are watching talked about the restaurants. And I believe they commented last week about the cruise lines and safety, and cleanliness. And, I think, going back to that chart that you showed regarding airflow, it’s very, very important that we understand that even if you’re outside, it does not protect you if someone’s sneezing or coughing. There’s still a dispersal pattern of… Whether it’s flu or whether it’s COVID, you know, you really have to be far apart from people even if you’re gonna be outside.
Roy: Right. But what we are seeing is that in some Asian, you know, nations, where they have historically been wearing face masks for years and it was culturally accepted for a long period of time, that their numbers are way, way down. And we are constantly seeing that had we been wearing a mask, here in this country, earlier in this process, in January rather, or even in December, our numbers would be probably closer down by about 80% is what the scientists are suggesting. So that is what is. And the question is… You know, we just have to culturally adapt for the unforeseeable future, is what it sounds like to me.
Ken: Right. [inaudible 00:32:12] reported, you know, last night or this morning, that in Northern China, they just shut down about 100 million people related to increase in COVID cases. So, there’s rolling quarantines now back in China.
Roy: And you are gonna have flare-ups. There’s another question here. “Some soldiers off the Navy carrier with antibodies, were reinfected according to CNN. This is a big question now. Are you gentlemen planning on going out? Just out of curiosity.” In terms of the reinfection, you know, we’re not doctors, we’re not scientists. But there are conflicting reports. I think it’s gonna also depend on the strain of the virus you get. Will that particular strain, you know, give you the same antibodies? There are numerous strains out there. Ken, do you wanna add to that in terms of antibodies and hard immunity?
Ken: Well, it’s a great question. You’re right. The problem is there’s multiple strains. The testing that we have is just not accurate. It just isn’t. And those sailors, specifically, may have had low loads of virus particles in their body when they were tested negative. So they could have still had the virus at the time that they tested negative. Now, my wife is a nurse and an educator, has colleagues, that are on the ground, in hospitals, in New York City, that are caring for COVID patients, that caught it, recovered, and then caught it again. So that is possible. And even minor frontline healthcare workers are being bombarded with virus particles in their work lives. Though it’s different from us, just going out to the mall or going out to a restaurant, or going to Walgreens to pick up a prescription. You know, it’s much different.
Roy: Yeah. So in terms of that question, is your family planning on venturing out into a mall? That’s a question that someone asked us. If it’s a yes or a no, in the next seven days.
Ken: Absolutely not.
Roy: Okay. And I generally, don’t go to malls. My kids order stuff on Amazon for us, or we do it. So, I’m content not going inside a mall. Going inside a shop to pick something up real quick, that’s a different story, I think. But, again, it’s how long you’re gonna be inside, you know, a place that could have the virus and what your load is gonna be. So, if I don’t have to do it, I don’t think I would do it the next week. Page 27 here.
Plexiglass, that’s gonna be the name of the game across the board. Migration to automation is the objective. Minimization of time of shopping experience, like we’re talking about. Use of apps and websites as the new window shopping. No kids in the shopping experience. Major repurposing of space and use. Ken, you can address that for a second. Retails and restaurants that we talked about face huge objectives. New objectives is cleanliness safety and reliability. But I think we, kind of, addressed where this is all going. These are just cool pictures of what it looks like if you are shopping. Just go back one second. You know, I haven’t necessarily seen this first hand. I don’t really think I’m missing much but it is, kind of, fascinating. The next page I kinda like because you’re seeing all the plexiglass that’s being set up between you and the cashier to protect the cashiers as much as possible.
Clean, automatic, integrated with E-Commerce, fast in, fast out, offers COVID-19 resources and products. I mean, I kinda like the pickup experience where you order the stuff, they bring it out to you, they put it in your car. I mean, I kinda like that. I think it’s a great… I mean, I could live with that for the rest of my life, quite frankly. How about you? What do you say, Ken?
Ken: I was at Home Depot yesterday. You know, [inaudible 00:35:53] to the grocery store.
Roy: Can’t hear you. Can’t hear…
Ken: Can you hear me?
Roy: Yeah, now I can hear you. Thank you.
Ken: We went to Home Depot yesterday after going to the grocery store. And Home Depot really has it down where, you know, they’ve got someone who’s tracking you, and said, “Okay, you wait there.” Anything… “Go to this…” The self-service checkout, it was very, very distance. I mean, not 6 feet more like 18 feet. And I think that’s gonna be the new normal. But going back to capex it’s gonna be unbelievably expensive to implement all of the changes that are necessary. You know, you can’t put plexiglass up or plastic sheeting up everywhere. You know, there’s also fire code considerations. It is just a cascade effect of expense. So, keep that in mind. It’s gonna take time.
Roy: No, I appreciate that. I wanna go on to the next subject, that’s schools and colleges. As we prepare for…the question of are kids gonna go back to college, and certainly, what’s gonna happen to school in the fall. “Students, and parents, professors express their wishes and worries. Parents are not gonna play games with the lives of their children”, one reader says. And here we have, you know, this COVID curve that looks like a ski slope or something. And, you know, that’s the big question of what parents are gonna do going forward. Next slide, please. Okay. I wanna read this next poll after we go through these slides. Apart from liability connected to transmission of the virus, colleges face liability connected with tuitions and fees.
Many schools are being sued because the online experiences aren’t the same, plus they haven’t returned necessarily all the fees for room and board. And is it fair to pay the full cost of tuition when you’re not getting the same experience as having a professor live, who has office hours, and speaking to your classmates, and doing stuff together collaboratively? And then, is out of state colleges or even out of the city colleges worth it…worth the money, when students are not even out of their rooms when they were in high school? And then the real question is to gap year or not gap year, which brings us to the next question actually.
If you have a college-bound child, assuming that the college is physically gonna open in the fall, are you more apt to have your child attend school, or take a gap semester or gap year? And 7% to 12% said that they would send their kids… Almost 60% are saying that they would want their kid to take a gap year. And 29% wanna say unsure because they wanna see what it’s gonna look like as we get closer. I think the 29% is probably sensible. But the folks who don’t wanna send their kids and have their kids do something else for a year is equally sensible. To attend, you know, I think there’s a gamble there.
I did do a little study of what my own Alma mater, Princeton University, did in 1918 and 1919, during the Spanish Flu. And I wanted to see if they closed or what they did. And they basically implemented quarantine and isolation. And unfortunately, a number of students did perish. They may have well perished had they stayed home. But they did have a number of deaths. Today, in our society, with the TOT system the way we are, and with lawyers like myself or my colleagues, that’s probably not what any school wants to have happen, because they just don’t want that on their hands. And that’s why they sent the kids home this past spring. And that’s why if they don’t send them back, it would be for that very reason. Back in 1918, 1919, these colleges could probably have a few students pass away on their campuses. Today, that’s probably an untenable prospect. You agree with that, Ken?
Ken: Yeah. I have a 17-year-old boy. He’s [inaudible 00:39:40] and we’re already talking about potentially doing a gap year. And it’s really a function of if he takes a gap year where is he gonna go anyway?
Roy: Right.
Ken: And this is another accelerant of the impact that the return on investment that higher education has been having a hard time showing. Most people are not gonna wanna sent their kids online to Yale or Princeton, or any other Ivy League, and spend $70,000 to $80,000 a year to attend online. There’s no value there. So it’s a real problem. And I keep hoping my son will go to Alaska and work on on one of those deadliest catch boats, you know, and make some money. But his mother is kind of attached to him, so I don’t think that’s gonna happen.
Roy: Okay. We’re gonna proceed here because I know people want me to get through these slides. At least I’m just gonna do my best this time around. Secondary school…looks like public schools will resume next year. Unclear how they will accommodate the requirements of six feet when in most schools that’s almost impossible. Most likely, they will be no sports at least fall and winter semesters. And if there is, there certainly won’t be allowed spectators. The next question is, how to evaluate the slide of academic standards? And there is gonna be a problem with that. And that could be a generational crisis. Should all students retake the last quarter or the previous grade? I guess that’s a question. And then, should standardized testing take the pandemic into the equation and somehow be curved and evaluated? These are all questions that I…
Ken: They are.
Roy: Yeah. And they’re good questions.
Ken: I think they are.
Roy: Right. We have a question here. What rights do employees have if they’re not yet comfortable returning to an office environment, especially if they have pre-existing health conditions? Do they just resign? You know, that’s a good question. If you have a preexisting condition, you probably are gonna be protected by Americans With Disabilities Act, the ADA, because you have something that makes you vulnerable. And so, employers, historically and typically, need to provide reasonable accommodations. In some cases, that’s just impossible. For example, if you’re a waiter or a waitress at a restaurant, and that’s your job, and you don’t wanna come back, you can’t remotely serve the food. It’s not possible.
Maybe they could put you in a different position in the restaurant, possibly, where you’re not exposed to as many people. But you would either have to take for a lower leave of absence or find a position that is gonna protect yourself. But the employer doesn’t have an obligation to keep you hired when the job you were hired for always had the inherent risk that you were gonna be coming in contact with the public. So, that’s a tough question.
In terms of office workers, if you can remotely work from home, and can do that, then there could be some requirements or some accommodation that an employer could provide to you. Going back to schooling, we’re seeing here what schooling’s possibly gonna look like with, again, this plexiglass. And it’s not the way we left the classroom, but it is, kind of, like, how it’s gonna look. The same thing with casinos, they’re gonna have this plexiglass little cubbies for people who are gonna be playing poker or blackjack when the casinos reopen.
I would like to go over the revised CDC guidelines. These are the things that employers need to be conscious about and make sure that you’re monitoring these things, and that you understand them, and that you’re working with your lawyers and your advisers to make sure that you’re doing the right thing both for your self, your clients, and your customers. Should you consider opening, will reopening be consistent with applicable state and local orders? Are you ready to protect employees at the highest risk for severe illness? If it’s no, do not open. Are recommended health and safety actions in place? So these details are available on the site if you wanna look. But the answer is you need to meet the safeguards first. Meet the safeguards first, and you have to continually monitor your employees. Next.
For restaurants, we kind of talked about what’s gonna need to be done. But making sure that they don’t have fever, making sure that they’re not sick, making sure you’re providing proper spacing, proper ventilation, that you’re using paper menus. These are all the kinds of things that you’re going to have to do if you want to be opening. And, of course, in most of the country, you can only be open only 25% indoors. And so, it’s gonna be a challenge and, you know, it’s just gonna be tough.
I might go over some liability guidelines now from the Cleveland Clinic because they’ve provided some excellent, excellent slides here, that we thank them for sharing with us. If we go to the bottom here, and we take a look, you know, you have these cloth masks that prevent some of these virus balls, which of course, we can’t see, but they’re actually visualizing them. And that’s your first zone of defense, and social distancing is your second, cleaning and disinfecting is your third, and then handwashing is the fourth. So, we think of it as what they call the Swiss Cheese Model. You’re seeing that each layer prevents less and less virus balls from coming through. And at the end, one sneaks through, two sneak through… Two can’t sneak through, one sneaks through, and then finally, your handwashing is your final line of defense. And so that’s… It’s kind of interesting to visual it that way. And hopefully, that will stick with you at end of this webinar today.
The usual recommendations… You know, I’m not gonna be your mother here and tell you what you have to do. But these are ironically things we were all taught when we were in kindergarten, interestingly. And so, you know, we really, kind of, have to go back there. The face mask, of course, maybe wasn’t…we used to like to wear masks. Cover your mouth and nose. You know, don’t use your hands because that’s ridiculous to use your hands when you sneeze. Practice social distancing, wash your hands, avoid care facilities, clean and disinfect, stay home when sick, maintain healthy habits. I mean, these are all things that are somewhat common sense, but we need to do those.
Screening. We need to learn to use these head thermometers. I don’t think they’re hard to use but we need to start to learn to use them. Employees must check themselves before they go to work. Some employers may decide that they wanna check their employees when they come to work. Obviously, if someone’s sick, they cannot come to work. And you have to literally enforce social spacing. Next. Clean and disinfect, plan, implement, and maintain. Very specific guidelines. It’s nothing really new here. But these are things that we all have to do if we are going to be responsible employers. Next.
Stay six feet away from everyone. We have to really try and enforce that, both for our employees as well as our customers. What symptoms should I be watching for on my workforce? Cough, shortness of breath, fever, chills, muscle pain, new loss of taste or smell, sore throat, and other less common symptoms, nausea, vomiting, diarrhea. And in older folks, I hear also, disorientation may be a new symptom that we need to look for.
How do employees stay well? Well, we wanna keep the stress down if we can. Good exercise, healthy diet, remaining…connecting with others, taking breaks, and getting enough sleep. And the healthy diet is so critical here. And that would mean, you know, not smoking too much, not drinking too much and really trying to keep the weight off also because that’s so important to this whole process.
Okay. So, the next tenet we talked about is insurance. So if you’re gonna open up, you need to make sure you have good liability insurance. That’s the insurance you’re gonna need to make sure that if someone does get sick, typically, a customer, that you have insurance. If they’re an employee, they’ll typically, hopefully, be covered by workers’ comp. There are sometimes exclusions and exceptions to that, so we need to look at that. And your lawyers will need to look at that. And in terms of being open, here you have someone who’s cutting hair. He’s a barber. And, you know, is he employing the necessary requirements to keep his customers safe, and, of course, himself safe?
And of course, the reason we talked about the safety guidelines is because those will be the standard by which lawyers will look at to determine if you met the standard of care and were you negligent or did you fall below the standard of negligence. And negligence will be based on what the community standard is. Were you doing something below the standard that the rest of the community was doing? Is this gentleman doing the same amount of clean up that the average barber in his community is doing?
I’ve been asked, are there any other questions as I proceed here? Because this is a really important area and I really wanna make sure that everyone understands that this insurance coverage is really important. I also wanna talk about umbrella insurance coverage. That’s personal liability coverage. So if your company gets sued and there’s not enough insurance, and they can pierce the corporate veil, that you have enough personal insurance so that your personal assets are not exposed to a liability, forcing you then to have your business file for some, sort of, Chapter 11, which we’ll talk about next week again, or sub Chapter 5 and Chapter 11, bankruptcy that makes you insolvent.
I mean, the most unfortunate thing is that here you are trying to protect your business, and reopen and establish it, and that very act is the act that causes you to lose your business because you end up being too aggressive, too anxious. Or you get some overzealous customer who’s trying to somehow take advantage of the situation.
And in that sense, assuming you don’t have enough insurance, and assuming you do get sued, we need to make sure that your final line of defense is asset protection. And as we’ve talked about in the past, how you title your property, whether it’s your stock, whether it’s your bank accounts, whether it’s your home, there are different ways to title your property, and you want to make sure that you title it correctly. If you are married, typically, married couples will title their property with a by tenancy by the entirety. And that means that when one spouse dies, the other spouse will end up getting everything. And unless they both get sued for the same liability, they will in fact, not be able… They, being the individual who’s suing you, will not be able to attach that asset.
If your assets are held individually, those assets are available to the person who is suing you. If they’re held in common, half of those assets could be available. In joint tenancy, very similar. And so, the real issue is, how do you title those assets and how do you protect those assets? And if it’s not clear, most courts will assume it’s a tenancy in common, and that means that half of the asset could be available to someone who was trying to sue you personally.
Another thing we need to look at is asset…in terms of asset protection is, how do we put our assets so that they’re unavailable to either bankruptcy creditors or to creditors who are now suing you because they got hurt at your establishment and because you didn’t have insurance. So if you have enough insurance, all these issues may not matter, but if you don’t have enough insurance or if your insurance company goes under… And let me tell you that that has happened in my career, that insurance companies have gone under, where people thought they had enough liability insurance. And so if the insurance company does go under, then they’re gonna be looking at your corporate assets. And if those assets were insufficient, and they were able to pierce the corporate veil…which they may not be able to, and we’ll talk about that some other time, then your personal assets could be available.
So we wanna make sure that, at the end of the day, that your assets are never available under any of these scenarios. And it’s, kind of, like a domino, you know, where one goes down and they keep going down. And so we wanna have breakpoints where not all the dominoes go down.
And one of the good break points is to make sure that some of your assets are not available to your creditors. And so, of course, in Florida, in particular, 401(ks), IRAs, pension plans, those kinds of retirement assets are never available or almost never available to your creditors. Other states, that’s not the case. And Florida’s very protective of retirement assets. So, always you should be maximizing your IRA, you should be maximizing your 401, to the extent you can. And you wanna do that in a way that protects those assets so that you are not unnecessarily exposed.
Gifting strategies. If you have that capacity, gifts that are made before you’re being sued, are typically considered unre…that you can’t undo those kinds of gifts, and thus those assets could be gifted to children or other family members. And those are irrevocable and can’t be challenged. Now, if you’re making gifts in the middle of a lawsuit, rest assured that those could be deemed as fraudulent transfers and thus, could be undone. And fraudulent, not in the sense you’re committing a crime, but they are transfers that are not considered to be fair, and that they can be challenged, and the assets could be put back into the company or to you individually, so that your creditor or the person who’s suing you has those available to them. So these are all the kinds of things that we do with our clients. And we want to make sure that you all are well aware of that to help you.
Okay. Very good. And so, we did our [inaudible 00:52:34] webinar. I think it was number eight. Webinar number eight, I believe. And in there, we had a whole section on asset protection planning, which you’re welcome to go back to. And if anyone needs to make an appointment to go over these issues personally, we would be more than pleased to meet with you. If you transfer after an event to protect, will they be reversed? When do you transfer? Well, you always do a transfer when it’s not something that you absolutely have to do to try and prevent someone from suing you. So the idea is that you have good asset protection planning and estate planning going on throughout your business life, and that you’re making sure that these things aren’t being done after the fact when you realized you should have done it. And how do you know to do it before? You have people like me telling you you need to do it before there’s a crisis. So if you’re any establishment anywhere, you should be making sure that your assets now, not when someone finally sues you or you get that lawyer’s letter. And that you’re doing the right thing for your family and for your future by making sure that your assets are properly protected.
And then protecting capital investment. Is it time to put cash in? Is it time to borrow money? What kind of debt is preferable? What is a personal guarantee? Who should sign? Why debtors are asking my spouse to sign? Well, obviously, to the extent possible, you never want your spouse to sign anything, whether it’s a mortgage or a guarantee for a business. For the simple reason that then both of you are on the hook. To the extent that only one of you signs, and your assets are held, by the entirety, that asset would not be available to that creditor. And that’s, of course, why they want you both to sign. But many times, they can’t legally make the spouse who’s not involved in the business to sign. If they’re involved in the business, they may be able to force them to sign. But if they’re not, they would not be able to do that.
There are other strategies available in terms of when you’re investing in your own business. Are you investing cash? Are you investing money that you’re lending to the business? How do you secure that versus other creditors? And that’s something we’ll be talking about more with Zach Shelomith next week, as we talk about how bankruptcy protective planning can be very important in the time of COVID. Do we have any more questions or are we… I think we covered it. Ken, we got two minutes. All yours.
Ken: Well, what do you want me to talk about? As far as personal guarantees, as the landlord realm? I was asked that.
Roy: A hundred percent. Yes.
Ken: I always telling my clients, on the tenet user occupier side, always say no to those. You know, I think now is the time to be very, very mindful of your cash flow and save as much cash as possible. The future is very uncertain. I think yesterday’s boost to the stock market was great, but it was based on something that may or may not happen. And I think we’re in still for very rough water, and don’t be surprised to hear some pretty rough numbers over the second and third quarter on gross domestic product, and how low those numbers, how negative they are. Just remember this is temporary. Now is the time not to make large purchase decisions, and now’s the time to, sort of, circle the wagons. That’s the advice I’m giving to all my clients.
Roy: And I think that’s right. I mean, I think the idea that you keep your powder dry and you hope for the best, and hope that maybe things are gonna get better. But at the same time, there’s a realistic scenario where things could get worse this winter when there’s both the traditional flu season and this COVID season that get co-mingled together, and where the medical community can’t even figure out which is which because many of the symptoms so overlap.
Ken: Right. Listen to the science. That’s really important. And I know our friend said, “Who doesn’t listen to science?” Well, lots of people that I see going to the gyms and going out to…you know, open congregation on the beaches in other states. They’re not listening so much to science. And that’s not good.
Roy: Well, you know, to each his own, we are a free country, and you can listen to whoever you want. And that’s what makes us great, but that’s why we’re gonna take a bigger hit than some of these other places.
Ken: Right. You know, [inaudible 00:56:54] immunity, you know.
Roy: And that maybe our luck at the very end. Ken, as usual, I wanna thank you. I wanna thank you, the audience, for participating, my friends and clients. As you know, we’re here to serve you. If you need our help, please call us. Many of you have done that. And we certainly appreciate trying to help as many people as we possibly can. We’ve been here for 30 some odd years. We got through the last crisis. Didn’t expect to be going through another one, but we were trained for it, and that’s why we’re here. So, next week Zoom at Noon with Zack Shelomith, as we’re talking about how the bankruptcy code can be your friend, and how you can do pre-bankruptcy planning just in case things actually don’t get better as soon as we hope, so that we can prevent this domino effect, and build blocks and brakes to protect you and your family so we can get through this. And when we do come out it, you’re stronger or at least not much worse off than when you went into it.
Let me see, we do have a few questions here. Lemme take those real quick before we end. In the various establishments where I have been with plexiglass protection, I still had to exchange the credit card from the cashier. So it defeats the purpose, until the payments can be done differently. Apple Pay… Yeah, I think, you know, Apple Pay is gonna be the way… You know, and in the future, I don’t think we’ll actually, physically need to pull out our credit card. And I think some establishments are gonna figure that out. Or they’re just gonna do what I do, is I just pay over the phone using my cellphone from my card, I just pay either before or after. And that works just as well.
What if you hire an employee, an independent contractor, what is our liability situation with that? You’re hiring an independent contractor and they’re not an employee, you may have more liability because they’re not covered by workers’ comp. Then, again, if they have their own insurance, they should be covered by that. And so, it really depends on how you treat them. But I think at the end of the day, you have an obligation to try and protect them as much as you do an employee. The only difference is you won’t have workers’ comp to protect you, but you may have their insurance as well as your own insurance to protect you if something goes wrong. When I say your own insurance, liability insurance.
Is it easy to pierce a corporate veil for a single-member LLC? Single-member LLCs have no protection whatsoever. They don’t really exist as a legal entity. I don’t recommend them. We don’t form them for individuals. And if you have one, I suggest you call us after this so we can restructure that for you and make sure it’s not a single member because it’ll be deemed by authority or courts as being a see-through entity and provide you no protection.
If you ask your employees to come in at different times is that okay? It’s highly recommended. You probably can’t have anyone in your establishment at the same time because if you do, you probably can’t maintain social distancing of six feet, unless you have a very big space. So you’re gonna have to do that. And there are some studies coming out on how that’s gonna work and how…
Ken: [inaudible 00:59:39] normal. Staging. Yeah. You’re gonna have shifts and staging of people rotating in and out. And that’s also how occupiers are gonna be able to take less space because they’re gonna rotate various, you know, groups through, over time, during the workday.
Roy: And if I may add. There are school systems around the world that are now experimenting with all kinds of staging of people. Kids will come in for a week, and then they’ll stay home for a week. And so, there’s a way to actually mathematically figure out how each of those groups remains almost in their own cocoon and won’t spread it. And they themselves will be able to protect and insulate themselves. So we’re gonna see a lot of that going forward. And as that information comes out, we’ll share with you how staging is gonna work. “Any tips for [inaudible 01:00:22] trying to make a strong argument to be a Florida resident?” Yeah, just stay down here, and make sure you’re here enough days. And if you do, then just do it. It’s then…
Ken: No taxes, no state taxes. It’s a great place to live.
Roy: Right. But make sure you register your cars and you register to vote here, and get a library card. But you’re gonna have to establish that you truly are down here. And then you can go back up north for, you know, two, three months a year when it’s easy. But the idea that you’re gonna be flying back and forth like you used to, those days are kinda gone for the time being. When they come back, I can’t tell you. And if you wanna drive back and forth, that’s probably gonna be a better route.
Last question here and… Can you claim Florida homestead as a renter in Florida? No, you can’t because you’re not a property owner. So Florida homestead is only for owners of homes not renters, at least not yet. I think one more. Okay. Are all the properties and accounts under a trust are all protected? Is all the properties and accounts that are under a trust…? Tough question because we don’t know if it’s an irrevocable trust or a revocable trust, so the answer is I can’t answer that question without much more detail.
We are over our limit here. Ken, thank you again. My partners and colleagues at Oppenheim Law, thank you. And of course, Western Title. I don’t always mention Western Title but we’re open. We’re helping people buy and sell homes, keeping them safe through remote notarization and mobile notarization. We’re not sticking people in rooms for any extended period of time, or at all, and not making people ride elevators. We’re making sure that our clients are safe and that we’re practicing what we preach. So Zoom at Noon, see you next week. Roy Oppenheim, from the trenches. Thank you so much. Stay safe. God bless. Bye-bye.