You probably have a CPA. You may have a financial advisor. If you own rentals, you have someone you call about financing. The question almost nobody asks is whether any of them know what the others are doing. Jason Gaudy, an estate planning attorney at Gaudy Law in Upland, California, thinks that gap is where plans quietly break.
The four people Gaudy says everyone needs
Asked when investors should loop in estate counsel, Gaudy said everyone should have at least two professionals involved in their life, maybe three, maybe four. His interviewer asked him to name the four. He did:
– A good CPA, especially for anyone acquiring or trying to acquire wealth. – A financial advisor. – An attorney who handles wills and trusts, in his words, “kind of regular people stuff.” – Someone in the real estate world who can help when you are buying, selling, or refinancing, including a good person on the mortgage side.
His framing of why is the useful part. Have those people and know who they are, he says, whether you need them in that moment or not. The point is not to be assembling a team for the first time in the middle of an emergency.
What makes a CPA “good” in his definition
Gaudy is careful not to draw a quality line here. Most CPAs, in his view, are pretty good and cut from the same cloth. The differentiator he cares about is whether you can reach them.
He hears a version of the same complaint often: clients tell him they have a good CPA but can never get them on the phone. His working definition of good is someone you can get a hold of on a regular basis, with the obvious exception of tax season.
That standard travels. An advisor or attorney you cannot reach the week something is closing is not functionally on your team.
What his office actually does with the other three
Coordination in his practice is a procedure, not a sentiment. When Gaudy’s firm does an estate plan, they ask three questions: who is your CPA, who is your financial advisor, and what other lawyers are you working with?
Then they reach out. The message is roughly that they just completed a trust for the family, would be glad to share a copy, and would like to hear from the CPA or the advisor if questions come up during tax planning or returns.
He also names the friction that normally kills this. Clients and CPAs both assume a call between professionals means the client gets billed. Gaudy says his firm does not do that: if a CPA whose client they drafted a trust for wants to ask questions, they do not charge the client for it.
Where the lack of coordination shows up
The clearest example he gives is the LLC.
Investors come in wanting entities for their rental property, and Gaudy will form them. But his standing instruction is to talk to your CPA first, because there are tax implications. He can create the LLC, and it does protect you from liability, but sometimes it is not a good tax move for that particular person, and the better answer is to skip it and carry really good insurance instead. Neither professional can make that call alone. The trust-over-LLC structure investors usually want needs both seats at the table.
His summary of the risk is plain: if four people are working for you and none of them know what the others are doing, something gets missed, or something ends up not aligned the way it needs to be.
How often does the team actually need to talk?
Not constantly. Gaudy’s answer is a couple of times a year, a check-in asking whether anything needs to be done.
His firm builds that into a cadence, sending an annual letter or email asking clients whether any of a short list of events has occurred: a marriage, a birth, a death, a divorce, a purchase or sale of property. His broader position is that a well-drafted trust does not need frequent updating, but when something changes, the people who built the plan should hear about it. That is the same argument behind keeping the plan current rather than filing it away.
Building the bench when you do not have one yet
Most property owners assemble this team by accident, one referral at a time, under deadline pressure. Maybe you are missing a seat: a CPA who understands rental depreciation, an attorney who does trusts rather than litigation, an advisor who will actually pick up. Our network of CPAs, attorneys, and advisors exists for that introduction, in both directions.
What this means if you’re planning a 1031 exchange
An exchange is one of the few transactions that touches every seat on Gaudy’s list at once. The qualified intermediary has to be engaged before the sale closes. The CPA runs the numbers on depreciation recapture and on any boot, the taxable cash or debt relief left over from an exchange. The attorney handles how the replacement property is vested, which has to be consistent with the taxpayer who sold. The real estate and mortgage people execute the replacement side inside a 45-day identification window and a 180-day closing window. Those timelines do not flex for a team that has not met before.
Watch: Why Your Estate Plan Needs a Team (Attorney + Advisor) with Jason Gaudy, Gaudy Law
Educational only. Not legal, tax, or investment advice. Jason Gaudy is licensed in California; rules vary by state. Consult your own advisors.