By Carmen Rioja
In an exclusive interview with Atención, Lic. Ángel Marín Díaz, legal consultant and founder of INMTEC Legal Services, talks to us about the current challenges for Mexico and the United States.
Carmen Rioja (CR): There is a very large economic disparity between Mexico and the United States in terms of buyers of real estate, often for speculative purposes, who are arriving due to inflation in the United States. How do you manage to balance and integrate in some way so that both communities benefit from each other? What do you think about number one: how much disparity there is; and number two: how can we legally support these interrelationships to be more fluid and healthier?
Ángel Marín (AM): It is a very deep question, and the range is wide in this. I will say again—wanting to change the world—, we decided to start at home. Yes, strengthening education, study, nutrition, and culture, lets us love our community, and where we live, we go back to the word you mentioned: community. When we love our community, we do not let ourselves fall into greed; we do not get into things that are wrong, that is, drug trafficking cultures, violence against women, and injustice; we keep our principles and ideologies that we breastfeed at home and that hopefully, we continue to breastfeed at home to future generations, so that the household does not break down; that the grandmother and grandfather continue to be seen as mentors, that the maternal and paternal figure exists at home. In other words, this is where we should start; to ensure that this disparity does not become greater.
Losing the future of the child today would be a mistake, but the future child is also the solution. That is the reason we enter to work in community service. And services such as AfterLife®, another company of Grupo INMTEC, and AfterLife® is pre and post-mortem estate planning.
Included in the AfterLife® package are all the instruments we need as a foreigner in Mexico for medical, legal, and asset estate planning. Including the Advanced Medical Directive, the Durable Power of Attorney, the DNR, as well as a very specific Last Will and Testament.
We will also process the medical and state death certificate, handle the notification of the embassy of origin, as well as dispatch the probate process to ensure that your assets will be handled in a legal, efficient manner, enabling peace of mind and legal certainty, with the clear transmission of the assets to your heirs.
C.R. And how was this AfterLife® program born?
AM: It was through the same pragmatism we always apply; we were attending to so many clients because, in their legacies, there was no will, or they had so many problems, so much debt, or inheritances that left siblings without definition. We saw that the situation was decomposing, so instead of using a reactive model, we became once again «proactive» to the needs of our clients/friends after the death of a loved and dear one.
CR: Exactly: prevent the problem! That is what leads me to the next question. Normally, or at least in Mexico, we are used to going to see a lawyer or a financial advisor when we already have problems, when there is already a legal suit, a lawsuit, or a bankruptcy, in short. And the law is not only dedicated to lawsuits but there are many things that can be done to avoid future legal problems. For example, what can you tell the readers about how to plan to avoid a future conflict?
AM: «An ounce of prevention can save a pound of solution,» is how the saying goes..
Where we can support to diminish unforeseen problems is where we fix future situations at the root. Lawyers can focus on supporting the legal framework, and we can advise on estate planning. Just as we also take care of our finances, we can even have a financial advisor; why don’t we think about what to do with our assets afterwards? That is, we can’t take them with us post-mortem.
Sure, life is about building wealth, but how do you pass it down if you are not planning for it? That is precisely why today, there is a controversy in a discussion about this lack of information and lack of correct information. Good information shines due to its absence, apparently.
Today, although we have more means and more ways to get any information directly to our homes or to our cell phones… the information is much more partisan than before.
So, this is one of our goals, to share the appropriate and correct information free of charge within a legal framework to provide legal certainty to everyone. We are all equal. We all have the same needs and the same rights. It is forgotten too often in these lands. So, our evolution really was to change, not the Mexican law, but how it was offered and bring transparency.
Really be the shield for the client and giving them pragmatism and knowledgeable planning services.
(To be continued…)
