Finances and Business
Trusts
Trusts
In General
There are a variety of situations in which other people may make decisions for you.
Wills and trusts can both be used to direct where and to whom your property passes once you have passed on.
Trusts
Trusts can also be used to allow someone else to manage your property during your lifetime if you wish to have someone else do this, or if you become incompetent.
Health Care Documents, Finances and Business, Guardianships and Conservatorships
There are a variety of situations in which other people may make decisions for you.
Health Care Documents
It can be very important to have a valid Advance Directive for Health Care in place, so that if you are unable to direct your own health care, the person you want to make health care choices for you will be able to direct doctors and hospitals, and will be able to have access to your health care information.
Elder Law includes a wide range of subjects, including matters relating to Medicaid, including asset protection, Medicaid spend down, look back periods, avoiding or dealing with disqualification for Medicaid, and planning for a situation where one spouse needs to enter long term care, but the other may be able to remain in the home.
It is not uncommon for couples who are committed and have been living together for some time to buy property together.
This can present problems both while the couple stays together (or when one partner dies), and if the couple ever splits up.
If you have no estate plan and are married and have no children, or if you are married and all of your children are also the children of your spouse, your spouse will inherit everything that passes through your probate.
An estate plan, depending on the complexity, can range from a few hundred dollars to a few thousand dollars.
People are often anxious to avoid estate taxes when they pass on.
Federal estate taxes are no longer a problem for most people, since there is no federal estate tax unless the estate is over $11.2 million dollars.
At one time not too long ago, federal estate taxes (death taxes) started at $600,000.
Many people have or had the potential to have to pay estate taxes if they had savings, retirement accounts, and/or a house, when estate tax was due on amounts over $600,000.