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.
Unfortunately, many trusts will trap assets and force them to be spent for the medical costs of an ill spouse, when the assets could otherwise have been saved from Medicaid spend down, and could have been used for the well spouse.
Generally once one spouse has qualified for Medicaid, there will be a need for the other spouse to re-do their estate and incapacity planning.
As part of a good estate plan, most people also do an incapacity plan, so that someone else can manage their affairs if they ever become incompetent
A major component of some incapacity plans is a trust, which many people think of as simply an estate plan.
In addition to the savings in state estate taxes in estates (See Part I) where a couple has assets that total more than a million dollars, including their home, their life insurance, and their retirement assets, if a couple either has no estate plan at all, or has a simple will based estate p
One of the most profitable areas for lawyers involves trying to fix problems that arise after someone has died or become incompetent, when the person has “saved” money by using an inadequate estate or incapacity plan, or has no estate or incapacity plan in place at all.