Dangers of Do-It-Yourself Estate Planning
July 27, 2021 by Steve Hartnett Occasionally, those who aren’t Estate Planning attorneys will attempt to do their own Estate Planning. They think they can find a document online or use a friend’s document and can figure it out. Unfortunately, there are many pitfalls one could run across. Let’s look at three…
What Issues Do Baby Boomers Face with their Parents’ Estate?
Gail Rubin – Academy Guest BloggerAmerican Academy of Estate Planning Attorneys, Inc. ~~~~~~~ I recently had to clear out my parents’ home here in Albuquerque. As a Baby Boomer facing a lifetime of photographs, paperwork, furniture and memorabilia, this has been a daunting challenge. My parents used to split their…
It’s Important to Have a Coordinated Estate Plan
June 15, 2021 by Steve Hartnett An Estate Plan includes various different moving parts. The Revocable Trust may be the keystone of the plan, but it’s important to consider how the other parts of the plan will work with…or against…the plan. Let’s look at a simple example. John had three children and…
Supreme Court to Hear Case That Could Increase the Bite That Medicaid Takes Out of Settlements
The U.S. Supreme Court has agreed to hear a case disputing how much states can recoup from Medicaid recipients’ settlements in personal injury cases. The decision has the potential to affect anyone who receives government assistance with their medical care following a disabling injury that results in a lawsuit. …
Dual Eligibility: How Qualifying for Both Medicare and Medicaid Can Help With Costs
Qualifying for Medicare hardly means free health care — there are still premiums and deductibles. However, people who qualify for both Medicare and Medicaid (called “dual eligibility”) receive help paying their out-of-pocket costs. Medicare is a federal program available to anyone 65 or older. It consists of four major parts,…
Using Estate Planning to Prepare for Medicaid
Long-term care involves not only a loss of personal autonomy; it also comes at a tremendous financial price. Proper planning can help your family prepare for the financial toll and protect assets for future generations. Long-term care can be very expensive, especially around-the-clock nursing home care. Most people end up…
Just In Time
Wow, what a morning. It started with one of our staff expressing her desperate measures to keep birds from coming into her house. Everything is sealed up; the windows are closed, the attic is shut, yet every now and then a new bird pops in and launches yet another quest…
Thousands of Elderly and Disabled SSI Recipients Accused of Owning Property That Isn’t Theirs
In December 2018, the Social Security Administration (SSA) had a nasty surprise for Laura Marshall (not her real name), a 74-year-old woman just scraping by in senior citizen housing in New York City’s Harlem neighborhood: The agency demanded that she repay more than $10,000 in benefits, claiming that she owned…
Medicaid’s Home Care Waivers Can Help You Avoid a Nursing Home, But the Line May Be Long
Medicaid long-term care benefits traditionally pay mainly for nursing home care, but the federal government can grant “waivers” to states allowing them to expand Medicaid to include home and community-based services. The downside is that receiving care in a nursing home is an entitlement, while getting care at home is…
Trust Me, You’re Gonna Like This – The See-Through Trust as a Beneficiary
August 12th, 2019 Jim Blankenship – https://blankenshipfinancial.com/ One area that often gets short shrift in discussions of IRAs and beneficiary designation is the use of a trust as the beneficiary. Part of the reason behind this may be the perceived complexity of trusts in general; at any rate, it’s not…
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