Category Archives: Estate Planning
Reality Check: Depending On Your Family For Elder Care Is Less Affordable Than You Think
An aging in place plan that takes family togetherness as its cornerstone sounds idyllic. Think of the affordable family meals and the multigenerational social events. Think of the money your children will save on childcare if you babysit your grandchildren while your kids work on evenings and weekends. Your son-in-law adores you, and the… Read More »
Florida Senate Introduces Bill To Protect Elder Abuse Victims From Creditor Harassment
Debt collection communications can stress you out at any stage of your life. If you are in a strong enough financial position that you are talking to an estate planning lawyer about placing your assets in a trust so that creditors cannot get them, or even spending down your assets in order to qualify… Read More »
Reality Check: Will The Nursing Home In Your Town Still Be There When You Need It?
Nursing home planning is an important part of your estate plan. Whether you choose to age in place or move to an assisted living facility, there is a good chance that, at some point during your retirement, you will need the kind of assistance with tasks of daily life that you can most easily… Read More »
Disinheriting Your Children: Do’s And Don’ts
Another holiday season has come and gone, and your children and grandchildren are getting more ungrateful by the year. They complain about the gifts you give, and when they visit you, they complain about the food and about the condition of your house, and they never offer to help. You do your best to… Read More »
How To Protect Your Assets From Medicaid Estate Recovery
A popular saying in the world of estate planning goes that the goal of your estate plan is to ensure that you do not outlive your savings. In today’s economic climate, where most of us are in debt and those of us who have savings are unlikely to have them much longer, does this… Read More »
How To Protect Your Future Self From Financial Abuse
Last month, a court in Fort Pierce sentenced Sherri Lynn Smith, 52, to 51 months in federal prison followed by four years of supervised release after she pleaded guilty to bank fraud and aggravated identity theft. Between 2016 and 2019, Smith worked as a caregiver to an elderly couple in Broward County, and they… Read More »
Pets And Your Estate Plan
So many of your hopes and worries related to your estate plan have to do with providing for your children and grandchildren, or for seeing to the care of your surviving spouse and siblings in their old age. Meanwhile, your generosity toward family members, even while you are alive, is often met with ingratitude… Read More »
You Call That A Retirement Fund?
As the poem “The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock” by T.S. Elliot demonstrates in a most unnerving way, your worst enemy and the biggest obstacle to your happiness is indecision. If you read that poem in high school English class, as many members of Generation X did, you probably focused on Prufrock’s inability… Read More »
If Your Estate Plan Doesn’t Include A Power Of Attorney, It Needs One
Introducing the good enough estate plan. If you are old enough to be aware of your mortality, then you are old enough to put some instructions in writing about what should happen to your body, children, and property (no matter how meager that property might be) when you die. The rest can wait. If… Read More »
Protecting Yourself From Excessive Long-Term Care Expenses
Just as many couples promise, at their wedding ceremony, to care for each other in sickness and in health, you should design your estate plan so that it will take care of you in your old age, no matter your state of health. Estate planning involves hoping for the best but preparing for the… Read More »