Practice Areas
Senior Estate Planning
SENIOR ESTATE PLANNING OR TRADITIONAL ESTATE PLANNING
WHICH DO YOU HAVE? WHICH WILL PROTECT YOU, YOUR ASSETS
AND YOUR FAMILY?
AND
AN IMPORTANT MEDICAID NEWS ALERT
Life Happens...Life Changes...So Must Your Estate Plan and so I ask: What does your estate plan look like?
- Will Traditional Estate Planning work for you? Or do you need Senior Estate Planning to accomplish your objectives and protect you, your assets and your family?
- What are the ways to protect your assets from devastating long-term healthcare costs?
- Can a living Trust protect your assets?
- Why doesn't Traditional Estate Planning always work...and what does?
- Have you considered whether long-term care planning (i.e., Senior Estate Planning) is something that could benefit you? Without Senior Estate Planning, the state will determine how you spend your money if you are in a nursing home.
We provide solutions through the proper types of planning. There are 3 phases to planning for life and 3 types of planning
| PHASES | PLANNING |
| Maturing Years | Traditional Estate Planning (age range 18-55) |
| Senior Years (THE GAP) |
Senior Estate Planning (Pre-planning, Wait and See Planning, Crisis Planning) (age range 55 and up) |
| Post-Death Years | Estate and Trust Administration |
If you already have a traditional estate plan, does your traditional estate plan need to be modified to a senior estate plan? This is where the GAP in most people's planning occurs. Most traditional estate plans plan for death only. But between now, when you're able to manage your own affairs, and the time of your death, there can be a long period of time in which long-term care is needed. The only type of planning that addresses long-term care needs is what we call Senior Estate Planning. And this is what most people do not have.
Senior Estate Planning can consist of: (1) a Pre-Plan where you or your spouse have at least five years to protect assets, (2) a Wait and See Plan to take into account some recent diagnosis of a future debilitating illness where some legal work is done now and some legal work is deferred until later in your prognosis, or (3) a Crisis Plan where you must immediately have in place all the tools to protect you and your family and your assets in the midst of a long-term care spend down crisis.
To sum it up, you must consider solutions for that stage of your life in which you require long-term health care (i.e., nursing home care), which is most likely not addressed in your existing estate plan.
CALL TO ACTION:
ObamaCare; new Power of Attorney Act in Illinois effective July 1, 2011; new Medicaid rules for long-term care stays in nursing homes effective January 1, 2012; new federal estate tax law effective January 1, 2011 that will expire December 31, 2012---it's enough to make you crazy!
I would like to offer you a FREE 1/2 hour consultation to discuss these issues with you. We would be happy to answer your general questions about traditional estate planning, senior estate planning and long-term care planning if you have not yet done any planning. Or we would be happy to review your existing estate plan with you and make any recommendations that we feel may be beneficial to you.