Estate Planning

You may have questions about basic “estate planning” issues such as wills, trusts, powers of attorney, and legal documents to make sure your wishes on medical care are honored.

Take a look around here at articles and videos and you may want to start with “Top Ten Mistakes Alabama Seniors Make With Estate Planning That Can Be Easily Avoided”.

Concerned About How To Pay For Long Term Care in 2019? Start Here.

Are You Struggling To Figure Out How To Pay For Long Term Care For A Loved One In A Nursing Home?

long term careWe often think that Alabama Medicaid is the only way to pay for nursing home for our spouse or parent.

However, Medicaid is simply one solution among a number of solutions.

To properly determine how to pay for nursing home care, we have to look at the risk and then all of the options before we can adopt a … (Read more)


Even if you have done no planning, you have an estate plan in Alabama

“Estate Planning” — we often think we don’t have enough to bother with.  Or it is not worth the time and cost to create a plan.  Or somehow if we don’t have an estate plan, nothing bad will happen.

But even if we have done nothing — we do have an estate plan.

Let’s talk about this for a moment.

“If you don’t have a lawyer, one will be provided for you.”

We know this expression from the police shows … (Read more)


“Should I take elder law advice from non lawyer professionals such as my CPA or financial advisor?”

“Who should I take professional advice from?”

This is a big issue because professionals of all types (doctors, lawyers, financial advisors, CPAs, social workers, etc) and others love to give advice outside their area of expertise.

So what’s the problem with this?

A professional should only advise you on areas that professional is competent in!

Any professional should be competent in his or her area.

A problem happens when that professional lets ego to get to them and they start … (Read more)


“What is an annuity under Elder Law?”

Many times when we’re helping families plan long term care, or maybe helping out families who are in a long term care crisis, the subject of annuities tends to come up.

An annuity under Elder Law is where we turn an asset into a steady stream of income.

We give money to the insurance company, and they hand us back a contract that says, “We will give you X amount of money back over a span of Y months.”

This … (Read more)


Definition of Estate Planning and Elder Law Words

The purpose of this section is to give you a short definition of many of the common words used in estate planning and elder law.  Within each definition, the italicized terms are listed in this glossary so you can find the definition of those as well.  Let me know any other words you would like to see added to this in the next edition — thanks!  (This is from our upcoming book).

Activities of Daily Living (ADL):  These are activities (Read more)


Estate Planning — Which Should I Get: A Will or A Trust?

Most people do not have any estate planning so it is good to know you need to do something.  But what?  Do you need a will or a trust?

I don’t know — it all depends on what you are trying to accomplish and where you are right now.

Think of a will or a trust as a “vehicle” — the point is to get you to where you want to go.

A will does this in one way and … (Read more)