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)

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“How does a Home Legacy Trust protect my home from creditors and predators?”

For most of us, the most valuable asset we have is our home.  I’m talking about when we own it without owing any money on it.  And when we think about losing our assets to the cost of long term care or to a lawsuit, the one we most want to protect is our home.

It is, after all, where we live.  And if often has sentimental value to our children and we want to be able to pass it … (Read more)

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Free workshop on estate planning and elder law in Birmingham on October 2 at 2pm

We wanted to let you know we are having a free workshop (“The 7 Threats to Your Estate Plan”) at our Birmingham office on October 2, 2014, at 2 pm.

This is a free workshop where we are confident you will learn a lot and have some fun doing so.  🙂

The subjects of estate planning and elder law are not normally the most exciting topics to think about but they are important.

And we can discuss these in … (Read more)

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“Why do I need a power of attorney when I’m healthy?”

As adults, we treasure our ability to make decisions.  We don’t want to go back to a time where we cannot make decisions.  It seems . . . well . . . un-American.

So why in the world would we give anyone power of attorney over us when we are healthy?  Why let anyone else make decisions for us?

Let’s talk about this.

“First, what is a power of attorney?”

A power of attorney — normally called a “durable financial … (Read more)

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“If I don’t have power of attorney over my parent, how do I make decisions for them?”

If you don’t have a proper and valid power of attorney over financial matters, and if your parent is no longer competent, then you can’t make decisions for your parent.

The options become limited to seeking a conservatorship (power over money)and/or guardianship (power over the non money aspects — health, etc) over your parent.

Here are the disadvantages of this:

  • It takes time to get this through Probate Court
  • It costs money in terms of legal fees, court costs, etc.
… (Read more)

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“What is a special needs trust and when would I need one?”

A “special needs trust” or “supplemental needs trust” is a way to solve a problem facing many younger and older people who suffer from a disability.  Here’s the problem:

  • The disabled person is receiving, or will receive in the future, government benefits that are need based such as Alabama Medicaid and Supplemental Security Income (SSI) 
  • If the disabled person receives an inheritance or a gift, it will likely push them over the maximum amount of resources (assets) which normally is
… (Read more)

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