Over the years in my law practice, I have found that there are a number of reasons why a client will establish a trust. The client may have minor...
Eldercare Lawyer Blog
Should I Apply for Medicaid?
When mom (or dad) needs care in a nursing home, should she apply for Medicaid benefits? There are many factors that go into this answer; there is no...
How To Make a Taxfree Gift
How much can I gift to my children without paying tax? This is a question my clients have been asking me since I opened my practice. Most of my...
How To Pick a Nursing Home
When your mother needs care in a nursing home, there is a lot of pressure on you to get her care right. Mom took care of you for so long it is...
Recent Medicaid Planning Win
A recent win in the Superior Court of New Jersey, Appellate Division, caps a long series of wins with regard to Medicaid-complaint annuities....
How To Pick an Executor
Over the past twenty-five years, I have drafted thousands of last wills, financial powers of attorney, and advanced health care directives. If I do...
Causing Terror with Your Will
In most every last will and testament that I have drafted, I draft a clause into the Will that essentially says, “If a beneficiary of my estate...
How Much Does Long Term Care Cost
Long-term care is expensive and, well, can last for a long time. There are a number of long-term options. In this article, I’ll discuss the...
Should I Designate a Beneficiary?
A beneficiary designation on a financial account directs how the assets in the account will be distributed after your death. For instance, if Mrs....
What Planning Did You Do for Your Parents
What type of planning did you do for your parents? It is a question I get from my clients quite often. Both of my parents are deceased. Both lived...
Experience Teaches
I am not a handy person. I have no training or knowledge in the traditional “trades”—electrical, plumbing, carpentry. But the other day, I noticed...
Increase in Medicaid Divisor Figure
The New Jersey Medicaid office recently increased the penalty divisor used for calculating periods of ineligibility for Medicaid benefits. This is...
The Devil Can Be in the Details
Medicaid is a health payment plan for needy individuals. If you qualify for Medicaid benefits, the program will pay for most of the costs...
Filing an Application for Medicaid
I’ve been filing Medicaid applications for clients for nearly a quarter of a century. In that time, I’ve filed hundreds, if not thousands, of...
Second Marriages Can Be a Minefield
I’ve been practicing elder law for nearly a quarter of a century. In the past five years, I’ve noticed an increase in the number of clients who are...
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Recent Posts
One Lawyer, One Client
When I first opened my law practice twenty-five years ago, I knew that I would concentrate in one area—elder law. There are many benefits to concentrating your practice in one area, but to me, the biggest benefit is that everything I do helps me hone my skills in this...
Protecting Your Assets from Medicaid
For years, I have been using an irrevocable trust to protect a client’s home from the cost of long-term care. I successfully used such a trust to protect my parents’ home from the ravages of long-term care. My mother was a resident of a nursing home for six years; my...
Having an Estate Plan
In my lifetime, several United States presidents have passed away, and one thing I notice about presidents is, each of them planned out their funeral arrangements in detail. I believe we can all take a lesson from this when making our estate plans. Approximately 68%...
New Year’s Estate Planning Resolutions
It’s another new year. Many of us will enter resolutions with ourselves—either spoken or unspoken—things we want to accomplish in the new year. I thought I would take this time to go over some legal to-do’s that I believe people should accomplish in the new year....
Will I Pay Estate Tax?
The new year is upon us, and with that, the federal government has issued new numbers for the credit equivalent against federal estate and gift tax. For years, I have called the federal gift and estate tax a boogeyman because the tax affects so few people, yet...
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