In 2011, which surprisingly was ten years ago, I argued a case before the Third Circuit Court of Appeals, a federal appellate court. The Third...
Eldercare Lawyer Blog
Trusts Can Be a Good Idea
Using a trust in your estate plan can be a valuable tool, but many people are intimidated and confused when they hear the word “trust.” A trust...
Making the Tough Decision About a Loved One’s Care
Few moments are harder for families than realizing a loved one may no longer be able to live safely or manage things on their own. The conversations...
Activating Your Estate Plan
A core piece of advice that I give to almost all of my clients is to have their basic estate planning documents—a last will and testament, a...
Medicaid Handlers Aren’t There To Help You
In the past five years, I have seen a dramatic increase in the number of non-attorney Medicaid Application Handlers (“Handlers”). As the name...
What Is a Spendthrift Trust?
What is a “spendthrift trust”? It’s a question I hear frequently from my clients. I find that more and more clients are interested in having...
Can I Get a Step-up?
Recently, a financial planner asked me if I thought the federal government was going to eliminate the “step-up” in basis for assets of an estate. I...
Attention IRA Beneficiaries: Rule Change You Should Know
In December of 2019, the SECURE Act became law. Part of this new law was a change to how beneficiaries of qualified accounts (such as IRAs,...
Caregiver Child Victory
Recently, the New Jersey Superior Court, Appellate Division, rendered a very insightful decision concerning an issue involving the Medicaid...
Take the Blinders Off
The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) is the federal agency that administers the Medicare and Medicaid programs. Medicare and...
Taking Control of Your Possible Disability
There may come a point in your life when you are unable to make decisions for yourself. This inability may be temporary—such as a temporary...
The Benefits of a Trust Protector
When a person passes away, his property passes on to other individuals. If the decedent dies with a last will and testament, then his property will...
Second Marriages and Estate Litigation
In the past five years, I’ve noticed an acceleration of a trend that, in my opinion, is likely to result in an increase in the number of estates...
The Medicaid Clock Starts Ticking Sooner Than You Think
Medicaid is a government health payment plan for needy individuals. In order to qualify for Medicaid benefits, an individual must have a very...
What Did You Do for Your Parents?
What did you do for your parents? This is a question that some people ask me during a consultation appointment. I think it’s a smart question...
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Recent Posts
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...
One Guardian or More Than One?
I have been practicing elder law for twenty-five years. During that time, I have been involved in hundreds (if not thousands) of guardianship actions—helping clients attain guardianship over a loved one or serving as guardian for individuals who do not have family...
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