How a Medicaid Trust Preserves Your Assets
Getting Nursing Home Care While Preserving Your Family's Inheritance The cost of a semiprivate room in a nursing home has shot past $90,000 per year, placing a significant burden on families and threatening inheritances. Families end up needing Medicaid assistance so their loved ones can have long-term care. Working...
Determining Property Valuations During Estate Administration
Property Valuation Strategies for Estate Administrators The biggest investment most people make during their lifetimes is a home, and it is the largest asset they leave behind after their passing. Given the volatility of the real estate market, a current property valuation is essential in settling the estate, yet...
Avoiding COVID When Doing Estate Planning
Navigating COVID-19 Concerns While Managing Estate Planning When it comes to the reality of COVID-19, we now have to address many different "what if" situations that were previously unheard of. While most of us are fortunate to have never actually gone through a pandemic of this magnitude before, it has definitely...
The Best Way to Establish Gifts in Your Estate Plan
Ways to Use Gifting in Your Estate Planning Tragically, 95% of the people who died as a result of COVID-19 were seniors, and many didn't have a chance to properly establish their estates. Unfortunately, thanks to COVID-19, the need to engage in appropriate financial planning has accelerated. Fortunately, a competent...
Why COVID-19 Has Made Many Want to Avoid Probate
Why COVID-19 Has Made Many Look to Avoid Probate The COVID-19 pandemic has negatively impacted many aspects of our lives, making many people look to do whatever they can to avoid in-person meetings. This also applies to probate, the process by which an estate is settled. Thankfully, there are some legal moves that...
The Importance of Health Care Proxies During the COVID-19 Pandemic
Why You Need an HCP Now More Than Ever Despite many medical professionals and estate planning lawyers stressing the importance of a health care proxy (HCP) and related documents, only about 25 percent of adults actually have them. In fact, many adults never even establish an HCP until they find themselves...
COVID-19 Has Rushed Many Americans Into Hurriedly Executing Wills
Avoid Social Distancing Mistakes When Rushing a Will With more than 16,000 deaths from COVID-19 in New Jersey as of early October, the pandemic has led many to think about mortality. Fearing the worst, lots of Americans have rushed to finalize wills over the past several months. Whether you've already executed a will...
How Siblings Can Deal With Estates During the COVID-19 Pandemic
Creative Ways Siblings Can Deal With Estate Planning During COVID-19 According to Johns Hopkins University, as of October 2, 2020, more than 7 million Americans have been infected with COVID-19, and at least 209,000 have died as a result of their infections. The COVID-19 pandemic shows no signs of stopping, which...
COVID-19 Has Inspired Many to Include Charities in Their Estates
How COVID-19 Is Affecting Charitable Giving in Estate Plans According to a Fidelity Charitable survey on philanthropic individuals, the COVID-19 crisis has inspired 25% of donors to increase their charitable contributions. This change has a strong generational component, with 46% of millennials stating that they will...
Will COVID Make It Easy for Fiduciaries to Steal?
Ways Bad Fiduciaries May Take Advantage of the COVID Crisis During the past two decades, there has been a nearly 75% increase in trust and estate malpractice claims. Therefore, unfortunately, bad fiduciaries are more common than you may think. Being aware of the way unethical fiduciaries can take advantage of COVID...