Asset Protection Category Archives — Page 2 of 11 — New York Elder Law Attorney Blog Published by New York Elder Law Attorney

December 6, 2020

A Quick Guide to Caregiver Assignments

It’s a common occurrence for family and friends to be the caregiver for disabled and elderly loved ones. In these situations, it is critical to understand that caregiver assignments are legal documents that both define as well as describe how a loved one should be cared for by another individual, which often will include a family member or friend. These agreements play the critical role of making sure that family members and loved ones both agree and understand the labor and cost associated with caring for a loved one. To better help you understand the role that a caregiver agreement can play in your estate plan, this article reviews some critical issues that you should consider about such agreements.

Why Caregiver Assignments Are Important

Caregiver assignments are an invaluable tool for making sure that a loved one receives the best care possible from both family members as well as medical providers. These documents can also perform the invaluable role of protecting caregivers by performing the necessary task of describing how much a caregiver should receive as well as the plan of action for such care. Caregiver assignments also often perform a valuable role in avoiding family conflicts.

December 3, 2020

Who Can Be Held Liable for New York Nursing Home Deaths?

by Ettinger Law Firm

Communities in New York are dedicated to stopping the spread of the COVID-19 pandemic. As a result, the state has declared various cautionary measures to control the spread of the disease throughout the state. Tragically, despite these measures, New York is still facing a substantially high number of deaths due to the illness. If your loved one passes away in a nursing home from covid-19, it’s common to be left with various questions. One of the most common questions that people ask is who should be held accountable following such a devastating loss. This article considers such an occurrence.

How Families Respond to the Loss of Loved Ones from COVID-19

It’s never easy to say goodbye to a loved one, but COVID-19 tends to deprive individuals of the opportunity to say goodbye to their loved one in a face to face environment. Many times when a loved one passes away from COVID-19, good-bye’s must be made through digital means like Facetime. Due to this risk of transmission, family members and loved ones ultimately lose out on the closure of seeing a loved one for the last time. This closure can greatly help say goodbye to a loved one.

August 28, 2020

2020 Medicaid Rates for Community and Nursing Home Medicaid in New York

by Ettinger Law Firm

Medicaid is state and federal funding that pays for long-term care costs, either at home, called “Community Medicaid,” or in a nursing home, called “Institutional” or “Nursing Home Medicaid.” The Medicaid rates change every year for income and asset requirements to determine eligibility for benefits. Following are the 2020 New York rates.

A single applicant for Community Medicaid may keep up to $15,750 in assets and $875 in income. If the applicant’s income is greater than the limit, a “Pooled Income Trust” created by a non-profit organization may shelter the excess income to make the applicant eligible for community Medicaid.

A married applicant for Community Medicaid may keep up to $15,750 in assets and $875 in monthly income. The non-applicant spouse may keep their own income and keep up to $128,640 in assets. The rules are different if one spouse is enrolled in a Managed Long Term Care Plan. The applicant spouse may keep $409 of monthly income and the other spouse may keep $3,216 of monthly income. The healthy spouse may keep between $74,820 and $128,640 in assets. “Spousal Refusal” is another option that may help the healthy spouse keep more income and assets. A review of the couple’s income and assets helps determine which approach is more favorable.

April 27, 2020

Assisted Reproductive Technology and Estate Plans

by Ettinger Law Firm

In-vitro fertilization, also known as IVF, has its origins in the 1890’s when the first known case of embryo transplantation occurred in rabbits in Great Britain. By 1973, scientists were able to transplant a human embryo into a woman. The first human IVF pregnancy occurred 47 years ago in Melbourne, Australia. In addition to IVF there are other assisted reproductive technologies, commonly called ART for short, that have changed human conception, such as artificial insemination and surrogacy that have made parenthood possible for people who are unable to reproduce naturally.

Significant changes are afoot in the area of estate planning of such families as more children are born from ART methods for reproduction. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) estimates that 1.8% of all infants born in the United States were aided by ART methods. In the context of estate planning, there are two main issues ART families should tackle. First, how parentage and descendants are defined for legal purposes, such as maintenance and inheritance. Second, is who controls the disposition of stored genetic material that has not been used.

Are all children descendants, legally speaking, of course?

April 15, 2020

How much can you receive in divorce benefits?

by Ettinger Law Firm

If you’re eligible for divorce benefits from the Social Security Administration (SSA), you can collect up to 50% of the amount your former spouse is eligible to receive by claiming your benefits at his or her full retirement age (FRA).

Your FRA is either 66, 66 plus a few months, or 67, depending on the year you were born. The earliest you can claim Social Security benefits is 62. If you claim benefits before your FRA, your Social Security benefits will be permanently reduced by as much as 30%. You can only receive your full Social Security benefit amount if you claim benefits at your FRA.

You cannot double dip

April 6, 2020

Quick Advice about COVID-19 and Wealth Transfer Planning

by Ettinger Law Firm

The COVID-19 pandemic has understandably left many people facing challenges. Remember that even the most difficult times often present opportunities, which currently includes an ideal situation to transfer assets to a loved one. The combination of decreased market values, lowered interest rates, and a high tax rate exemption has caused people to utilize several advantageous estate planning strategies.

# 1 – Making the Most of Gifting

Based on the value of assets, transferring property through gifting often requires individuals to consider estate taxes, gift taxes, and generation-skipping taxes. By transferring assets to loved ones while the asset’s value is temporarily at its lowest, you have the greatest chance possible of removing the assets from your taxable estate while making the most out of available exemptions.

March 2, 2020

Back to Basics: Estate Planning 101, Part I

by Ettinger Law Firm

Creating a thoughtful estate plan is one of the greatest gifts anyone can leave their loved ones. It is important to update your will when major changes occur. These might include marriage, divorce, opening or closing a business, buying or selling real estate, or birth or death of an heir.

Estate planning is a process that helps ensure that your desires for distribution of your property and assets at death are carried out. During life, to complete an estate plan, you should consider the following:

Will: A will is the primary document that should be prepared while living, to be effective at death. A will is a written document expressing how you would like your estate to be distributed after death. Usually a will must be executed in the presence of two disinterested witness and be notarized. You must also have testamentary capacity (over the age of 18, of sound mind, and competent).

November 12, 2019

What to Do When a Loved One Passes (The Survivor’s Guide)

by Ettinger Law Firm

Settling an estate, after the loss of a loved one while grieving, is a difficult process. For the weeks and months that follow the funeral, handling the estate of a deceased individual may quickly overwhelm survivors. The steps outlined below provide a guide to survivors through this tumultuous time.

Immediately upon the death of a loved one

After notifying family members and close friends, contact a funeral director. The funeral director is able to assist with funeral and burial arrangements, publish an obituary, order the death certificate, and transport your loved one’s remains to the funeral home.

October 25, 2019

The FDA Rolls Out New Cigarette Warnings That Will Leave You Disturbed

by Ettinger Law Firm

On August 15, 2019, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) rolled out thirteen (13) proposed warnings in full-color utilizing graphics for rotation on cigarette packages, meant to encourage people to stop smoking or taking up the habit.

According to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, (CDC) the leading cause of preventable death in the U.S. is smoking.

Nearly 480,000 people die in the U.S. each year from smoking-related illnesses.

September 13, 2019

Opioid Crisis at Home: Addiction in the Elderly Population

by Ettinger Law Firm

Alcohol and drug abuse among adults 60 years and older is underestimated and under-diagnosed. To caregivers, whether they are a spouse, adult child, or a home health aide, understanding how and where to get help for their loved one is critical to getting a person in treatment.

Nationwide, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) researchers found a 33.3 percent increase in older adult (ages 65 and older) deaths from heroin between 2014 and 2015 (heroin deaths for all ages rose only 21 percent).

Doctors fail to diagnose drug addiction in older adults because some of the symptoms experienced by alcohol and drug abusers mimic symptoms more common in older adults generally. Alcohol and drug abusers, like older adults, suffer from depression, diabetes, and dementia. It may be harder to attribute the cause to alcohol or drugs rather than old age, so treatment is under-diagnosed.