Estate Planning

“Aging in place” is what most people want. Remaining in the community is a high priority goal for most elders. The challenge is that there might be many needs to be met to achieve this goal. Parents and children need to talk to each other about aging-related issues so that the parents can gracefully and securely remain at home. Here...

The signing of a Trust document is the start of a new process. A Trust isn’t just a “form.” It’s a legal structure with real consequences that has to be handled carefully in order to assure that the trust creator’s purposes can be achieved. If the Trustee uses the Trust’s funds in ways that aren’t...

A “disclaimer” is a legal document which is signed by somebody before they receive property to which they are entitled from an estate or trust. There are many situations in which a person is about to inherit money but doesn’t want to receive it for some reason, or wants it to go to somebody else. Let’s see what can happen...

get organized in case there’s an emergency

The New Jersey Department of Health issued a comprehensive statement concerning triage and the care of COVID-19 patients in different kinds of licensed health care facilities. This is one among many directives issued in the past six weeks. Read the directive here: FinalAllocationPolicy4.11.20v2 As the patient is being treated, many decisions need to be made along the way, often in rapid-fire...

The term “special needs trust” is used to refer to a trust that’s for benefit of a person with disabilities who depends on means-tested public benefits that have income limits or resource/asset limits. Sometimes these are “first party trusts” — created by the disabled person (over age 18) or his parent, grandparent, or guardian with court permission, or by a...

What do you do if you can’t find the Will? Your loved one has passed away, you have pulled yourself through the mourning period, and now you are ready to tackle the estate. You remember that your loved one had a Will — maybe they kept mentioning it, or maybe you knew that they had signed it at their lawyer’s office at some point. You remember that they had told you they were...

These trying times have spurred New Jersey to venture into new ways to get things done. The lock-down has made it difficult for individuals in hospitals or nursing facilities, or people quarantined in their homes due to recent exposure to COVID-19 — as well as many others — to get documents notarized. Along with Powers of Attorney, Deeds, new investment account paperwork, insurance...

A Last Will and Testament designates an Executor who has legal authority to handle the estate assets. The Will also specifies who receives what, and in what way; the language of the Will specifies if the share is to be put in a Trust or is to pass outright, and who will receive the share if the named beneficiary has died. If assets are jointly owned or if they have named beneficiaries, they...

Advance planning with powers of attorney and health care powers of attorney is a good way to ensure that there is an authorized person to handle things and make decisions should a person become incapacitated due to stroke, accident or dementia. Of course there are plenty of situations in which no such documents were ever signed. When a person without such planning documents becomes...