Elder Law News

“If I go into a nursing home, will the State take my house?” This is a commonly-asked question. The answer is “No, but …” If a person applies for long-term care Medicaid benefits, his available assets have to be below a certain level. The house he owns generally has to be listed for sale (called a “Plan of Liquidation”), but this requirement is waived...

Lauren Marinaro will present at an upcoming National Business Institute live seminar: Protecting Assets While Qualifying for Medicaid Date: Tuesday, August 15, 2017 Time: 9:00 AM – 4:30 PM Location: Molly Pitcher Inn 88 Riverside Ave Red Bank, NJ 07701 For more information or to register, please visit: http://www.nbi-sems.com/Details.aspx/R-76376ER%7C?ctname=SPKEM

There can be times that a dispute will break out among the members of a deceased person’s family on the subject of where and how to dispose of the body. Burial or cremation? This cemetery or that cemetery? Next to the first spouse (parent of the children) or next to the most recent spouse? And so on. New Jersey has a statute that actually deals quite directly with that problem....

As elder law attorneys, our clients have presented us with many difficult situations involving adult children or grandchildren who live in their houses. Sometimes a child has run into some hard times and sees the parent’s home as an economical option; the child may move into his parent’s house along with his spouse and children. Sometimes the child just never became self-sufficient...

When I first started filing Medicaid applications for my clients back in 1995, a person who needed long-term care services in the home or assisted living but had run out of money could not even apply for Medicaid if their gross monthly income was higher than the “income cap.” Of course, the income cap was well below the amount that was needed to pay for care, which meant that a lot...

What can you do if your loved one can’t feed himself but the nursing home staff just keep leaving the tray on his table? The Nursing Home Reform Act Residents’ Rights 42 CFR Ä 483 requires that provision of adequate nutrition be part of the services provided to all nursing home residents. The facility must provide adequate services to “attain or maintain the highest...

An application for Medicaid benefits cannot be approved before the applicant (and spouse, if any) has completed the spend-down, because benefits are not payable unless the applicant is financially eligible. It is not uncommon for someone to initiate an application for Medicaid without having any idea whether they are eligible or not. The nursing home may start the process; a nonattorney...

Most of the publicity in the news concerning changes to New Jersey’s “death tax” has focused on its raising of the estate tax thresholds. Now, if a person dies and has less than two million dollars in his or her estate, there will be no estate tax regardless of who is receiving that bounty. Not so for the Transfer Inheritance tax, which is based on the relationship of the...

Procedures for filing for Guardianship are changing in New Jersey as a result of amendments to the Court rules that were effective 9-1-2016. The Rules are at N.J.R. 4:86-1 to 4:86-10. Guardianship petitions now must be initiated using a specific set of forms that have been prepared by the Administrative Office of the Courts.  A Guardianship Monitoring Program is being established in each...

There is plenty of debate about the benefits and drawbacks of buying long-term care insurance.  The premiums are expensive for a person in their 70’s who is first considering a purchase. Potential buyers worry that they will pay premiums for years and never have to use the policy. The industry has been in flux and there aren’t too many carriers around. What I do know is that over...