Blog: News & Insights

Palliative care is a specialized team approach to helping a patient to cope with the debilitating symptoms of certain serious complicated illnesses such as parkinsons Disease, heart failure, kidney failure, or COPD. The patient is receiving curative treatment and emergency room care during acute episodes of illness, and can receive dietary support, pain management, grief counselling, massage...

Of recent, we had a few favorable decisions that address similar issues than may provide insight for veterans with similar concerns.  In this Blog, it involves proof of service in the Republic of Vietnam. In terms of the little things, the now-updated version of Acrobat Reader permits me to save already-filled Standard Form (SF) 180s.  This form is used to make a request for military personnel...

Trusts are prepared with an eye toward longevity. A trust is designed to protect assets for benefit of a  beneficiary, both now and for the future. The Trust will specify who will manage it now (the Trustee) and will typically contain a list of successor trustees who can step in later if necessary, and a mechanism for someone to appoint a successor Trustee if there ever is an unfilled vacancy....

On Thursday, February 19th, I attended the last public meeting for the HCBS Transition plan, which was held from 10 am to 12 pm in New Brunswick.  I had wanted to testify as Chair of the Elder and Disability Section of the New Jersey State Bar Association about how I thought this plan would affect seniors and the physically disabled.  I was #77 on the list–I never got a chance.  The vast...

Most people are familiar with the general durable power of attorney (POA), a document in which one person appoints someone who can step in to handle their financial, legal and business type matters. Many people are also familiar with a health care proxy, by which one person appoints another person who is authorized to make the medical decisions for them when the doctors determine that the...

When the natural parent of a minor child dies, it is necessary for a guardian to be appointed. In New Jersey, the surviving parent has statutory priority to become the guardian. Sometimes there is no other parent. What happens? There is a race to the court house among the next of kin, and then litigation among the competing interested parties, who may be relatives on either side to this child,...

Countless times, clients have told me they just want things kept “simple” if they die. Yet they never signed any Last Will and Testament. Why? “too complicated.” I’ve had meetings with panicky children who are dealing with a health crisis or death of a parent, who have just learned that in mom or dad’s quest for “simplicity,” they had never...

Oftentimes,  a client will come to talk to me and say “I want to put my assets into a trust.” My question of course is,  What are you trying to accomplish? Who suggested it?What do you think a trust is?” Sometimes the answer is, “so my assets don’t get spent on a nursing home.” Often the client says,”I don’t want my assets to be spent on a...

Transfer Inheritance Tax must be paid in NJ when wealth is transferred at death to certain categories of recipients. There is no tax on transfer to charities or to “Class A” beneficiaries – these are spouses, lineal descendants and lineal ancestors as well as step children. However there is a tax of 11% on everything above $25,000 per person that passes to a sibling of the...

Presently, the VA Special Pension program bases eligibility on a “snapshot” of the income, expenses and very low assets of the applicant as of the time of the application. There is no specific asset limit, no look-back or transfer penalty (unlike Medicaid), and the applicant’s income is offset by qualified recurring medical expenses to see if the remaining income is below the...