Michigan Estate Planning Lawyer Blog

Many elderly persons rely entirely on their children, family members or other trusted individuals to help them. This dependence upon caregivers or family members makes an older person more vulnerable to abuse and financial exploitation. Legal arrangements and protective actions by family may be necessary to shield loved ones from making bad decisions or from being taken advantage of.

Though you wouldn't think a child could take advantage of his or her mother or father, there is no way to know what someone will do who is desperate for money or who feels entitled to an inheritance. For example:

David's parents' health was failing and living alone in their home was becoming a concern. His sister Jill wanted to look into assisted living for them. David immediately became upset at Jill for wanting to spend their money. He packed up his parents and brought them to his home. Being single and working, he was not available to them during the day, but left food and water on the table to sustain them until he returned home in the evening. Jill lived over 300 miles from David and when she could get to his house to visit; she found her parents' care was not acceptable. They could not remember if they took their medications or if they had even eaten a meal that day. David was also draining their savings account and when confronted about it, became angry and complained that he needed their money to pay expenses for their care. Clearly Jill felt her brother's care of their parents was abusive, but David's defense was he provided a home for his parents in which he could care for them. This family needs a professional advisor to help them understand and clarify the issues concerning their parents' care.

Making legal decisions about property, finances, power of attorney, and final wishes are important tasks to complete for the final years of life. Having legal documentation for a will, for medical treatment and for the person designated to be responsible for parents' welfare can avoid family disputes and financial abuse, and help to conserve assets that are needed for care.

Michigan Elder law attorneys specialize in legal issues affecting the elderly. They are knowledgeable about Medicare and Medicaid programs. They work with the elderly in assisting them and their families with all aspects of estate planning and implementing necessary legal documents for the final years of life. In addition, they help individuals to apply for and possibly accelerate coverage from Medicaid. An elder law attorney can also help with disputes with Medicaid. Below is a partial list of what an elder law attorney might do:

* Preservation or transfer of assets seeking to avoid spousal impoverishment when a spouse enters a nursing home
* Medicaid qualification and application and Medicaid planning strategies
* Medicare claims and appeals
* Veterans Benefits claims
* Social security and disability claims and appeals
* Disability planning, including use of durable powers of attorney, living trusts and living wills
* Help with financial management and health care decisions; and other means of delegating management and decision-making to another in case of incompetence or incapacity
Probate
* Administration and management of trusts and estates
* Long term care placements in nursing homes and assisted living
* Nursing home issues with patients' rights and nursing home quality
* Elder abuse and fraud recovery cases

A Certified Elder Law Attorney (CELA) is an elder law attorney who is highly proficient in meeting the legal needs of elders and in understanding and applying the rules of Medicaid. A CELA has successfully handled a requisite number of pertinent cases in order to receive that designation. This experience will make an attorney with this designation more competent with elder planning issues than other attorneys lacking this designation.

Most elder law attorneys do not specialize in all of the areas iterated above. When considering an attorney you will want to find one who has experience in the area you need help.

According to The National Academy of Elder Law Attorneys -- http://www.naela.org/:

"Ask lots of questions before selecting an elder law attorney. You don't want to end up in the office of an attorney who can't help you. Start with the initial phone call. It is not unusual to speak only to a secretary, receptionist or office manager during an initial call or before actually meeting with the attorney. If so, ask this person your questions.

* How long has the attorney been in practice?
* Does his/her practice emphasize a particular area of law?
* How long has he/she been in this field?
* What percentage of his/her practice is devoted to elder law?
* Is there a fee for the first consultation and if so, how much is it?
* Given the nature of your problem, what information should you bring with you to the initial consultation?"

A good way to choose an attorney is by referral from friends, family, clergy or other associations. Before you meet for your initial consultation, prepare the items you want discussed and taken care of. Bring pertinent documents and questions. Be sure you get clear answers and that you understand what your attorney is proposing.

Two-way communication is the best way your attorney can understand your needs and concerns. Does the attorney listen to what you say, appear to really care about your concerns or return your phone calls? If not find another attorney. Most Elder law Attorneys sincerely want to help make you or your parent's elder years a well planned for, peaceful experience for all involved.

There are a number of ways attorneys charge for their services. They may charge a flat hourly rate. Or they may charge hourly for some services and add on additional expense for out-of-pocket costs such as paperwork, stamps, phone calls, etc. Or they may charge a single fee for a mutually agreed-upon course of action or plan. Some attorneys who specialize in appeals for veterans benefits or Social Security may work on a contingency basis. It is important to understand how you will be billed so there will be no surprises in the end.

The National Care Planning Council lists elder law attorneys throughout the United States.
To find someone in your area go to http://www.longtermcarelink.net/

In Michigan, even after the passage of the Deficit Reduction Act and with Estate Recovery looming, we still have many techniques available to help Michigan seniors plan, even in crisis mode, for the large monthly Michigan nursing home costs.  The cost of a nursing home in Michigan can run between $6,000.00 to $7,000.00 per month.  Through proper planning this bill can be picked up by Medicaid if you meet the necessary requirements.

Our Michigan Elder Law Attorney office helps Michigan seniors plan for the cost of long term care, including assisted living and nursing homes, through various legal methods including "half-loaf" strategies, irrevocable trusts, proper gifting strategies, utilizing Michigan Veterans Benefits, and other legal tools.

It is important that you consult a Michigan attorney familiar with planning for long term care because there are many traps for the unwary and unfortunately quite a bit of misinformation out there.  If you were to make a mistake in planning it can lead to a disqualification or unattended penalty for your loved one.

If you would like more information on any of these long term care strategies, please contact our office.

According to a recent study, only half of Dementia cases are properly diagnosed according to a story in Canadian newspaper. You can read the article, which cites the Australian study here: Only half of Dementia cases diagnosed.

The article goes on to state that there is reluctance from doctor's to diagnose dementia because of the perception that there is currently little treatment to offer.

From an Michigan elder law perspective, this can be troubling because many family members rely on doctor's diagnoses for the care and well being of their family members.  If doctors are not correctly diagnosing seniors, then their family members cannot properly create a care plan.

Christopher Berry, Esq., An Michigan Medicaid Planning Lawyer, is a Partner with The Law Offices of Witzke Berry PLLC, which practices in the areas of Estate Planning, Elder Law, and Michigan Probate Litigation.

Financial Durable Power of Attorney. Many people focus their time and need only on the last will and testament (or living trust) or medical directive. How do I know? Because 9 times out of 10 when a potential client contacts us they ask for a will, living trust, or living will. Hardly anyone ever asks initially for a financial durable power of attorney (otherwise known as a DPOA).

A Michigan financial durable power of attorney allows someone else to make decisions regarding financial matters. The durable power of attorney can become effective either upon incapacity or immediately.

The purpose of the Michigan financial durable power of attorney is to allow someone else to be able handle all financial matters. This includes handling business interests, buying and selling real estate, paying bills, and even making gifts and authorizing Medicaid planning.

The Michigan financial power of attorney is a powerful document that should not be used lightly or prepared haphazardly. The drafter of the document must be careful in choosing which powers to include and which powers to exclude. Additionally, specificity is very important in the document. Many of the Legalzoom, Quicken Willmaker, or Suze Orman, do it your self documents are over broad and can be dangerous in the wrong hands to the creator. This is why it is important to see an experienced estate planning lawyer to assist you by drafting a quality financial durable power of attorney.

Christopher J. Berry, Esq., A Bloomfield Hills Living Trusts and Wills Attorney, is a Partner with The Law Offices of Witzke Berry PLLC, which practices in the areas of Estate Planning, Trusts and Estates, and Michigan Probate Litigation.

"My parent is currently on Medicaid and is about to receive a windfall from an inheritance that will disqualify him from Medicaid, what can we do?"

Well, as a Michigan elder law attorney, my first response is that "it depends."  It depends on more facts.  Some possible ideas include, basically, converting the new assets into exempt assets in the month the windfall or inheritance was received.  For example, the Medicaid parent could purchase a prepaid funeral, buy a car if he doesn't own one, by medical equipment, or furniture. 

What Michigan Medicaid planning strategies we can use depends on more facts.  But, basically, one of the easiest and best options is convert the assets into exempt assets.

Christopher J. Berry, Esq., A Oakland County Medicaid Planning Attorney, is a Partner with Witzke Berry PLLC, which practices in the areas of Estate Planning, Michigan Long-term Care Planning, and Michigan Medicaid Planning.

There are many tools in the Michigan Medicaid planner's tool box when assisting elder law clients. One of those tools is the SBO Trust ("Soley for the Benefit of" Trust).

For purposes of Michigan Medicaid planning, the SBO Trust is an irrevocable trust that holds assets entirely for the benefit of another. The assets are held for the benefit of the community, non-Medicaid applicant, spouse. Through this type of planning assets which would have been considered countable by Medicaid, now become unavailable. This allows the Medicaid applicant to qualify sooner for Medicaid and defray the Michigan nursing home costs, which can be well over $6000.00 per year.

There are certain requirements for the SBO Trust. For example it must be irrevocable, in writing and established after the admission to a nursing home by the Medicaid Applicant, and must distribute an annuitized portion of trust corpus to the community spouse on an actuarial sound annual basis.

The Michigan SBO Trust is just one Michigan Medicaid planning technique in an elder law lawyer's tool box.

Christopher J. Berry, Esq., A Bloomfield Hills Elder Law Attorney, is a Partner with Witzke Berry PLLC, which practices in the areas of Estate Planning, Michigan Long-term Care Planning, and Michigan Medicaid Planning.

Many individuals receiving governmental assistance will be receiving a $250 stimulus payment from the Federal Government as part of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 according to an Elder Law Answers blog post, which you can read here.

A questions that many Medicaid participants will have is whether this payment will counted as income and thereby place the Medicaid participant over the Michigan income limit.  The answer to the question is no, additionally the amount will not be gross income for tax purposes.

-Christopher J. Berry, Esq.
Michigan Elder Law Lawyer | Michigan Medicaid Planning

Michigan Medicaid planning is a consistently changing and very technical area of law.  Before you begin gifting things away in preparing for a Medicaid application, it is important to speak with a Michigan Medicaid planning attorney or Michigan elder law lawyer.

Here are some of the common strategies that Michigan elder law and Michigan Medicaid planning lawyers are utilizing.

First, marriage opens up some great avenues for Medicaid planning with the Sole Benefit of Trusts (or SBO Trusts) along with using the community spouses asset allowance.  Second, if there is a disabled member in the family the SBO Trust could be utilized.  Next, we can convert countable assets into excluded assets.  Another technique is the Half a Loaf strategy that uses short term annuities and gifting.  A great option for real estate is using the Ladybird Deed.

If you or a loved ones is contemplating filing for Medicaid, please contact our office.  We can help you navigate the confusing system.

-Christopher J. Berry, Esq.
Witzke Berry PLLC
Michigan Medicaid Planning Lawyers | Michigan Elder Law Lawyers