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Death of Recipient of Medicaid Benefits. What happens when someone is in a nursing home receiving Medicaid long-term care benefits and his or her community spouse dies? Do the children or persons named in the Will inherit the house, savings and other assets? Will Dad's Medicaid be affected? Case ...

■ Legal Counseling & Strategic Planning: – Look before you leap! •  Get a professional review of your concerns and goals •  Assess the strengths and weakness of your position •  Negotiating with a spouse, or anyone, can be daunting • We figure out a strategic game plan and build confiden...

The connection between estate planning and how people behave. The law is intended to regulate how people behave to maintain public order and well-being and prevent people from taking the law into their own hands. But people disrespect other people and their rights and property all the time. Some ...

Concerned about your home and savings from being taken by the nursing home or State to pay for nursing home costs? Consider a Personal Care Agreement. What is a Personal Care Agreement? A Personal Care Agreement is a contract, typically between an elderly parent and a family member, the care prov...

Hospice vs Palliative Care Hospice care essentially means “comfort care” and is intended for patients with a terminal prognosis, typically diagnosed with a life expectancy of six months or less, regardless of age. The goal is to make such a patient, whose condition cannot be cured or improved,  a...

An inheritance is a gift of love, not an entitlement. For some, leaving an inheritance is passing on what one no longer needs to one's children after one's death. For others, the inheritance is the product of years of hard work, saving and sacrifice to create an opportunity for one's children and...

What you want to know. Concise, Clear Explanations Adopted Children.  The general rule is that adopted children, from the time of adoption, lose all rights to inherit from their birth or biological parents. At the same time, adopted children acquire the right to inherit from their adoptive parent...

You do not have to pay the Maryland Inheritance Tax if your relationship to the decedent is: spouse, parent, step-parent, grandparent, child (biological, adopted or step), grandchild or any lineal descendant, i.e. any descendant in the direct line, stepparent or stepchild, brother or sister, or a...

Considering a deed change? Consider a life estate deed. Thinking about adding or removing a spouse or child's name to your deed? Adding a name is often not as simple a matter as you may think. Did you know that the kind of deed you sign can determine whether the real property is protected or not ...

By Rob Goldman, J.D. and Amy Ding, M.D. Many parents frequently make sacrifices for their children. The focus of this article is not the typical sacrifices parents make for their children but rather on the situations where adult children look to their parents, in particular older parents, for...

Do any of the following situations apply to you? When I reach age 65 I will automatically be eligible to receive Medicaid benefits. I don't need a Power-of-Attorney because I put my daughter's name on my accounts? I don't need a Will because I don't have much. I can gift up to $14,000 a ...

You should always review a proposed Nursing Home Contract with an Elder Law Lawyer before signing or providing significant financial information to the nursing home. While most people prefer not to enter or place a loved one in a nursing home, there are times when, despite one's best intentions, ...

Do not listen to what the nursing home office tells you! In many cases, the family home is or can be protected. Experience has shown that nursing home business office managers and Medicaid assistants do not understand key aspects of the Medicaid laws.  You could end up paying a whole lot of money...

Basic real estate succession planning  typically is planning to ensure that your children (or whomever you want), will inherit your home when you die.  For most folk, real estate means their personal residence and is their most valuable asset. For the purpose of this article, real estate includes...

The purpose of the spousal elective share  law is to provide some protection to a spouse against being disinherited by granting the surviving spouse a right to elect to receive a percentage of the decedent's estate instead of what, if anything, is provided in the Will. See Estate & Trusts Article...

The key purpose of a pre-nuptial agreement is financial protection of assets owned by each spouse prior to the marriage, including income protection and liability for alimony, and can include assets acquired during the marriage. Should your new spouse become entitled to half of everything you own...

Q: My mother-in-law is 85 and suffered a stroke for which she now receives medication. The stroke left her occasionally incontinent, with some confusion and weakness. We are looking for an in-home care person and wondered whether Medicare would compensate some or all of the cost. Also, her husban...

Q: I understand Medicaid's five-year look back period and its transfer penalty. Most advice I see says that if money has been gifted, you should not apply for Medicaid until the five-year period has passed. What if the amount of money is only around $25,000? If the penalty period starts once you ...

As a trust beneficiary, you may feel like you are at the mercy of the trustee, but depending on the type of trust, trust beneficiaries may have rights to ensure the trust is properly managed. A trust is a legal arrangement through which one person, called a “settlor” or “grantor,” gives assets to...

Q: My mother wants me to be her agent under a power of attorney, and I went online and found a form I can print up and take to a notary. Is this legal? A: While it is legal to use an online power of attorney form, it usually isn't a good idea. A power of attorney is one of the most important est...

Q: My wife and I have are agents under my 86-year-old mother's durable power of attorney. We are her primary caregivers because she is not able to cook her own meals, clean her own home, do her own laundry, do grocery shopping, drive herself to doctor's appointments, allocate her own medications,...

Q: I am the agent under a durable power of attorney (DPOA) executed in 2013. Is the document still valid if I move to another state? A: It's wise to execute a Durable Power of Attorney in the new state, for practical reasons more than legal ones. The idea is to have a document that banks and oth...

Knowing the “cost basis” of your property is important for tax purposes, but proving cost basis can be difficult. Cost basis adjusts at death, so it is a good idea to appraise property when a joint owner dies. Cost basis is the monetary value of an item for tax purposes. When determining whether ...

Q: My mother spent four days in the hospital and Medicare approved 100 days of skilled nursing facility care after her stay. After 48 days, the nursing home cut off her therapy and ended her Medicare benefits, without notifying us either in writing or by phone. She was not discharged from the nur...

Q: My mom has been diagnosed with altered mental status including: REM sleep behavior disorder, cerebral degeneration, and non-Alzheimer's-type dementia, possibly Lewy body dementia. Is she legally able to sign a will and make changes to insurance polices that she bought 20 years ago? If she make...