Elder Law

Have you ever caught yourself thinking, "My children love me, but when it comes to my future care, I know they will probably each look at things very differently.  Fighting about it, will split our family” You're not alone. As a San Diego County will and trust lawyer, I've seen countless parents grapple with these sort of differences. It's the elephant in the room that many of us dread addressing: what happens when our adult children can't see eye to eye on our care decisions? 

Picture this: You're in the hospital, unable to communicate your wishes. Suddenly, your hospital room becomes a war zone.
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Hospice care offers comfort and support during a terminal illness, focusing on quality of life rather than curative treatment. Hospice care does not prevent you from getting otherwise covered treatments for conditions not related to your terminal illness. While it’s often associated with end-of-life situations, a hospice stay can last for months or even years. This highlights the importance of a flexible estate plan that addresses not only what happens after you pass but also the practicalities of your financial and personal life during an extended hospice journey.

Key Considerations for Hospice Planning

As you embark on an extended hospice journey, here are some essential elements to incorporate into your estate plan:

• Powers of Attorney: Ensure you have updated and robust powers of attorney for healthcare and finances.
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With all of the crazy things happening in the world right now, I am doing my best to look around and appreciate that we have moved into spring. The flowers on the hills and along the freeway entrance and exit ramps are almost a good excuse to go out and come back to fight the cabin fever without stopping anywhere or being in physically near anyone. The flowers in my yard must have known that we would be looking at them more this year – they are incredible.

Being socially distanced has thrown us all into extended spring cleaning. During that spring cleaning, don’t overlook the importance of a little “Spring Cleaning” for your legal and financial affairs, too.
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Caregivers, You’re Not Planning Just for Yourself

As a caregiver, you spend much of your time, money, and energy taking care of the needs of others. Those in southern California who have taken on the role of caregivers for ill or disabled spouses, aging parents, children, or other loved ones with special needs are amazing , giving and selfless individuals who too often do not stop to consider their own needs.

Your job as a caregiver is invaluable, but it may exact a heavy toll if you do not seek out the help of others. We want you to know that you are not alone: There are resources available throughout San Diego County that can make your job as a caregiver easier. It is important to seek out the emotional support of others, either family members or other caregivers, who can understand and empathize with both the rewards and the physical, emotional, and financial burdens associated with caregiving.

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The baby boom generation is changing senior living.  Just as restaurants and grocery stores have need to change to satisfy boomer tastes so are living communities and senior services.  More options are available now than ever before. Medical and technological advancements are allowing service providers to make available more customized care.  This is leading the way for seniors to age more securely and comfortably.

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National Healthcare Decisions Day is on April 16th, and it’s an important reminder for every San Diegan to begin having difficult conversations with loved ones about their most private wishes for medical and end-of-life care.

Far too many people assume that their families would make the choices they would want in an emergency. Yet everyday we hear stories of adult children, siblings or other relatives battling during a health care crisis over “what their loved one would have wanted” in that situation.

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Do you know what life insurance policies cover your spouse or parent? Few of us can remember like an elephant. Many years ago, when someone came to our firm for help after their spouse or family member died, we would follow procedures offered by a large life insurance database to check and see whether there was any life insurance on the life of the person who had died. Using this database, we regularly found life insurance benefits for surviving family members. Then the insurance industry group that offered the database went away.

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Families deal with aging in different ways. We all hope that, if we are struck by Parkinson’s disease, Alzheimer’s or another Dementia, our spouses and our children will be willing to step up and be there for us.  At the same time, many of us are torn between our desire to be taken care of by our own family and the realization that if our spouse or children take care of us, the caretaking will takeover their lives.  Our instinct is to protect them, even in the face of our own needs.  According to the National Alliance for Caregiving and AARP over 65.7 million people take care of someone who is ill, disabled or aged in the U.S. without compensation.

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40% of Baby Boomers Run With Scissors

New clients, visiting my office in San Diego, are often embarrassed when they admit to me that they don’t have, a will or trust or that it’s been a long time since they updated their estate planning documents.  For years I’ve told them that they are in good company; maybe I should have said bad company?

Unfortunately, an amazing number of smart people seem to put planning for how their assets will be deployed after they die on the bottom of their to do lists.  Even so, running without a will, running without an estate plan is like running with scissors.  It doesn’t matter until we fall and none of us know when we will fall.

According to AARP nearly 40% of Baby Boomers between 51 and 69 years old, do not have wills or trusts. They are running with scissors.   

AARP also found that Baby Boomer have taught this lesson to their children.  71% of all Americans over the age of 34 are running with scissors. 

You cannot control who will get your assets without taking action. Over the last twenty-six years as an estate planning attorney I’ve seen how proper planning can make a positive difference for families and how the failure to plan can rip families apart and put children and young adults on paths of destruction. 

Your assets are your life’s work, with proper planning they can continue to work for you after you’re gone by providing incentives to guide your children and grandchildren and provide support or a long term nest egg to help your family members be more financially secure.  Prudent deployment of your nest egg has become increasingly important for families in our world where businesses fail, pensions are rare; social security uncertain; and the cost of raising children and the costs of getting help if you are disabled keeps going up.

While doing estate planning right is not cheap, it is always less expensive than the financial and personal cost of dying without plan documents.  For average San Diego home owners choosing to die without a living trust, they have chosen a ten to eighteen month delay as to when their family can receive their inheritance and chosen to pay attorneys’ fees and court expenses of not less than $18,000.  

Money is money and time is time, but subjecting your family to the Probate process is encouraging them to fight. It is in the nature of being in court, where misunderstandings and old wrongs thought left behind become fuel for conflict and legacy consuming attorneys’ fees. The one legacy you don’t want to leave behind is a court battle between your family members.

Make it your New Year’s resolution to call an estate planning attorney today. Call me at (619) 281-1888. I, or one of my staff, will make sure that start 2016 off on the right foot, with no scissors in hand. 

 

Pre-Planning with a San Diego Elder Lawyer for Nursing Home Care

One of the more difficult topics that San Diego elder law attorneys and their clients must discuss is the potential need for nursing home care. However, talking about it and knowing the options is actually one of the things that can make things easier. With the help of a good elder care lawyer in San Diego, seniors and their adult children can plan ahead to remove fear and uncertainty about the future.

One of the most compelling reasons for pre-planning nursing home care is the fact that the senior can be thoroughly involved in the process. Far too often, San Diego elder law lawyers work with families where the person in need of care has experienced physical or mental impairments that limit their participation in the planning process.  It is not uncommon for seniors who have had a simple fall, even if they only suffered bumps and bruises, to feel paralyzed when they face the planning process.  Whether overwhelmed by facing a sudden reality that they need to plan, are incapacitated and unable to communicate or their cognitive functions have deteriorated due to dementia or other problems, elderly individuals who wait too long can find that they have a hard time making their true wishes know or perhaps simply cannot make long term care decisions without guidance..

An additional problem that pre-planning solves is that nursing home care is often needed on very short notice, as the result of an unexpected illness or injury. In the midst of a medical crisis, most families would prefer to already have arrangements in place so they can simply focus on treatment, recovery, or long-term care.

Understanding the importance of pre-planning is a great starting point. The next step is to familiarize yourself with some of the conversations you and your elder law attorney should have. For example, a lawyer may talk you, as their client, through the various alternatives to nursing home care in order to determine what is really the best option for you. Instead of a nursing home, it’s possible that you might be better served with in-home care or at an assisted-living facility. An elder lawyer with extensive experience in the San Diego area will also have first-hand knowledge regarding the reputation and levels of care available from various local caregivers and institutions.

The entire process of researching, selecting, applying to, and paying for nursing home care is complex. It’s not something that most people can navigate easily. Pre-planning with an elder law attorney can remove some of the mystery and also gives you the opportunity to compare facilities and negotiate prices. Each of these things gets considerably harder when being done in a rush on the heels of an illness or accident.

The thing to keep in mind is that San Diego elder care lawyers are experienced in focusing on the needs of seniors. From pre-planning for nursing home care to qualifying for Medi-Cal (California’s Medicaid plan) to setting up a smart estate plan, elder law attorneys have specific knowledge of the unique planning issues that directly affect our older generation.  A San Diego Elder Law Attorney  can help you and your family anticipate problems and prepare solutions for problems that haven’t even arisen yet!

The Weissler Law Group can help you start or fine tune your planning to prepare for aging and care related issues. Call us at (619) 281-1888

Wake up and Prepare your Executor or Trustee to Administer your Will or Trust in San Diego

As an individual puts together his or her estate plan, there is a need to really think about how it will be administered. California Wills and trusts administration can be a complex process, although having an estate plan in place is without a doubt one of the best ways to simplify it. Another way to improve the outcome of the administration is to thoroughly prepare your executor or successor Trustee for the job ahead of them.

In California we call executors and successor trustees “Personal Representatives.” In San Diego Personal Representatives are called on to take care of many different details related to administering a will or trust. In order to improve that person’s efficiency and make the most of your estate plan, start by talking with the person you want to perform the job and make sure that he or she is willing and able to do so. It’s possible that you could name someone as the executor of the estate intending it to be an honor, but without briefing them in advance, that person might actually feel like it is a burden or unwanted responsibility. Keep in mind that this doesn’t make the person uncaring, rather, it allows you to name someone who will do the job willingly and well. For many people they just don’t have time in their lives to step into another’s shoes and either wind up their affairs or administer them over an extended period of time.

You can also smooth the process for the executor by actually discussing the contents of your estate plan with him or her, as well as with other family members and friends who will be affected. It’s hard to foresee what kinds of problems could arise during will or trust administration, so laying things out in advance can help avoid surprises later. Family dynamics are an incredibly personal and complicated thing, and the estate plan will likely need to take them into consideration. So, if one family member has a problem with addiction, a grandchild has a disability, or one sibling is substantially wealthier than others, these are all possible reasons a plan might not look the way everyone expected. Your goal of protecting more vulnerable family members could be perceived as unfair by those who don’t ‘need’ the help but feel distributions should be equal. Preparing them, and the executor, can avoid drama later—including but not limited to discouraging someone from trying to contest your will or trust.

Keeping your executor, or successor trustee, apprised of potentially upsetting aspects of the estate plan can help them navigate the will or trust administration later, especially since they will be clear on your intentions and therefore better armed to carry them out. Their abilities can also be bolstered by introducing them to your estate planning lawyer who can help them to really understand what will be expected of them and give them insight into things like taxes, court costs, paying off debt, and so on. With a little guidance up front, family conflicts can be reduced and your will or trust’s administration can run as smoothly as possible.  

At the Weissler Law Group we work to make certain our Clients' wishes are carried out and family conflicts are minimized or avoided.  We can be reached at (619) 281-1888