I'm worried about protecting my assets
and still affording long-term care.

The elder law attorneys at Davidson Law Group know several strategies for keeping your assets and family safe through proactive planning.

Protecting Your Family's Future

The sooner you begin elder law planning, the sooner your estate and assets will have protection from pricey nursing home costs, spend down of wealth, and Medicaid liens.  It is extremely urgent that you begin working on your plan because there is a five-year waiting period for the plan to be fully in effect.  These plans are very unique in that you can maintain control over your assets and finances while simultaneously protecting them from the government, creditors, and Medicaid.  We have seen too many families basically impoverished by failing to plan for long-term care, and particularly if your children rely on your property or your home, you don’t want these assets to be liquidated because you don’t have a plan for how to pay for a skilled nursing facility or other forms of long-term healthcare.  These plans are especially important for families who have real estate like a family farm or ranch because, without a proper plan in place, Medicaid can put a lien on real estate and eventually take it from your family.  But with a well-implemented elder law plan, you can ensure that the legacy of family real estate stays in the family for generations to come.

Proactive Planning

When it comes to planning for the unavoidable consequences of aging, we recommend that our clients begin the process far enough in advance that they are able to avert some of the devastating issues that come later in life, specifically the current crisis of long-term healthcare and nursing home expenses.  While we do encourage all of our clients to obtain long-term care insurance, many times this is just not a possibility for various reasons including previous health conditions and age.  And, even if a client does have long-term care insurance, it is often not sufficient to cover the ever-increasing cost of long-term healthcare.  Fortunately, proactive elder law planning is not affected by these factors, and for most clients, it can help protect all of their assets while providing a dignified lifestyle throughout the duration of necessary long-term care.

Trusts as Tools

When we are developing a proactive elder law plan, we look at your circumstances in a comprehensive manner, taking into account your family situation, your current income streams, your assets, your age, and your current health condition.  Depending on the answers to these questions, we will take different approaches to a plan, but the most common tools used in proactive planning are trusts.  The best way to think of trust is like an empty bucket in which you place all of your assets.  You will identify the assets you want to place into the bucket, appoint a trustee who will manage and safeguard the bucket, and designate lifetime beneficiaries of the bucket.  There is a very specific and complicated process for completing a proper trust within elder law planning, and the attorneys at Davidson Law Group can guide you through every step to ensure it is done in compliance with the law so you receive the full protection of the bucket.

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