Elder Law

 Elder Law : What is it?

Elder law is the area of law, statutes, regulations and decisions, which impact on the lives of older Americans and their families. Elder law spans and encompasses elder care planning issues, such as access to the appropriate type of medical and personal care, coordinating private and public resources to finance the cost of care, income assistance benefits, taxation, conservatorship, general estate planning, estate and trust administration issues (e.g., wills, trusts, and probate), counseling and planning for incapacity with medical directives, advanced directives and other alternative decision-making documents, as well as for possible long-term care planning issues, including home health care, nursing home care, hospice and respite care.

Elder law even covers some aspects of criminal law, including elder abuse, financial abuse of elders, fraud and other consumer protection issues, nursing home abuse, nursing home impoverishment and nursing home neglect.

There are three major categories that make up elder law:

1. Estate planning and administration, including tax questions;
2. Medicaid, disability and other long-term care issues; and
3. Guardianship, conservatorship and commitment matters, including fiduciary administration.

The following is an list of the areas in which an elder law attorney may practice:

• Health and Personal Care Planning (including advance medical directives and living wills);
• Pre-Mortem Legal Planning (wills and trusts);
• Fiduciary Representation (including guardianship, trustees and personal representatives);
• Legal Capacity Counseling (advising how capacity is determined and the level of capacity required for various legal activities);
• Individual Representation (of those who care or who may be the subject of guardianship or conservatorship procedures);
• Public Benefits Advice (including Medicaid, Medicare, social security and veteran's benefits);
• Advice on Insurance (including health, life, long-term disability and burial/funeral policies);
• Resident Rights Advocacy (including advising patients of their rights and remedies in matters such as admissions, transfer, discharge policies and quality of care);
• Housing Counseling (reviewing options and financing of options such as mortgage alternatives, life care contracts and home equity conversion);
• Employment and Retirement Advice (pension, retiree health benefits and unemployment benefits);
• Income, Estate and Gift Tax Advice;
• Counseling about Tort Claims against Nursing Homes;
• Age and/or Disability Discrimination Counseling (including employment and housing and Americans with Disabilities Act); and
• Litigation and Administrative Advocacy (including will contest, contested capacity issues and elder abuse).

QTIP trust stands for the qualified terminable interest property trust. It allows certain property to qualify for an estate and gift tax marital deduction even though it ordinarily would not qualify for such tax deductions. One type of QTIP property that can qualify for a marital tax deduction are trusts which provides income to a surviving spouse for life and after the spouse dies the remainder goes to the children. Please contact a elder law attorney if you would like more information about this type of trust.

There are various types of wills. An ambulatory will is a will that a person can change during that person`s lifetime. A double will is one in which two people join together, each leaving that person`s property and estate to the other person. The surviving person then owns both estates. This type of will is also sometimes called a counter will, joint and mutual will, or reciprocal will. Holographic wills are ones that are entirely handwritten, dated and signed by the person whose will it is. A living will is one that authorizes the withholding or cessation of life-sustaining medical treatments from an individual, who has been too incapacitated due to a life threatening and debilitating illness to make that decision. A qualified elder law attorney can help you decide which type of will is best for you.

For issues like elder abuse, fraud recovery and various forms of neglect, it's obvious you'll need a elder law lawyer. However, there are a variety of reasons consulting with an elder law attorney would save you and your loved ones a lot of money, grief and legal hassles, including these reasons:

• Disability planning, including use of durable powers of attorney, living trusts, living wills, advanced directives and other means of delegating management and decision-making to another in case of incompetency or incapacity Conservatorship and Guardianship

• Estate planning, including planning for the management of one's estate during life and its disposition on death through the use of trusts, wills and other planning documents

• Preservation/transfer of assets seeking to avoid spousal impoverishment when one spouse enters a nursing home

• Medicaid planning

• Medicare claims and appeals

• Social security disability claims and appeals

• Supplemental and long term health insurance issues

• Probate issues

• Administration and management of trusts and estate

• Long-term care placements in nursing home and life care communities

• Nursing home issues including questions of patients' rights and nursing home quality

• Housing issues, including discrimination and home equity conversions

• Age discrimination and employment

• Retirement, including public and private retirement benefits, survivor benefits and pension benefits

• Health law matters

• Mental Health law matters

Find a qualified elder law lawyer for these and other elder law related issues.

More reading on elder law at:

• Elder Law Answers
• More information on Elder Law

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