Dear Clients and Friends: Questions come up about estate planning documents and divorce all the time, like this one: CLIENT QUESTION: I have a question I am hoping you can help me with. In 2017 (1/12/2017) my soon-to-be ex-husband and I completed a health care proxy with your firm. We …

Dear Clients and Friends: How can you have your cake and eat it too, like with this question… CLIENT QUESTION: If you own your home, how do you get Medicaid without having to pay it back? MY RESPONSE: We all know that you must be poor to get Medicaid. Luckily, you …

Dear Clients and Friends: Second marriages often present issues, like this question: CLIENT QUESTION: Under NYS law, can a stepfather be forced to support, provide an inheritance, or transfer one-half of jointly held marital assets (wife has dementia) to adult stepchildren? Both the stepfather and stepchildren have a power of attorney.  I …

Dear Clients and Friends: Can you save your income from Medicaid? CLIENT QUESTION: What are the alternatives for meeting the criteria to be eligible for Medicaid if you have a pension? MY RESPONSE: The answer to this question depends on the circumstances, including whether you are married or not and …

Dear Clients and Friends: Life insurance is something else to consider when applying for Medicaid. Read on… CLIENT QUESTION: If I paid off a 5-figure debt, at 5% interest, to my Life Insurance company, does that disqualify me from Medicaid?  Is that considered a look-back penalty, prior to qualifying for Medicaid? MY RESPONSE: …

Dear Clients and Friends: In my last two LISTEN TO LAWRENCE LETTERS, I have discussed long-term care insurance and some of the newer options. Today’s client question follows up on this theme. CLIENT QUESTION: Hi! I am curious as to your thoughts about the newer policies I am hearing about that have a …

Dear Clients and Friends: In my last issue of the LISTEN TO LAWRENCE LETTER, I talked about how I still recommend Long Term Care Insurance, although not any particular company. A client of mine, who also happens to be a retired insurance broker, wrote me a response that I think you will …

Dear Clients and Friends: Picking the right long-term care insurance company is tricky….read on. CLIENT QUESTION: Hello, I would like to buy long-term care insurance for my adult son but my carrier UNUM no longer sells LTC policies. Can you recommend a good LTC insurance carrier? Thanks. P.S. I am …

Dear Clients and Friends: This one gets me annoyed….read on: CLIENT QUESTION: In NYS a property tax rebate is being mailed to homeowners. If one’s house is in an irrevocable trust, will the one who pays the yearly taxes and also lives in the house be given a rebate? MY …

Dear Clients and Friends: What happens when you sell an asset inside an irrevocable Medicaid trust? Keep reading…. CLIENT QUESTION: I’m thinking of selling my Florida condo that is owned by my trust. I understand the money has to go into a Trust bank account.  My question is, does it start the …

Dear Clients and Friends: Occasionally, an irrevocable trust can cause frustration…read on. CLIENT QUESTION: You set up an Irrevocable Trust for me about 15 years ago. Besides my house, the trust is the owner and beneficiary of my life insurance policy.  The address and SS # on the policy are mine. Recently …

Dear Clients and Friends: In a prior LISTEN TO LAWRENCE LETTER (Volume 3, Issue 45), I discussed the need to make the IRREVOCABLE Medicaid trust an “additional insured” on your homeowner’s insurance for all properties in your trust. The reasoning was that we would want any claims paid out to be …

Dear Clients and Friends: What if you already have a funded Medicaid trust but you want to add to it or change things later? CLIENT QUESTION #1: If you add a saving account to an existing irrevocable trust, does that subject the entire trust to have a 5-year look-back or …

Dear Clients and Friends: What is considered trust income and does it matter? The following question and my response will help with this question: CLIENT QUESTION: I have an irrevocable trust created by you 4 years ago, funded with securities that produce income. The trust has a tax ID number rather …

Dear Clients and Friends: So your house is in an irrevocable trust, what happens if the house burns down? Keep reading… CLIENT QUESTION: Hi Lawrence. You put our house in an irrevocable trust years ago and now I have a question about the insurance on the house. Our homeowners’ policy now is in …

Dear Clients and Friends: Assets that are transferred into a Medicaid trust are all subject to the five-year lookback. All means all, as pointed out by this question and my response: CLIENT QUESTION: Our elderly (82), frail, unmarried cousin with vascular dementia has been using her funds to pay for a live-in …

Dear Clients and Friends: As I have mentioned before, I am very proud of my part in creating the Special Needs Alliance. Brainstorming with the top Elder Law firms in the country truly revealed the need to create an organization that would bring together the top special needs planning attorneys in the …

Dear Clients and Friends: Here is a question that I get a lot and have covered in numerous past LISTEN TO LAWRENCE LETTERS. However, I will keep answering it because it is so important. CLIENT QUESTION: I am not sure I have seen this question covered in past newsletters. My parents set up …

Dear Clients and Friends: Several LISTEN TO LAWRENCE LETTERS ago, I responded to a question regarding how to change the address on statements when a client is a snowbird and wants their statements “mailed” to Florida in the Fall and then back to New York in Spring. I pointed out that …

Dear Clients and Friends: I would have retired years ago if my following response were not true. Keep reading: CLIENT QUESTION: I currently have an irrevocable trust set up by you. I also have a revocable trust set up in 1999 before I did my irrevocable trust. I had your firm …