You could believe that because you are in good health, you do not need to make preparations for long-term care like many other people do. The problem with that line of thinking is that your current state of health is not a guarantee, especially not twenty years from today. No one of us can say for certain how our physical well-being will be in the years to come. According to the statistics, at least two-thirds of adults over the age of 65 will, at some point in their lives, be in need of some kind of long-term care. In the end, you still need to give some thought to planning for children and also for a Medicaid planning attorney, even if you are in good condition right now.
Why it is important to budget for long-term care
The fact that the need for long-term care might arise for reasons other than illness is something that a lot of people don’t realize, but it’s important to keep that in mind. Also, it is not limited to the provision of medical care. You run the risk of sustaining a life-threatening injury in a car crash, which might require you to receive some kind of long-term care after the incident. Some individuals require long-term care simply due to the fact that they require assistance with their day-to-day tasks, such as clothing and grooming themselves.
A Medicaid Trust enables you to shield your assets from the Medicaid spend-down, to keep some of the trust’s income for yourself, and to distribute any money that is left over to the beneficiaries you choose after your death. Most significantly, having a Medicaid trust enables you to maintain your qualification for the long-term care benefits offered by Medicaid. Even with the substantial costs of long-term care, you will still have some money left over to leave to your heirs if you do it this way. The way it works is that once you transfer your assets to the trust and the waiting time that is applicable has elapsed, those assets will no longer be considered when evaluating whether or not you are eligible for Medicaid.
What happens if children lack proper planning
Whenever there are no living parents of the children, it is common practice for the youngsters to be placed under the care of strangers… Strangers. It may take some time for the authorities to decide where the children should be placed, even if the parents have signed a will.
It is possible that custody of your children will be awarded to someone you would have never wanted to be responsible for their upbringing. There could be a member of your family or a relative who seems to have the finest intentions, but you would not want your children to be with them. The fate of your children’s futures will be decided by a judge someone who is unfamiliar with you and your family in general.
When members of a family disagree on who should be the child’s legal guardian, arguments can break out. This will likely result in an exhausting custody struggle in court.
Wrapping up
Probate can result in you losing up to five percent of the value of your assets to pay for court expenses and other legal fees, in addition to delaying the distribution of your property. Both the information that is passed down to your children and the rate at which they get it are impacted.
