Since there are often tax obligations when settling an estate it is important for an executor to know what needs to be filed. Knowing how to properly handle tax issues when settling an estate is one of an executor’s key responsibilities. Not handling it properly can result in the executor having personal liability. Bluffton Today […]

Registering a deed after the original owner passes away is risky. Probate can sometimes be avoided by using joint ownership so when the parents pass away the property automatically transfers to the children. There are drawbacks to the “do it yourself” estate planning approach. For starters, when the children are added as joint owners the […]

If you appoint one of your children as power of attorney you should make certain they can handle the job. The person you would want to handle your affairs if you are incapacitated is one of the questions you may have to face in preparing an estate plan. The first instinct of most people is […]

A court in California has joined other states in refusing to enforce a nursing home arbitration clause. Marjorie Fitzpatrick, an elderly California woman who entered a nursing home in 2012, fell outside unsupervised and suffered injuries which led to her death. Her estate filed a wrongful death suit against the facility. However, the contract with […]

There is an issue that is not being discussed by presidential candidates, and that issue is the inability of many elderly and their families in the U.S. to pay for long term care. People are living longer lives resulting in more people in need of long term care in a nursing home or in-home assistance. […]

Scammers often target elderly people who are sometimes vulnerable. One elderly man learned the lesson the hard way. Scamming predators know that many elderly people are lonely and too trusting for their own good so they often become targets. An Australian man, who has been identified only as “Robert,” was a recent victim. Robert met […]

A proposal is under consideration by the Obama administration that may set new rules for retirement advisors concerning retirement accounts. Many elder law advocates have expressed concern that there is insufficient oversight of retirement advisors that could allow risky investments favoring the advisors over the client. The Hill, in a recent article entitled “Retirement advice […]

Medicare has a plan to pay doctors for quality of care rather than for tests they run. Is that a possibility? A major source of health care expenses is the many, many tests ordered by doctors and hospitals and someone must be responsible for paying for those tests. If the patient is covered by Medicare, […]

While it may be a difficult task it might be wise to have an inheritance talk with your children in order to avoid future battles. Family fights can sometimes occur when your estate plan comes as a surprise to the children because they were not given any indication of what to expect when you pass […]

Apple executives refused to give Canadian widow Peggy Bush her husband’s password but following considerable publicity they went in a different direction. Canadian widow Peggy Bush received a lot of attention from the media when she ran into problems with Apple after her husband passed away and she inherited the iPad the two of them […]