For a variety of reasons, people sometimes want some or all of their assets to pass directly to specific individuals upon their deaths, outside of probate. One way to accomplish this is to set up a “payable on death” (POD) account for money in a bank account or a “transfer on death” (TOD) account if funds are in a brokerage account.
While there are four basic options for collecting benefits, there are ways to combine these choices to provide even more options. Here are three of the top strategies that you can use to maximize your Social Security benefits.
The 2015 survey was based on responses from more than 15,000 nursing homes, assisted living facilities, adult day health facilities and home care providers. The survey was conducted by phone during January and February of 2015.
Executing a power of attorney is not as simple as it first seems. It is important to have a qualified elder law attorney help you. The team at Strohschein Law Group offers the quality, compassion and experience required to help you, or a loved one, put your personal affairs in order.
The Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) has updated the way it determines eligibility for VA health care benefits, making it easier for many veterans to get access to the benefits. The VA will no longer use the veteran’s net worth as a factor to determine eligibility and copayments.
In most states, transferring your house to your children (or someone else) may lead to a Medicaid penalty period, which would make you ineligible for Medicaid for a period of time. However, there are circumstances in which transferring a house will not result in a penalty period.
Higher premiums mean that fewer consumers are buying long-term care coverage, and those who are buying are purchasing less protection, says Forbes magazine columnist Howard Gleckman.
There are two ways to better ensure this doesn’t happen to you. The first is to name a health care proxy – a person (or more than one person) who will make medical decisions for you when you can’t. The second strategy, one for patients who are already seriously ill, is an alternative to the advance directive that has emerged in recent years and has been implemented or is being developed in some 40 states: the Physician Orders for Life-Sustaining Treatment (POLST). Read to find out more.
We accumulate a lot of stuff over a lifetime and at some point – perhaps due to death, divorce, debt, or downsizing – we need to get rid of it. An estate sale is one way to dispose…
Americans may lose as much as $17 billion every year because of bad financial advice from advisors with conflicts of interest, according to a report by the President’s Council of Economic Advisors. President Obama has proposed new rules to change this and require financial advisors to act in the best interests of their clients. The move is designed to increase the amount investors receive in retirement.