Usually the biggest asset that most Americans have is either a home or their retirement accounts or both. Americans are living longer than ever before, but most have inadequate long-term care insurance coverage. Most mistakenly think that Medicare will take care of them if they...
At our December estate planning workshop, there were several questions about the use of enhanced life estate (“Ladybird”) deeds to protect a Medicaid recipient’s homestead from the state’s Medicaid Estate Recovery Program (“MERP”). After the death of the Medicaid recipient under present laws in Texas,...
The Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) has announced its 2017 rate increases for certain wartime military veterans not dishonorably discharged or their surviving spouses. These rates are effective as of December 1, 2016. If interested in seeing the new rates, click here. However, since VA...
You may or may not be concerned with what your heirs or charitable organizations may do with the assets that they inherit from you, but a recent case in New Hampshire has enraged many connected with the University of New Hampshire. For over 50 years, Robert...
On December 13, 2016, President Obama signed the 21st Century Cures Act which contains the Special Needs Trust Fairness Act that allows disabled persons with mental capacity to create their own special needs trust. Prior to the passage of this law, a disabled person under...
As many of you know, Texas is an income cap state in connection with long-term care Medicaid eligibility. Presently, if an applicant for nursing home Medicaid has “countable” income (certain income is exempt or excluded) over $2,199 per month, then such applicant is ineligible for...
Donald Trump’s election will likely result in a proposal to eliminate estate tax as part of an overall tax reform package. However, the passage of such a bill and the compromises needed to make such a change will likely evolve over time – although the...
Although not officially released, projections for the 2017 Protected Resource Amount (“PRA”) dollar figures can now be estimated in light of the cost of living adjustment recently made. These figures are used to determine how much can be protected when one spouse is in a...
As previously reported in the Texas Elder Law E-letter, it is anticipated that the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) will be changing its rules to make it more difficult for a veteran (who served during wartime and was not dishonorably discharged) or their surviving spouse...
This week it was announced that Social Security’s cost of living adjustment (COLA) will be only 0.3 in 2017 based on consumer-priced inflation. However, Social Security recipients (especially seniors) will end up with less money for a couple of reasons. First, COLA is based on consumer...