New York Elder Law And Estate Planning Blog

Sometimes, people in New York and other states see that assets that were acquired and maintained through years of hard work end up in state coffers after the death of the owner of those assets. Oftentimes, that happens due to inadequate estate planning. As many people may already know, trusts can be a means of making sure that assets are protected.

In New York, an individual can create a trust for any lawful purpose. The creator of a trust can revise or rescind a part or whole of the trust at any point, provided that creator has written consent from all the persons who are beneficially associated with the property that is held in that trust. It is possible to create three types of trusts in New York: lifetime trusts, honorary trusts for pets and charitable trusts.

Like everyone else, elders in our society have the right to be in control of their lives, the right to take risks and overcome them and the right to learn from that experience. Sadly, advanced age often comes in the way and it becomes difficult for the elderly to perform even some of the most basic day-to-day tasks. In order to address this issue, the New York State Department of Health administers the Nursing Home Transition and Diversion Medicaid Waiver, which is a Home and Community Based Services program.

The NHTD program uses money received from Medicaid to provide certain services to the elderly. These services are meant to assist the elderly in living their day to day lives while being an integral part of the community and the society. An individual can opt for the NHTD Medicaid Waiver services when informal support and services, or local, state and federal services, or Medicaid State Plan services are not sufficient to assure the health and wellbeing of the individual. The NHTD Medicaid Waiver services can also be availed if it is found that obtaining such services are the most optimum utilization of Medicaid benefits.

Maybe you first heard of a trust from watching public broadcasting funded by the trust of what sounds like a very rich family.

But trusts aren't just for the very wealthy. Almost everybody planning the future of their assets at least considers using a trust as tool to achieve their goals.

Last night (May 29th) Aaron Futterman presented to 50 mental health professionals at Gurwin Jewish-Fay J. Linder Residences in Commack. He discussed updates in elder law and estate planning along with Jordan Trager, Esq. from Wisselman, Harounian & Associates who presented family and marital dynamics from a legal perspective and Fran Greene, LCSW, Relationship Coach and author of The Secret Rules of Flirting & her second book Dating Again with Courage & Confidence who shared strategies and tips so the social workers and other mental health professionals could better help people to socialize more successfully as they age. The attendees received four Continuing Education Credits for this educational event.