learn ways and techniques on how to manage caregiving to help you find resources in your community and today we have a very important person as i guess today we have scott the bloom here  he is an elder attorney he specializes in that he has been and practiced for over twenty years he graduated from it for my clients to come to see me ok there and home there are usually average age of about eighty six years old so the children could come see me but it's the parents who are the client so i want i make myself available i'm usually on the road two three four days a week oh i have an office right in bucks county which from princeton not counting traffic ok is about twenty five minutes away on the far right of rate base is right on the border of pennsylvania new jersey one of the what i think it's nice i think i understand that you also do home visits your home visits most of the time very very few clients ever come to the office because it's just it's difficult it's difficult and even if they could i try to make it as easy as possible the paperwork  issues for care they need care they're either in the home care situation they're in an assisted living situation they're in a long term care nursing home situation or a combination transfer transitioning between multiple levels but that's mostly what deals with dealing with estate planning of course comes into that and that's where you have to have your documents in place your will your power of attorney your health care pro but most of the clients that i deal with under elder law are people that are dealing with some level of care whether it's a little bit of home care right now and what will happen if that it care increases how my going to pay for that what options are there what is assisted living what's the difference between assisted living in nursing home and of course the i'm not going to one of those places ok so that's that's what i deal with mostly with that kind of transition in those kind of situations ok far as different areas of law with elder law of course they deal with wilson powers of attorney and health care proxies and maybe other attorneys do that they can write a will somebody has a cousin that's a bankruptcy attorney and they write a will for them my situation is i'm dealing with wills for people as they get older so now there's a different reality from when you write a will when you're forty two when you write a will when you're eighty and the example of that is let's say mom is you mom and dad have a will and dad's will leaves everything to mom mom leaves everything to dad well what if one of them is going to be on government benefits what if one is going to receive money from a family member on their side and they're on government benefits those kind of issues that come up with wills are something that you don't normally look at but when we're dealing with a situation where people on care are there on fixed income they're getting some kind of government benefit or maybe that might be the plan for down the road of a sudden we have to change the situation it comes into play specially when people are older now of a sudden you have an adult child that maybe they're on government benefits and now your will that you wrote had written for you thirty years ago left everything to that child we don't want to do that because all of a sudden if that senior passes away or when that senior passed away they leave their money to their child the child on government benefits for some kind of disability now the son they're no longer eligible because they just had this influx of money at that point we might have to do with deal with a special needs trust things like that that didn't come up or don't come up in the grand scheme of planning and that's why those of us that deal with elder law  it has a different approach to it it's just that it's a different area of law and like i said because of when these issues come up sometimes it's not a point of planning so people aren't ahead of it they're having to deal with the situation as it becomes available now  my area of law i guess it lends to more flexibility i have to be able to be out of the office as i said i've got to be able to see the client a lot of times where they are especially if they can't come see me so as opposed to what normally people think of as lawyers did their you know centrally located to one spot that doesn't always come into play i was up in union county most of the day yesterday seeing clients because they don't have to see me when i get a phone call i get an e mail from the a little convoluted with that because a lot of times the children are the ones that have to give us the information but we still yes we still have to talk to that parent so when i get the call from and it usually happens i get a call from the child that says i need to get a fraternity for my mom that's not actually correct mom actually needs the power of attorney naming the daughter yes we have to talk exactly so we have to talk to mom or dad and if they choose not to then they choose not to but they have to to probate probate happens when when someone passes away what happens is they then leave in a state that's that's the legal term it's they leave in a state whether it be a few dollars or a lot of money so when someone passes away they cease to exist but they have things that they own whether it be a house or bank account or car so then the question becomes ok now what do we do with us well this state has been created so that's what the will usually  directs people die without a will the state has a way of dealing with that but you want to do a will because you want your stuff to go someplace that you want to so what happens is basically what the probate process is is that after someone passes away  executor the person named in the will who's responsible takes that document over to the courthouse in the county where they passed way they will have to fill the paunch paperwork pay for the little filing and depending on what assets that person has yet whether it has to go through the probate process which is basically a court proceeding so what is still may still have to go through poll bay even if the only real estate even if there's a will yes it still has to go through probate if it's a will because basically the probate is not avoided by will probate is determining that asset and who's the owner whether there's any creditors do and whether the estate actually owns it free and clear and then can pass it to the beneficiary beneficiary is the person in the will that's named to receive something so if the person dies at say mom dies and owns a house and has a will that says i want to leave my house to my son and my daughter that's fine we'll sudden daughter might already have their own house so they might not want mom's house which means the house has to be sold well while we have to have the court determine that yes mom own the house there's no money i don't owe to the house the person who is handling the will is now allowed to sell it and now the house has to be sold by the estate through the executor the money is put into a bank account and then split but you have to you have to be able to sell remember mom has passed away right so now mom can't sell the house charity that you like very much you want to leave i don't know if you present it as twenty percent to them and forty percent each of your children ok if you don't put it in a will and you pass away without a will the state has a way of determining how you pass how your assets pass it's called intestate you passed away intestate ok follows the statute the statute on this point let's assume that the statute says ok well she has two children so it will be split between the two children and that's fine they'll get fifty percent each that charity that you wanted to get twenty percent gets nothing so if you want it to go a certain way you need to leave it that same example if you have one child you can leave everything to that one child  when was a will written was the rule written whether there's going to be a challenge in but people can people go to court for anything and they tend to do that so as an elder alterna from myself i try to make sure that i got have all those bases  so they could challenge whether they'd have to have something to challenge let's say the will was written right before mom died the will was written the kids hadn't been around in the last couple months and mom spending all the time with the church pastor and the church pastor brought the attorney and her brought the documents over so there's that issue exactly so there's always things that you have to be concerned with because those kind of fraud things happen that you know and so there is always a possibility a challenge and in my experience is yes when when one of the children feel slighted you're going to see more of an argument at the end of the day if well planned so you do that and so do you do any other types of services yes i deal with what i do estate planning so see planning is more in the realm of when you do it at any time at all example of somebody who's forty fifty sixty years old have children they're starting to figure out ok well what if scenarios what do i want to do do i want to put my stuff in a trust fund rather than using a well ok you can put you can put your money or your house into a trust which will bypass the probate if that's what you want to do but again that comes into the planning stage that's that's not the people that are now spending their money there or in a nursing home and now what are we supposed to do this for people that are normally healthy at this point maybe most of time it happens because their parents went through the situation so now i'm dealing with the kids after i dealt with mom or dad a couple years ago now they're trying to prepare so that they don't leave their kids in the same situation like they did right now so maybe they have assets maybe they don't have assets one of many that maybe they want to guarantee that there are certain assets to go on to the next generation because too far along in the process you end up spending it on caring you're not able to pass right in as parents most parents want to send as much as they can to their children but in a situation where their second about to go on medicaid they're not able to do that they so when you go into the home do you have a plan we need and so is the whole family like all the children out there there for the mother but is there a plan if it's three or four children and the mother same as the one husband and wife that yes there are two separate wills but they're pretty much the same thing it's i believe everything to her she's leaving everything to me if we happen to go at the same time they pretty much leaving it to the children that's the same well so if i can do stuff like that but i deal with i try and deal with the situation of what they need at the time as far as other issues let's say and i've walked into that where we're talking about mom but one of the children have a different kind of issue but i could help with the legal issue but it might not fall under elder law i normally won't address that at the time and i asked them you know can we talk about this another time to not take away from from mom mom is you know putting herself out there and want to talk about her situation yes then we don't want to creditor you have you have a bill running at a home with a home care you have a bill running with a long term care facility nursing home and then what happens is sometimes especially near the end the family so involved especially if it's a sickness and illness that's that's going over time they're so involved with a loved one that's passing away you know i know the bill came in last week but i don't like going to get to it now and the time goes on they pass away and then there's a bill there is could be four thousand dollars bill or five thousand dollars bill sitting out there what will happen is at that point though those companies that you the love one that passed away owes money to will send a bill they'll make a a a on drawing a blank on the name they'll go after the estate of the person who passed with it with a legitimate bill which does have to be paid and sometimes what happens is the children that are in of course they're all grief stricken as it is are now you know maybe getting a small inheritance and realize that they're  getting that because the bills have to be paid first whenever somebody passes away enough sometimes why people are so surprised when somebody passed away that it doesn't happen and you can't end it right away which is ok we just didn't have the money and go you know there might be  ok you can reach me at toll free one eight five five nine nine two six three three seven and our website is scott bloom law dot com  because people end up in a nursing home spending ten twelve thousand dollars a month for life so even though they had a home they sold the home mom couldn't live in the home anymore maybe a split level maybe bedrooms upstairs bathroom downstairs just wasn't safe to be at home hadn't have to go into a long term care facility whether desisted living or nursing home and spend all the money well now they're down to less than two thousand dollars which is the requirement and they need somebody to pay for their insurance and for it for their care that's where medicaid comes into play but as you stated medicaid has a lot of rules with the lot of regulations and there's a lot of different levels there's a lot of different levels medicaid is in place for people who are very unfortunate we have no money even at the level with food stamps stuff like that i do i don't deal with that type of medicaid system that i deal with the long term care or home care which in itself is the same but it has its own regulations in its own differences  yes but there is there there is not a lot that people can do people don't understand that medicaid has what they call five year lookback which means when you apply for medicaid you actually have to provide them documents of what happened to this person who's met who's applying the last five years and what i mean by that is their financials bank accounts what they don't know and people don't realize that no you can't just transfer your house into your children's name for medicaid purposes it might have been a good move for financial purposes for some kind of tax planning but for medicaid planning it's disallowed now of a sudden you're you're an eligible and the reason for for medicaid purposes is they're saying if you want us to pay that ten thousand dollars a month bill you can take your hundred thousand dollars house and give it to somebody else you have to work you over hear people say it all the time the nursing home took my house there's your home they're not in the real estate business you have the person actually had to sell their house and use the money to pay the bill every month so they force you to five and a line that she lives you know as long as she was healthy but i always said to my siblings you know sure mom every needs you know long term care her money is for her it's not  somebody take their money and leave it to their kids and then go into the with the well terrible place because they couldn't buy themselves into a nice place it's tough enough as it is but it it's something that families you know they have to do that unfortunately that's not always that's not always the case i know it's not but it's a shame some people want money they want you know but that's not that's not that's not my goal and my goal would be to make sure they're sick at the top of the lawn care and their child or somebody else they do a power of attorney makes the child doesn't give the child power over mom it gives the child the ability to go to the bank form are supposed to be acting for mom supposed to be acting in mom's best interest but can do everything mom can do what happens is as somebody gets older god forbid they get sick now all of a sudden they can't sign their checks anymore right they can't sign a power of attorney maybe they have a stroke and mentally they're not sudden we have a situation where we have an adult that think incapacitated that's now incompetent and can't take care of themselves we have no power of attorney so we don't have an individual under contract to help we now have to go to the court and get a guardianship basically we have to take that adult prove to a judge that that adult is incapable of taking care of themselves we need you to take their rights away turn them back into a minor and award someone guardianship so th they're now there now is exactly it so we went from being a minor to an adult to a minor again because we have to use the court system we have to have a lot of documentation from doctors and it's expensive it's expensive proposition as opposed to they do away i hear that i hear that all the time and i tell them all the time i don't have that much power that's not what i see what i see is i see people dying all the time before they made the will before they did what they wanted i have kids coming to me and said mom wanted to do this but she never did the will never did that and i say i can't just because that's what she wanted if we didn't if she didn't do it this is how it's going to happen and it's a shame it's a shame i don't i don't know why it's like that people are afraid if they take that step and like i said i only see the bad ago you know him i would call her and talk to her and i would tell her step by step the things that i had to do and things like that and lo and behold maybe six months and her mother had a massive stroke i mean a big stroke and i say discharged or any discharge other dishonorable washed away and they're getting some kind of care whether they're in the nursing home assisted living or home care they may be entitled to what they call aid in attendance pension oh oh so they have to have an care just it just doesn't come just because you benefit veteran it's because you're getting some kind of care so basically it's a set amount of money depending on the situation and what it does is it helps prolong your assets but somebody sitting in the system living that has  number one the key number one is that you know they have to need that care and so i think sometimes people apply for just because they have a family member coming in and giving them some care it has to be know they have to have a service they have to be that far advanced or they have to be spending the money for service not given a couple  law dot com consultations are always free anybody has a question feel free to call or doorstep go to the website and send us an email appreciate you so much for listening that day i'm sure that you were very very informed