Whenever setting up a trust for a client for purposes of avoiding probate or avoiding nursing home spend-down, it is almost always advisable to move Certificates of Deposit into the trust. However, as a client from Bogalusa experienced this week, sometimes banks are not very flexible with their CDs.There are many banks out there that will allow you to change the name on your CD’s to the name of your trust at any point. Typically the smaller, local banks are flexible when it comes to re-titling CD’s. However, some banks will make you wait until a CD matures before you [...]

I met with a family from Belle Chasse yesterday to discuss some ideas on how to include their grandkids in their estate planning. The grandparents were adamant that any amounts inherited by those grandchildren would first be used for their education, but not just any education, only for education at a 4-year university program.To accomplish this goal, we are creating trusts for the grandchildren and placing restrictions on how the money can be used. Each grandchild’s parents will be responsible for managing the funds for the grandkids and may only use funds in the trust to pay for a 4-year [...]

A client in the Houma area recently asked me how tax-deferred IRA’s are taxed when they go to a beneficiary. The answer all depends on the structure of your Louisiana Estate Plan and the wishes of your beneficiary, but it is possible to spread the tax out over the lifespan of your beneficiary.Let’s say you have a $500,000 IRA and you name your 2 sons as equal beneficiaries. When you pass away, one son, who is 50 years old, decides to roll his $250,000 portion into an IRA in his name. This child will need to start taking minimum distributions [...]

Yesterday morning I spoke with a lady from Metairie whose mom is currently in a nursing home due to her dementia. Mom never signed a power of attorney, and the daughter has run into issues in managing her mother’s accounts and bills and was hoping there was a way to get power of attorney for her mom.Unfortunately, I had to let the daughter know it’s too late. At this point, mom does not have the mental capacity to sign a power of attorney. The only way for the daughter to gain control of mom’s affairs will be through a court [...]

I was meeting with a client in Mandeville this week, who had a clear idea of how he wanted his assets divided amongst his kids and grandkids. He wanted his 2 kids to get $350,000 each and his 3 grandkids to receive $100,000 each. At the moment there is enough assets in the estate to satisfy these cash bequests to his kids and grandkids. However, the problem lies in the fact that we don’t know what the future holds, and the value of the estate could go down. This could create a situation where certain heirs get less than intended [...]

This week, I met with a client to discuss a Louisiana Medicaid Trust to protect the family’s assets from long term care costs. These Medicaid trusts must always be termed as irrevocable trusts. When a trust is irrevocable, you give up the right to reach into the trust and remove assets from the trust directly back into your name. So the question becomes, how will you get assets out of an irrevocable trust if you ever need access to those funds to pay for major expenses that may arise.Removing assets from your Louisiana Irrevocable Trust is easy to do. To [...]

Yesterday, I met with couple facing a difficult situation. The husband, in his 50’s, was recently diagnosed with early onset Alzheimer’s. This harsh news forced the family to evaluate their plans for the future. With such an early diagnosis, both spouses fear that as the husband’s condition worsens, he could be forced to enter a long term care facility for a period that could easily extend 5 to 10 years or more. Under such a scenario, the family would be forced to spend down the majority of their assets on the nursing home before the husband could qualify for aid [...]

Last week I met with a couple in the Houma office to discuss setting up a living trust. The family was interested in a Trust that would allow them to avoid probate at death and allow them to spread out and delay any inheritance that would go to two of their daughters who they deemed as irresponsible.Typically when families set up a living trust, the trust terminates after both spouses have passed and the funds in the trust are distributed to the heirs immediately upon the death of both spouses. This family wanted to delay the inheritance and place conditions [...]

Earlier this week I met with a family from Metairie whose elderly mother is on the verge of entering a nursing home. The kids wanted to know how mom could qualify for Medicaid to pay for her care so that the family could preserve as much wealth as possible. Their father died 4 years ago, leaving the mother usufruct over half of the property that she and the husband owned together. The kids wanted to know whether the portion Mom had usufruct over would count against her eligibility to receive Medicaid funding to pay for her nursing home care. In [...]

I am currently working on a probate for a woman who passed away about a year after setting up a Louisiana Revocable Living Trust for the purpose of avoiding probate. When going through the estate planning process, she did not realize the importance of having all of her brokerage accounts out of her name and into the trust before her death. This is because brokerage accounts are probate assets that will become frozen when you pass if they are still titled in your name.I assume life got in the way, so she never transferred the accounts into the trust. When [...]