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Bach, Jacobs & Byrne, P.A.

How Does Remarriage Affect Estate Planning?

By Estate Planning

As our society has increasingly high divorce and remarriage rates, more individuals are faced with the task of updating or revising their Estate Planning documents to account for their change in partner. However, remarriage can make Estate Planning quite complicated, especially if each or either spouse has children by a previous partner.

The first step in updating your estate plan if you plan on getting remarried is to review yours and have your current partner review theirs. If you both decide that you would like to continue to keep your assets separate and leave everything to your respective children, then you will need to contractually agree to this by entering into a prenuptial agreement or “prenup”. At this time you may want to amend your advance health care directives and medical release forms as well.

If you have further inquiries, the skilled attorneys at Bach & Jacobs can assist you with Estate Planning. Please call our office at 941-906-1231 to schedule an appointment.

January 12, 2017
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Special Needs Trust Fairness Act

By Asset Protection Planning, Government Benefits

Yesterday a historic bill was signed into law by President Obama.  It allocates over $1 billion to fund Alzheimer’s research to find a cause and a cure, and methods of prevention.  Since so many of our elderly we serve and their families are devastated by this terrible disease, we have been given hope that the necessary amount of attention has been given by this bipartisan legislation to address this issue which left unchecked, could overwhelm our institutional care programs and service delivery infrastructure.

In addition it immediately gives a disabled individual, who is legally competent, the right to establish their own self- funded d4A Special Needs Trust.  This is a trust which exempts assets from being considered by Medicaid.  However all self- settled special needs trust are subject to a Medicaid payback on the death of the beneficiary.  This will end the foolish waste of time getting an elderly parent or a court to establish an individual SNT for a person who could do so himself or herself, but for the mistake made in the original OBRA ’93 act that left out the word “individual.”

If you have further questions on this topic please contact our office at (941) 906-1231 to schedule an appointment with one of our attorneys.

December 14, 2016
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