Elder Law Report
Elder Law Report
Secure Your Assets Against Alzheimer's
What steps can you take today to protect yourself and your family from the devastating effects of Alzheimer's and dementia? Join estate planning and elder law attorneys Greg McIntyre and Britton Begley as they tackle the rise of these conditions and offer actionable legal strategies to safeguard your future. With a focus on the importance of proactive planning, Greg and Britton emphasize the necessity of having a general durable power of attorney to prevent undue influence and exploitation. By appointing a trusted person to manage your affairs, you can ensure that your assets are protected, and your desires are respected even if you lose decision-making capacity.
This episode dives into the critical role of a well-crafted estate plan in managing Alzheimer's care. Greg and Britton explore how trusts can be valuable tools for shielding assets from probate, Medicaid estate recovery, and creditors. They also share methods to protect your spouse and ensure long-term care needs are met without draining family resources. Highlighting the importance of nominating a preferred guardian in legal documents, they offer insights on how to avoid unwanted court-appointed guardianships. Whether you're planning for yourself or assisting a loved one, Greg and Britton provide essential advice for maintaining control over your assets and qualifying for benefits to cover long-term care. Tune in for this invaluable discussion on legal prevention and elder care planning.
Hi, this is Greg McIntyre with McIntyre Elder Law, and it is Alzheimer's Awareness Month. June is Alzheimer's Awareness Month. I'm here with my fellow attorney and law partner, britton Begley. We are both estate planning and elder law attorneys and we want to bring more awareness to something we know all too well with some of our clients, to something we know all too well with some of our clients, and that is dementia.
Greg McIntyre:Alzheimer's affects 7 to 14 million people. In the US. There's over 10 million new diagnoses of Alzheimer's dementia cases per year. That number seems to be growing per year. That number seems to be growing. I don't know that anyone necessarily knows exactly why, and maybe a combination of factors, but we're here to shed light on that and our experience in helping people plan for and prepare to protect their assets, afford the high cost of long-term care or avoid the high cost of long-term care, and put estate plans in place as legal prevention for the downfalls or pitfalls that could become something that someone with Alzheimer's dementia has to deal with or is susceptible to. Brent, we had talked before we came on about some concerns that someone who's diagnosed with Alzheimer's dementia may have as they age, as the disease progresses.
Brenton Begley:Correct. Yeah, so just you know, starting to have. You know, dementia is an umbrella term for this disease that affects the brain and slowly degrades folks' ability to comprehend concepts, make decisions, and it can render them incapacitated. So Alzheimer's is a subset of that, can render them incapacitated. So Alzheimer's is a subset of that. And so if you have dementia, you don't necessarily have Alzheimer's, but if you have Alzheimer's, you certainly have dementia. So that's how that works. So you know, if you're looking at the stats, you see a bunch of numbers relating to Alzheimer's.
Brenton Begley:Even more people are affected by dementia generally, whether it's Lewy body or frontal, temporal dementia or another type that I'm not aware of. So, that being said, yeah, one of the concerns with anyone who may be, you know, susceptible to this disease is they would likewise be susceptible to other concerning things. So, obviously, if you're losing capacity, you know you're losing the ability to make important decisions for yourself, and that's a huge concern, especially with respect to your assets and your wishes, because as you age, as you progress with that disease, you could fail to take into account how to set up the you know, your finances, to make sure your bills are paid, so like the day to day thing and also ensure that your assets are protected. Many people who are losing capacity are subject to undue influence or exploitation, so you know we've all heard about scams out there.
Brenton Begley:In my in our practice, we come across folks who have been the victim of scams on a weekly basis. It's a very tragic thing. So being aware of that and planning accordingly can be very helpful for the individual or the family, and you haven't done the proper planning. Another result is ending up not being able to make your own decisions and having someone appointed, maybe by the state, to make your decisions for you. So the court, as a subset of the state, has the authority to appoint a guardian over an individual, and they're more likely to do that if that individual doesn't have some type of prior estate planning in place to ensure that they've already named a person that they trust to make important legal, financial, health care decisions for them.
Greg McIntyre:So, Brenton, if I want to make sure that I protect myself and I want to avoid some undue influence situations let's say, you know, I'm really not in a position to handle my own financial or legal affairs If I have a general, durable power of attorney in place that appoints my wife or my oldest son, for example, a trusted family member, a trusted person that I trust 100%, would it allow them to get in and make sure they keep an eye on things and handle those things for me?
Brenton Begley:Yeah, that's one of the you know, reasons to name somebody as a power of attorney is to ensure that you have a trusted individual who is sophisticated enough to do the job as well, you know, to be able to step into your shoes as if they were you, to make legal, financial, health care decisions to the extent that you can't Now.
Brenton Begley:Typically it happens gradually and you'll see that with families is, you know you'll have a parent, for example, losing the ability to accurately and diligently maintain finances. So you know a trusted family member may step in and assist with that. You know that may be the beginning of the you know, the downward decline of that individual. They may start to lose other types of abilities to make other types of decisions, whether it's with regard to their assets or medical decisions, whatever, and what a power of attorney allows you to do is name somebody that assists you with making those decisions, but that person would step in to the extent that you no longer have the ability to make decisions. You may retain the ability to make other decisions. So you know the power of attorney would only do what they need to do until and unless, you know, the person with dementia became totally incapacitated. Sure.
Greg McIntyre:And and also, you know, in our powers of attorney that we draft, we state, because the fear is, hey, somebody's going to bring a guardianship proceeding over me and and it might not be the guardian that's appointed by the court might not be the person that I want, it might be an attorney.
Greg McIntyre:Yeah, our general durable powers of attorney, we have the power to state that if a guardianship is, if that action is brought before the court, that the person that we would like to be the guardian would be the person that we've appointed as our agent under that power of attorney. So that's a good proactive step that we take and that you can take in your legal documents, in a general durable power of attorney. And then the North Carolina statutes actually look to that power of attorney to see who the agent is and that person is given preference in the law. So the agent under the power of attorney, right. So there's many. You know that is a really proactive step to get those foundations in place. Same thing with a healthcare power of attorney. Brent, you know, if I'm in a position where I can't make my healthcare decisions, I want to appoint someone to make those for me, the right person that's going to make decisions like I would right and that I choose and we can plan ahead and not just be subject to whatever is thrust upon us.
Greg McIntyre:If now, if I have a diagnosis of Alzheimer'sheimer's or dementia, that that doesn't mean that I stop being competent, legally competent that day right exactly yeah, so so you know, if there's an indication that that might be coming in a family, it is a really good time to be proactive and make sure that an estate plan is in place, beginning with those powers of attorney.
Brenton Begley:Yeah, and because the thing is is that the longer the time is between the diagnosis and the execution of the estate plan, the further it calls into question the mental capacity of the person who entered into that estate plan, whether it's a will, power of attorney, that sort of thing.
Brenton Begley:So you know, even with a diagnosis of dementia, you can still enter into an estate plan. Even with symptoms of dementia, you can still enter into an estate plan. However, one of the attributes of putting a solid plan in place is that hopefully that plan is never challenged by heirs after you pass away, or potential heirs or family members or interested parties. So the longer you wait after that diagnosis or having presented symptoms, the further it calls into question your ability to enter into those legal documents and you don't want those overturned. So you want to make for sure and for certain that the documents you put in place are going to be carried out if you were to pass away. So you know, that's why we recommend planning early and often Having those documents in place will ensure that the documents dispose of your assets in the way that you want them to, even if you become incompetent or incapacitated before your death.
Greg McIntyre:So the sense of urgency is to put a plan in place that is not vulnerable to being overturned, so we want to act as early as possible.
Brenton Begley:Right, right, yeah. And the concern is too, is that I mean, we really don't know how many people will be affected by, you know, alzheimer's dementia. You know that. You know the estimates say that more people than what we're seeing now are basically have latent Alzheimer's dementia and it's just a matter of time before it presents. So you know not to be a fear monger or anything like that, but my goodness, you know, a sense of urgency should be had with anybody who wants to ensure that they're protected and their assets go where they want them to, because any one of us could present with those symptoms and be affected by this horrible disease.
Greg McIntyre:So the legal prevention that we can put in place is a solid estate plan that to make sure you have the right people making your decisions. But also, brenton, you know, if I or someone in my family has a diagnosis of Alzheimer's, my real concern also is that there might need to be some type of extended or excessive care long-term care, in-home assisted living or nursing home care down the road. And how am I going to pay for that? Are my assets going to be protected? Is it going to cost everything that I've worked for my entire life, including my home? Am I going to be able to leave a legacy for my children? Am I going to be able to take care of my wife if that diagnosis is thrust upon me? Is my wife going to be in a position where she's going to be left destitute because I need 10 years of care? The body can far outlive the mind with the diagnosis of Alzheimer's.
Greg McIntyre:So there's ways that I know, as an attorney, I can do legal prevention to protect my assets and protect myself and protect my family both my spouse and my children and myself, and open myself up at the same time. It's like the hat trick, you know at the same time. For long-term care benefits. I can do all these things at the same time and I love doing this type of planning as an estate planning and elder attorney. I know you do too. Some of the tools we use, brenton, are trust, and you know different types of trust. You know. Tell us a little bit about you know how trust can help you line up your assets to be protected and open you up for long-term care. Ladybird needs too. I mean, that's a huge one for your home.
Brenton Begley:Right. So a trust, you know I mean a trust can do a lot of things. A trust is really a very multifaceted tool and the way to use it really depends on the situation. The way we draft trusts is, we try to customize it to benefit our clients based on their particular idiosyncratic situation. So, that being said, one of the main purposes of a trust is to, you know, have that thing, have assets that go into the trust, avoid probate, and also it can function to shield assets from being counted as an asset for, like, a benefit, like Medicaid or something like that. Right, so Medicaid is looking at how many assets you have. Potentially, assets that have been placed in trust could be shielded from being counted as one of those assets. And then, obviously, you know, the main goal of putting something like this in place is to protect the assets, and the trust can also protect assets from Medicaid, estate recovery or creditors that you know based on the medical debt that you incur before you pass away. So you know, let me give you one example.
Brenton Begley:One example that we provide in trust is, let's say, you know, because you mentioned about, you know, can I provide for my wife? Is she going to be destitute if I experience dementia, I die. So let's say I have a life insurance policy, some IRA, things like that. It's either in the trust or left of the trust and I die and my wife needs long term care. Maybe she has Alzheimer's dementia, you know, and she's going to be in long term care for 10 years, as you mentioned or you know.
Brenton Begley:I think the average is between four to seven years in long term care facility. That's a long time spending out a lot of money, right? So maybe I don't want to leave anything directly to her if, at the time I leave it to her, she's experiencing symptoms of Alzheimer's dementia. I could have the trust set up in such a way that you know, if she's healthy, the assets flow from me straight to her, but if there's a concern about her mental capacity, the trust could hold those assets for her benefit and shield those assets from counting as an asset that she owns for a benefit purpose, so that she can get Medicaid or some type of other benefit to help pay for that care. Trust can really do things like that and again, it's really dependent on your situation as the client coming in giving us the information. But you know, a trust as a multifaceted tool can be the difference between protecting everything and losing everything.
Greg McIntyre:Thank you, bretton. I know you know not only can we help you preventatively, but we also help families qualify for benefits to pay for in-home assisted living and nursing home care in North Carolina. We certainly are not members of the medical community, who I know are working hard to prevent diseases like Alzheimer's but we are members of the legal community and, as estate planning and elder law attorneys, what we like to call it is legal prevention. So that you don't, you stay in control of assets, you appoint the right people to handle your affairs. If you aren't able to, we protect assets, we avoid probate simultaneously, so we avoid recovery of assets from any creditor, including the state, like Medicaid or a benefit, and we help you qualify for the benefit you need to pay for long-term care.
Greg McIntyre:That's what I'm very proud of, that we do as estate planning and elder law attorneys, and it's a lot to hold, but it's a lot of fun to plan and do and it's fun to see how it benefits. It's satisfying to see how it benefits our clients. If you or your loved one is in need of planning ahead, of protecting assets, of some type of recovery, of paying for long-term care benefits, give us a call. I'd offer a free consult. You can reach us by calling 1-888-999-66600 or schedule right on our attorney's calendars online at mcelderlawcom scheduling and feel free. If you want to know more about all types of planning legal options, we have a robust blog and video blog that you can check out. Podcast.
Brenton Begley:I'm pretty sure we both wrote a book on this Books we've written, I mean we.
Brenton Begley:I mean you've interviewed experts on dementia, alzheimer's I mean Teeba Snow, I mean you have an interview in your book with her. That's very helpful to review for clients who are concerned about this sort of thing and just generally about the planning. Both of our books lay out just what these documents are, what they do, how they can benefit you, but there's nothing like the real thing, there's nothing like sitting down in front of the attorney and figuring out what you need for your situation. And again, that's that free consultation, that's that benefit of that free consultation.
Greg McIntyre:Yeah, you know, brain surgery is tough. I would not recommend doing it on yourself with planning like this. Okay, so thank you so much, brenton, for being on this special Elder Law Report to make people more aware of their legal planning and asset protection options. Alzheimer's Awareness Month Be aware, eat right, see your doctor and see your attorney, your estate planning and elder law attorney, to help protect assets. Thanks, brenton, see you.