By Elliott Topkins, Esquire
5/12/11
In moving onto the back-nine of my career, many people has asked me, a Massachusetts real estate lawyer who also does work in estate planning, what they should be thinking about concerning elder care. In my mind, even though we are all living longer and more productive lives, people should start thinking about elder care no later than age 60. The reason for this early action is simple. The rules keep changing; and the changes are never in your favor. A few years ago, there was a 30 month “look-back” to gifts you made and trusts you established. The time period is now five years, and it might be increased.

Elder care, as we know it, involves who pays, and who has anything left. Most of us baby-boomers have paid a lot of money into the social security system for quite a long while. We are starting to get some of the money back in the form of benefits. Maybe we have accumulated other funds. Maybe we have real estate. Whatever we have, it is unlikely that our assets picture could withstand our living to be 95 or 100 years old. And, if we were placed in a facility at some point, the money would dry up very quickly, and we would need government assistance to survive.

The problem with this type of government assistance is there is always a price. Recently I have seen the price being a lien on real estate owned by the Medicaid recipient, which can effectively preclude the parent from passing on assets which he, she or they worked hard to accumulate. This is not something that any hard-working adult would wish, and there are ways that the problem can be addressed, while you are still strong, and while you have a pretty good idea of what you would like done. If you are 60 years of age, or older, and do not have a will, or a durable power of attorney, or a health care proxy, you are not doing your family any favor.

So, I ask each of you. Do you trust your children? If you do, you can do some extremely effective planning and save most of your assets for future generations. Start by consulting a lawyer or trusted financial adviser. Do not wait until you are in a hospital room or incapacitated by a stroke. Act now. If you do not trust your children, there may be other courses of action you can take such as making arrangements with a trusted financial institution, or personal financial advisor, to act as your fiduciary. Unfortunately, the clock is ticking, and every second you waste may have dire consequences.

(Mr. Topkins is an attorney with Topkins & Bevans, Braintree Executive Park, 150 Grossman Dr., Braintree, MA 02184. His blog can be found at http://realtorsresourceblog.com. His e-mail address is etopkins@topbev.com.)