There are assets that I call legacy assets that need a special level of protection that is not difficult to provide. What do I mean by legacy assets? I mean assets that are intended not to be sold and passed through from one generation to the next. Here are some common examples. A family farm [...]
What do you do when your loved one needs long-term care in a facility but can't afford to pay for it? Medicaid is the answer for 70% of this country's seniors. Medicaid is a means tested, federally-funded program for long-term care that is administered by the Texas Health and Human Services Commission. The most [...]
The most common will is one involving a married couple that says all to the surviving spouse and then equally to our children. Those wills have severe flaws. The first is that the surviving spouse, upon receiving the assets, has the full right to re-gift them how they wish. You might not imagine that your [...]
Pyke & Associates is a firm of elder law attorneys. But what does that mean? Unfortunately, the term elder law means different things to different people, so let me explain what we mean by that term at Pyke & Associates. Boiling this down to its simplest, Pyke & Associates does planning to transition [...]
The trauma of a major medical crisis is compounded by a lack of advanced legal and financial planning. We can wag our heads all day about someone's failure to properly plan, but we must realistically deal with the hand that is dealt to the family of someone who has failed to plan. The key decision-making [...]
In last week’s article, we introduced the concept of utilizing Medicaid to help pay for long-term care. Medicaid is a federally-funded program to provide assistance with long-term care costs to those in need. In Texas, Medicaid is administered by the Health and Human Services Commission (“HHSC”). In this article, we will focus on the most [...]
A stroke or other sudden medical events may leave a person with severely diminished capacity, including the inability to work, but they may have enough capacity to make their medical, financial, and legal decisions. The reality may be that although they have the minimal capacity to make those decisions that they need assistance. To be [...]
On January 31, 2020, the Federal Government declared a public health emergency (PHE) in response to the COVID-19 outbreak. In March 2020, Congress passed implemented a Medicaid continuous coverage requirement as part of the Families First Coronavirus Response Act (FFCRA). In exchange for an increase in federal Medicaid matching funds, states were required to keep [...]
Medicaid planning seeks to ensure that your assets provide you quality care while maximizing what you pass on to your heirs. The probability that you will need long-term care is extraordinarily high: More than half of those turning 65 will need some type of long-term care services in their lifetimes. As life expectancy continues to [...]