Proper estate planning addresses many of life’s surprises. For example, if your child is born with significant disabilities, you can protect and provide for the them after you’re gone through estate planning.
Sometimes when people enter their senior years, they need assisted living or nursing home care. If such care becomes necessary, financial hardships often arise, leaving seniors struggling to protect their assets.
What can happen to your assets?
Your assets will likely begin to shrink at an alarming rate if you have not addressed long-term care in your estate plan. Many nursing home residents discover they must sell their homes and other property to cover the enormous costs of such care. Unfortunately, this leaves little for your heirs and beneficiaries upon your death.
Two tactics to consider
If you haven’t already, it is time to talk with an estate planning professional about addressing the possible need for long-term care. Together, you can prepare for this possibility and preserve your assets simultaneously. Two strategies that can help include.
Spend down assets: Pre-paying your end-of-life expenses eases the burden on your family and helps you qualify for programs like Medicaid. For example, paying your funeral and burial expenses in advance may change your Medicaid eligibility status to ensure you get federal help paying for long-term care.
Irrevocable trust: Transferring assets into an irrevocable trust effectively severs your ownership of the property. In turn, the transferred property may not be counted when calculating your financial eligibility for Medicaid or other programs.
These are just two of many ways to address long-term care when making decisions about your estate. Consider learning more about estate planning in Maryland to find additional ways to preserve your assets and protect your family.