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Question: My mother has an irrevocable trust she set up for Medicaid planning purposes. My sister is the trustee and she is paying moms bills from the trust. Is that correct?

Question: Several years ago, I went to a lawyer who convinced me to do a trust. Now, I am not so sure that it was the right thing for me. Am I able to revoke a trust? Should I revoke my trust?

The Setting Every Community Up for Retirement Enhancement (“SECURE”) Act became effective on January 1, 2020. While the Act was aimed at improving retirement savings, there is a negative change which effects those who inherit retirement accounts from the original participant.

Examples of Trusts Commissions

Medicaid Asset Protection Trusts, sometimes called Irrevocable “Income Only” Trusts or Medicaid Trusts, are used to protect assets and allow people to qualify for Medicaid long-term care. In order to protect the assets, the trust must be created 2.5 years before home care Medicaid is needed or 5 years before nursing home care is needed.

In order for an Irrevocable Medicaid Trust to be considered “exempt” for Medicaid purposes, it must provide that no principal distributions can be made to the grantor. This requirement ensures that the recipient did need Medicaid to cover the cost of her long term care, whether at home or in a nursing home facility. If the terms permitted distributions to the grantor or the trust was revocable, Medicaid would consider all assets in the trust as “available.” So using any money in the Trust for an assisted living facility is forbidden.

A common misconception in the arena of Estate Planning is that trusts are only for people with large amounts of money, trying to avoid taxes. It is first important to understand that there are many different types of trusts, each serving a different purpose.

Question: My mother has a trust that protects her house in case she needs long term care in a nursing home. Is this legal? Also, when she dies the trust is paid to another trust for me. Do I need this? I am only 53 and my mother is 75.

As Elder Law Attorneys, we focus on Medicaid planning for our clients in order to have access to long-term care. It is equally as important to ensure that their beneficiaries will have access to government programs and not be disqualified by the fact that they received an inheritance.

For a traditional married couple, the estate planning has become simpler in many ways. Before the estate tax was increased on both the State and Federal level, we were fixated on saving estate taxes.