Illinois Elder Attorney Blog

by Tom Olofsson, Attorney at Law, www.MyTrustLawyer.com (773) 905-1193

An elder attorney works in the area of Elder Law. elder law is a broad category of legal practice. It includes many of the issues that are important to Seniors and to their families.

It touches upon several areas and combines them into a unified approach to the way a Senior interacts with his or her family, estate, government programs, with medical care providers, and with his or her community.

The main areas that we explore with our Senior clients include:

• Power of Attorney
• Last Will and Testament
• Living Trust
• Guardianship for Disabled Persons
  
• Nursing Home Questions and Problems
  
• Elder Abuse and Neglect
• Medicaid Planning Protecting wealth and property from high nursing home bills
  
• Preparing for Incapacity
• Passing Wealth and Property to children and loved ones

by Tom Olofsson, Attorney at Law, www.MyTrustLawyer.com (773) 905-1193

I met with a very nice woman today. She is very worried about her future.

She told me that a family member had moved in with her to help with her ill husband. She was very happy to have the help and was so grateful that she had decided to leave her home to the helpful family member when she died.

She has since changed her mind about the gift. It turns out that the helpful famiiy member has helped herself to the nice lady’s assets.

A power of attorney was signed which gave the helpful family member the authority to go help the nice lady when she could not make it to the bank.

The nice lady’s husband died a couple of months later. The nice lady turned over a life insurance policy to pay for his funeral. The life insurance company called the nice lady to tell her that there was a problem.

The helpful family member had changed the beneficiary on the insurance policy on the life of the husband who had just passed away. After a little more investigation the nice lady found that the helpful family member had also cashed in an annuity contract.

The total stolen to this point is about $101,000.

Please consult an attorney before you sign papers which you do not fully understand or about which you have questions

Looking for housing for yourself or a family member can be a tedious process. The details can be hard to sort through and can lead to information overload can lead to snap decisions made more from fatigue than because the perfect fit has been found.

The National Association of elder law Attorneys (NAELA) helps seniors find housing quickly and easily. This is no magic bullet but it makes the work much easier.

The new tool, available at www.naela.org , helps elders and their families search through over 60,000 senior housing communities, including all of the licensed senior housing facilities. Seniors can search by location (city, county, ZIP code) facility name, special services, and payment options.

The NAELA Senior Housing Locator makes it easy to sort through the 247 different senior housing license types. The Locator also provides a simple way to review nursing home and rehab community inspection reports. There are also links to the nursing home comparison pages on medicare.gov.

This new search tool really streamlines the process of narrowing down housing choices.

Tom Olofsson, Attorney at Law, www.MyTrustLawyer.com (773) 905-1193