BERGER ESTATE & ELDER LAW, P.A.

An estate plan says who looks after your affairs if you can't, and how what you own passes to the people you love. Done well, it makes things smoother for your family and can reduce taxes where an estate is large enough for them to matter.

• Wills. Name a guardian for minor children and say where your assets go. A will doesn't avoid probate and can go out of date, so bring yours in for a check-up.
• Living trusts. Keep control of your assets during your lifetime and after it, and avoid probate.
• Powers of attorney. Choose the person who handles your financial, legal or health care decisions if you can't.
• Asset protection and tax planning. Protect what you've built from lawsuits and creditors, and reduce income, gift and estate taxes.

Long-term care is one of the biggest threats to a family's savings. Careful planning, whether years ahead or in the middle of a crisis, can make sure the care is there and protect what the family has saved.

• Crisis planning. Often this starts after a hospital stay, when you're told your parent can't go home. It isn't too late to plan.
• The Medicaid application. We guide families through a complex process.
• Married couples. When one spouse needs nursing home care and the other is still at home, the rules let the at-home spouse keep part of the couple's assets and their own income.
• Planning ahead. Medicaid looks back five years at gifts and transfers, so planning early gives you the most choices.

The VA pension with Aid and Attendance helps wartime veterans and surviving spouses pay for care at home or in assisted living. It is not a disability benefit, and many families who qualify have never heard of it.

The planning matters as much as the application. Decisions made to qualify for VA benefits can affect Medicaid eligibility later, so we plan for both. Jim Berger is a Certified Financial Planner, which helps with the financial side of these cases.

When a person can no longer make or communicate safe decisions, or has become vulnerable to fraud or undue influence, a court can appoint a guardian for personal and medical decisions or a conservator for money and property.

Because these can take away important rights, we look at the alternatives first, such as powers of attorney. The right documents signed in time often mean a family never needs court at all.

Probate is a court procedure with formal rules, and it can be costly, slow and public. A trust administration usually avoids probate, but the trustee still has real duties: collecting assets, paying debts and taxes, filing returns, accounting to the beneficiaries and distributing what's left.

We guide executors and trustees through every step, so you can take care of your family without guessing at the rules.