Legacy Design Strategies
Omaha, NE, Minot, ND and Iowa Fall, IA Estate Planning and Elder Law Firm

Estate Planning and Elder Law Blog

Sort by Category:

Steps to Take as a Parent’s Condition Takes a Turn

My father only designated my mom as an agent on power of attorney forms, and they have not been updated in many years. Where do you think we should go from here?

Posted on: November 6, 2019

You Can Protect Pets after You’re Gone

For most people, pets aren’t just animals–they’re the excited ‘hello’ when we get home from a long day of work, our jogging partners, our best friends and part of the family.

Posted on: November 5, 2019

How Do I Calculate My Executor’s Fee?

My parents died five months apart. I am the executor. How is the executor fee calculated fairly?

Posted on: November 4, 2019

Planning for Care in Advance

Perhaps one of the most difficult conversations you'll have as an adult child, is talking about end of life preparations with your parent. For many seniors, this conversation is as hard as the one about having to move to a full-time care facility.

Posted on: November 1, 2019

How Can Beneficiary Designations Wreck My Estate Plan?

Beneficiary designations are a crucial part of estate planning, yet they are often overlooked. Once you have signed your estate planning documents, you need to make sure that your beneficiary designations are consistent with the rest of your estate plan.

Posted on: October 31, 2019

What Can You Tell Me About a Special Needs Trust?

If you have a loved one who deals with chronic illness or a disability of some kind, you want to be able to keep supporting them after you’re gone. However, you don’t want to disrupt their ability to collect funds from programs like Medicaid or disability payments. In these situations, you can use a special needs trust.

Posted on: October 30, 2019

How Can I Make Amendments to an Estate Plan?

Updating one’s estate planning documents involves changes to one’s trust, will and/or designation of death beneficiaries, as relevant. To be effective, such updates must be done correctly.

Posted on: October 29, 2019

What Should I Know About Medicaid?

For those who need healthcare or long-term care but lack the resources to pay for it, the United States government will provide this care for free.

Posted on: October 28, 2019

Want to add your Elderly Dad as a Co-owner of your Checking Account? You might want to think about it~

I added my 79-year-old father as a co-owner of my checking account, to speed up a one-time cash transfer he was making to me. Would keeping him on the account be a problem? Doing paperwork at the bank is about as fun as going to motor vehicles. I don’t know what would happen, if he fell victim to a scam.

Posted on: October 25, 2019