Experienced Elder and Estate Lawyers Serving the Hudson Valley Area.
As we get older, we face new and often unexpected challenges. That’s why it is so important to plan for the unexpected. Build in a safety net, if you will. As estate planning and nursing home planning attorneys in Poughkeepsie, that is what we are here to help you do. At Stenger, Glass, Hagstrom, Lindars & Iuele LLP, our Elder and Estate Law attorneys are here to help clients develop plans to take care of their medical and financial concerns for the future. With an office in Wappingers Falls and another in Poughkeepsie, we help clients throughout the Hudson Valley in the state of New York—clients just like you.
We can’t know exactly what the future holds, so it is important that we set plans for any contingency, including the likelihood that you will lead a long, full life and will need the financial stability to continuing supporting yourself. Our firm is equipped to offer a full array of elder law and estate planning options that will make sure you are covered in the event of an emergency medical concern.
Elder Law Planning
If you or a loved one is aging, hope for the best while preparing for the worst. It is possible that you or they will remain healthy and capable of caring for themselves on their own and in the comfort of their own home. However, it is also very possible that they will not. More and more people are turning to outside care these days when it comes to their elders. If you and your family decide that putting your loved one in a nursing home is the best option, you must be ready for how much it will cost you.
Nursing home care is not cheap. In the state of New York, it can cost upwards of $10,000 a month for a semi-private or private room. At this rate, you can quickly drain all of your loved one’s life savings, as well as your own. This is not where your mother, father, grandmother, grandfather, aunt or uncle intended to spend his or her hard-earned money.
Most people do not have insurance that covers this expense. It takes an attorney who knows how to strategically protect your assets and qualify for Medicaid benefits to cover the cost of long term care. Call the Elder and Estate Law attorneys at Stenger, Glass, Hagstrom, Lindars & Iuele LLP to find out how we can help you and your family as they face long term care.
Estate Planning
As you and your loved ones plan for the future, it is crucial that you create and implement an estate plan. From wills and trusts, to powers of attorney and health care directives, an estate plan can help to ensure that your wishes are followed and your rights are protected. It can also protect you from excessive taxes, maximizing what you leave behind to your loved ones.
We all have an estate, whether you know it or not. We all have things that belong to us and that have value. Have you thought about what will happen to these things when you die? If you haven’t started thinking about this, the estate planning attorneys at Stenger, Glass, Hagstrom, Lindars & Iuele LLP can help.
When it comes to planning for the future, you need to think about the following things: your possessions, the people in your life, and decision-making capacity. This is oversimplified, but it can help you to begin to organize your thoughts. There are many questions that need to be considered in order to ensure that these three things will be taken care of when you cannot be here to take care of them.
- Your possessions
Your estate is comprised of everything that you own. Perhaps you own a home; this property is known as real property. Even if you don’t own a home, however, you still have personal property that is part of your estate. Anything that is not real estate is considered personal property. Right now, you are the owner and caregiver of these things. However, keep in mind that one of these days you will no longer be around to take care of them. What do you want to happen to them?
- The people in your life
There are other things that you should be thinking about as well, like the people in your life. If you have children under the age of 18, what will happen to them if you are incapacitated and unable to care for them? What are their special needs that should be taken into account? For instance, does your child have a disease or disability that will require specialized care and attention? These are the kinds of questions that only an experienced estate planning attorney can know to ask.
- Decision-making capacity
In addition to your assets and the people in your life, you need to appoint someone to make both financial and medical decisions on your behalf when you can no longer do so. You can do what you can to make as many decisions as possible before it is too late, but it is critical that you give someone else the legal right to make decisions that involve you and your affairs.
It’s true that there are many do-it-yourself tools out there that walk you through the process, but they miss the mark in many ways. Each person has his or her own set of unique complications that must be factored into the equation when determining which estate planning option is right. The elder law attorneys at Stenger, Glass, Hagstrom, Lindars & Iuele LLP will look at your situation as a whole and ask you the appropriate questions to help pinpoint exactly what is best for you, so that you don’t pass on your complications to your heirs.