As you know, I do a lot of estate planning for my clients. Proper planning can go a long way to insure your wishes are honored after you are gone.
While reading the LA Times the other day, I found an article in the Money Talk section which discussed a woman's decision to make her second husband and her sister the beneficiaries of her portion of the Trust, since she has a son from the previous marriage and wants to make sure he gets his inheritance.
In this article, it was correctly pointed out that leaving the second husband to "do the right thing" could be risky, and it would be better to set-up a Trust to receive the portion of the money she wants to leave her son. Her second husband could be the Trustee, with the legal fiduciary responsibility to put her son's interests first.
MEDI-CAL UPDATE
Thanks to the efforts of CANHR (California Advocates For Nursing Home Reform) and the Western Center On Law And Poverty, after January, 2017, there will be no Medi-Cal Estate Recovery for assets transferred into a Revocable Living Trust pursuant to a senate bill passed by Governor Brown last week. This means that previous costly strategies of creating an Irrevocable Trust and transferring assets into the Irrevocable Trust to avoid estate recovery for the most part are now unnecessary.* if you do not have a regular Revocable Living Trust, there is no time like the present to avoid Probate and Estate Recovery.
* Please note that an Irrevocable Living Trust may still be useful for the purposes of transferring assets for eligibility and if one spouse needs to rent or sell the home while the institutionalized spouse is in a nursing home.
