Blog

Where is the best place to keep your original documents? In case of emergency, it is important to have them accessible.

In the state of Pennsylvania, a pet trust is used to designate funds and any wishes on behalf of a pet.

People sometimes think estate planning is only for the older generation. But it's really something to consider at all ages. In fact, there's more than one valid reason to create an estate plan no matter how old you are. In this article, we are going to take a closer look at the estate planning ne...

I want to leave my bank accounts to my children when I'm gone. Can't I just make the children joint owners?  That idea sounds better than it actually is. Yes, you would avoid court proceedings when you pass. But you'd put yourself at risk, at a time when you might need your money yourself. Your ...

The Social Security Administration (SSA) publishes upcoming changes to its social security program every October that take effect on January 1 of the next year. These changes can make a difference in how you plan for or live during your retirement years. It is good practice to create what is know...

You might think that leaving your property to your heirs would be simple enough. You make a will or a trust, you do a transfer-on-death deed for your real estate, you put your kids on your bank account, you designate beneficiaries for your life insurance and retirement accounts, and you're done. ...

Whether you are starting from scratch or have an estate plan in place a letter of instruction (LOI) is an important part of any comprehensive plan. A letter of instruction can help your loved ones manage important information about you. A LOI conveys your desires, includes practical information a...

Mistakes can be made when it comes to inheritances and Medicaid. Those mistakes can be costly.  When a person is drawing Medicaid benefits and inherits money or property, that inheritance jeopardizes the benefits. The inheritance must be handled carefully to minimize expensive penalties. What “c...

In this Covid-19 epidemic, a wrenching question especially demands an answer: if you or someone you love is taken down into life-threatening illness, how far would you want extreme life-prolonging measures to be tried? For us who are particularly vulnerable – seniors, those with compromised immu...

You should check your estate planning documents every so often, to make sure they're still good, especially with big life changes like births, marriages, divorces, and moving to another state. Children grow up, marriages dissolve, property gets sold, residences change. That's why we recommend tha...

This is a common question we hear. Read on for information to help figure out whether you need a trust and, if so, what kind fits your specific situation. For example, maybe you have a disabled child and you want a trust to permit that child to inherit without losing government benefits. Maybe y...

For those interested in information on Medicare, understand that applying for the benefit sometimes seems like a double-edged sword. On the one hand, Medicare is obviously a good resource because it provides medical benefits to seniors who are often on a fixed income. On the other hand, however, ...

There are demographic and cultural shifts occurring in the United States with a surge of baby boomer retirement on the horizon. The baby boomer generation continues to “gray” the country and is changing the way individual states set budgets and health care policies.  More attention will be paid t...

Alzheimer's disease is becoming more prevalent among aging Americans, but you can check for the disease before symptoms emerge through a simple blood test. Alzheimer's disease has three typical biomarkers: plaques of beta-amyloid protein, tangles of tau protein, and loss of connections in the syn...

The duties of being named a property guardian include keeping careful records, taking care to keep the money separate from yours, and making sure to spend the money for their benefit only.