In Georgia, probate is the legal process of transferring assets from a deceased person to their heirs. It can be stressful, costly, and can take months or even years to complete. Probate is also used to ensure a decedent's outstanding debt is paid to creditors and that assets are distributed ac...

Conversations about death and dying are rarely fun. Most people avoid them because they invoke feelings about our inevitable demise. Broaching this subject can be particularly difficult for parents and their adult children. Adult children may avoid bringing up the topic because they do not want...

Creating an estate plan can be overwhelming. One of the most significant decisions you will have to make is choosing who will serve as your successor Trustee. This needs to be a person you explicitly trust with your financial and personal information in life and death. Marietta estate lawyers...

If you have already done your estate planning, you have taken a significant step toward ensuring that your loved ones will know how to manage your affairs if you become incapacitated or die. However, simply having a will or a trust and related estate planning documents is often not enough. A ...

National Healthcare Decisions Day is on April 16th, and it's an important reminder for every adult to begin having difficult conversations with loved ones about their most private wishes for medical and end-of-life care. These critical conversations include letting someone know your thoughts and...

You may be afraid of losing your home if you have to enter a nursing home and apply for Medicaid. While this fear is well-founded, transferring the home to your children is usually not the best way to protect it. Although you generally do not have to sell your home in order to qualify for Medi...

A trust, in general terms, is nothing but a set of instructions that a Trustmaker gives to a Trustee who agrees to carry out those instructions. A trust may be revocable or irrevocable. A Medicaid Asset Protection Trust is irrevocable but irrevocability does not mean inflexible. After you creat...

A serious health diagnosis can force some tasks – especially ones you've been putting off – to the top of the priority list. Marietta will lawyers know that estate planning is one of these tasks that's often left for another day, as people don't like to think about sickness or death when they a...

Almost all adult children will need to decide what to do with their parents' home, either after their parents have moved into a nursing home or have passed away. Usually, the children will sell the home and use the assets from the sale to pay for the nursing home or distribute the assets to t...

One of the most frequently asked questions  Marietta elder lawyers receive is, “When should we start planning for long-term care?” The short answer is, “Long before you need it!” When it comes to your home, your health, and your finances, you want to be in the driver's seat. That is why it is ...

Asset protection strategies help keep your money out of the hands of nursing homes, litigators, and other financial predators. Keep reading to learn about five of the best asset protection strategies to help you keep your money right where it is. Create an Irrevocable Trust Experienced Mariett...

Larry King passed away in January due to complications with COVID-19. At the time, he was in the middle of a divorce from his seventh wife, Shawn. His net worth is estimated to be some $144 million. Shawn has been adamant that the pair have had an estate plan in place for many years. However, l...

Unfortunately, people don't stay young and healthy forever. While no one likes to think about growing old, getting sick, becoming disabled, or even incapacitated, it's incredibly important to plan ahead for the possibility. Ask yourself: If you become incapacitated, who will have the legal a...

The benefits of a highly detailed, comprehensive power of attorney are numerous. Unfortunately, many powers of attorney are more general in nature and can actually cause more problems than they solve, especially for our senior population. This blog post highlights the benefits of a comprehensiv...

The advent of the coronavirus pandemic forces each individual to assess their values and priorities, and overall health. The little COVID-19 clinical information relating to treatment options and likely outcomes based on personal health history should lead all of us to the same conclusion; hope...

As we close out 2020 in hopes of a better 2021, Marietta estate planning lawyers are encouraging their clients to reflect on legal changes that may have gone overlooked in the past year. Last January, the Setting Every Community Up for Retirement Enhancement (SECURE) Act was rolling out. The...

Nothing lasts forever. Your smiling baby becomes a child who becomes an adult. You change too. You won't always be there for your child with special needs. You may already have a Special Needs Trust in Cobb County, but it's important to continue to review your trust to ensure that it still ...

If you're concerned that you or a loved one could become seriously ill or even worse due to the novel coronavirus, you're not alone. As we all collectively wait for the mass release of a vaccine, setting up an estate plan, or reviewing an older plan is an important step in making sure that you ...

I hope this blog post finds you well and excited for a new year. 2020 has been challenging (to say the least), and I'm looking forward to taking some much-needed time off over the holidays to decompress a little.  I'm also planning to spend some time organizing my year-end financials and set...

It's been quite the year, huh? Since COVID-19 took center stage, families with seniors have been scrambling to find ways to connect with their loved ones. And now, the holidays are upon us. What we really want to do is have a big family celebration where we can all cuddle up and drink hot cocoa...

This year is quickly coming to a close. For many of us, December 31 cannot come soon enough, as 2020 has been anything but a walk in the park. The first quarter of 2020 brought a worldwide pandemic. Not only did this raise concerns about everyone's health and safety, but it also fundamentally ...

As COVID-19 continues its rampant spread among nursing home residents and staff, valuable and accurate data pinpointing areas of concern is often rife with haphazard data collection providing skewed information. The most recent Kaiser Family Foundation data analysis indicates that federal polic...

Medicaid is a joint federal and state program available to individuals who meet certain asset requirements that help them pay for long-term care (LTC) costs. Long-term care often creates devastating financial impacts on Americans, particularly the elderly, and for those family members who lose ...

One of the most difficult decisions that parents of minor children have to make when creating their estate plans is choosing the person(s) they would want to raise their children if they were incapacitated or suddenly passed away.  In our office, we often find that the conversation starts with...

Let's be honest: a major obstacle to proper estate planning for many people is the cost. Sometimes it's hard to see how estate planning can save money, time, and headaches in the future when there's a significant price tag in the present. That's why Marietta estate planning lawyers want to le...