The U.S. Department of Justice has recently prosecuted defendants across the country related to a Jamaican lottery scam. In a recent webinar discussing elder financial abuse, a lawyer with the DOJ stressed that effective schemes do not work if they sound to go to be...
When caregivers were surveyed, they reported that 37 percent of the seniors they worked with had fallen prey to financial schemes. Another frequently cited statistic is equally disturbing: only one in 44 cases of financial exploitation is reported. Because reporting...
Cracking down on fraudulent schemes that target older Americans is the goal of bipartisan legislation recently introduced by U.S. Senators Amy Klobuchar and Susan Collins. The Senior Fraud Prevention Act would help educate seniors and improve monitoring.This post is...
For many couples in retirement, their main asset is their home. Frequently the property is jointly owned and the property smoothly transfers to a wife at the death of her husband or vice versa.But what is the best way to transfer the property to the next generation?...
In our last post, we discussed some of the important things that an estate plan can do for you, and why you really need one. This time, we’ll touch on five more reasons why an estate plan is vital for everyone. As a quick recap, our last post dealt with...
Sadly, estate planning is one of those things that even people with good intentions may put off until “tomorrow,” only to never have the opportunity to revisit it before tragedy strikes. Without estate planning, you could lose out on the priceless opportunity to...
Obviously, the property-specific aspects of estate planning are very important. Thoughtful and knowing use of wills, trusts, lifetime gifts and charitable bequests will serve to protect your legacy and pass as much of your assets as possible down to your...
In this day and age, in addition to having a “real life,” anyone who regularly takes advantage of the internet also has a separate but sometimes almost equally important digital community. For example, thanks to advances in electronic communication,...
The Kaiser Family Foundation has estimated that approximately 60 percent of adults over 65 have advance medical directives. While it is a good idea for all adults to have these documents, what happens if they cannot be accessed quickly? A California pilot project is a...
Whether you are considering who to appoint as a trustee or you have recently accepted an appointment, you need to know what the role entails. The basics are to manage, preserve and administer assets on behalf of another person. In some cases, it may make sense to...
