Products/Services

Asset Protection & Business Planning

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Many people do not think of asset protection and business planning as part of creating an estate plan, but many of the documents are the same type. Certain types of trusts and other estate plan documents keep people who want to sue you out of your pocket. These trusts also keep creditors away from your estate. During your lifetime, these trusts and estate plan documents, properly drafted, protect your investments. After your death, the trusts continue protecting your investments for your heirs.

Elder Law and Medicaid Services

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Confused about Medicaid? You’re not alone! The complexity surrounding this constantly changing area of the law can sometimes feel overwhelming… it doesn’t need to be.

Caring for the elderly and ensuring their assets are protected are some of the primary services offered by our law firm.

WHAT IS ELDER LAW?

Elder Law involves planning for the complex health care, long-term care, and other issues facing elderly and disabled individuals and their families. Studies show that we stand a 40 percent chance of needing long-term care at least once before we die. Therefore, everyone should take into account that at some point residency in a nursing home or an assisted living facility may be needed.

However, the substantial cost of nursing home care for an incapacitated person can wipe away a family’s nest egg and the inheritance planned for surviving family members. The primary alternative to privately paying the nursing home is Medicaid.

Estate Planning Services

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Estate planning is the creation of a definite plan for managing your wealth while you’re alive and distributing it after your death. These assets may be owned by you separately or jointly with others.

Estate planning is the preservation and the distribution of your assets, both during your life and upon your death. It is accomplishing your personal and family goals and easing the management of your financial and legal affairs, as well as minimizing taxes if your estate is large enough for taxes to be of concern. When we talk about an estate, we mean all assets of any value that you own, including real property, business interests, investments, insurance proceeds, personal property and even your personal effects. An “estate plan,” generally, refers to the means by which your estate is passed on to your loved ones on your death. Estate planning can be accomplished through a variety of methods, including:

Revocable Living Trusts
Last Will and Testament / Probate
Lifetime Gifting
Joint Ownership
Beneficiary Designations
Life Estates
Problems often arise when people don’t coordinate all of these methods of passing on their estate. If you have a well-drafted estate plan in place, you will ensure that your estate passes to whom you want, when you want, and is carried out in the manner you’ve chosen. You can rest assured that your family won’t have to endure the public process and costly matter of probate. The government won’t be able to take what you’ve spent a lifetime building. But you need to be aware of the many options that exist in estate planning – and you must choose your estate planning attorney wisely.

We offer a wealth of free information and free estate planning seminars in our area. Read our Estate Planning Articles or join us for a free Estate Planning Seminar.

LGBT Estate Planning

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Will you be shut out when your partner really needs you? Without proper planning, you may be.

If a member of the LGBT community fails to properly plan, the result can be devastating to his or her partner and family. Having no estate plan, or relying upon a Will, Joint Tenancy, or Tenancy in Common as an estate plan, is tantamount to giving up control of one’s estate and management of one’s well-being in times of incapacity.

This need for an estate plan is critical in case of an accident or illness that renders the partner incapable of making decisions or managing his or her affairs. Without a proper estate plan, the other partner could be legally precluded from having any role in the decision-making of his or her partner’s care, managing his or her affairs, or even having access to the incapacitated partner.

Incapacity Planning

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Incapacity planning is a broad area of law that covers how you are cared for if you become physically or mentally unable to care for yourself. The type of care could range from simple tasks like buying groceries, paying bills, and handling financial matters to more important decisions such as selling real estate, gifting assets to your children, or making critical medical decisions.
Depending on the needs of the individual or family, incapacity planning could include a number of planning techniques such as Property Powers of Attorney, Health Care Powers of Attorney, Living Wills or Advance Health Care Directives or Guardianships/Conservatorships.

WHAT IS A GUARDIANSHIP OR CONSERVATORSHIP?

Guardianship, also known as Conservatorship, is a court-supervised proceeding which names an individual or entity to manage the affairs of an incapacitated person. A Guardianship may also include the duty to care for the incapacitated person.

Our law firm helps clients create a plan to handle their affairs in the event they become disabled, thereby avoiding the necessity of a public Guardianship proceeding.

Special Needs Planning

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Families who have a family member with a disability must plan for the future very carefully. How assets are left after your death can have a tremendous impact on the quality of life for that person. In the past, a Will may have been enough, but times have changed. To protect a person with special needs, a well-defined estate plan is vital.

HOW A SPECIAL NEEDS TRUST WORKS

A Special Needs Trust allows a parent, grandparent or guardian to provide funds for a disabled child without disrupting the child’s eligibility for government aid. Setting one up is a fairly simple process. Important points to remember while investigating the use of this estate planning tool are:

Decide on an appropriate guardian for your child
Determine who would be a suitable Trustee(s) to manage the Trust’s assets and supervise your child’s finances
Outline instructions for your child’s education, housing, personal and emotional needs
Our law firm helps families address the financial, legal and social aspects of a person’s life to develop an effective plan for the future. Our goal is to ensure that their needs are met and that they have the opportunity to expand their horizons and follow their dreams.

Pet Planning

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WHAT WILL HAPPEN TO YOUR PET WHEN YOU’RE NO LONGER AROUND?

When it comes to protecting your pet, no one does it better than you do.

You love them…
You feed them…
You make sure they have everything they need to live a happy, healthy life.

But what would happen if you were no longer around? Who would care for your pet? Would your friends and family know what foods to feed or what medications to give?

How can you ensure that your pet continues to receive the love and care they need?

WHAT A PET TRUST CAN DO FOR YOU AND YOUR PET

A Pet Trust is a powerful legal document that gives you the ability to not only set aside funds for your pet’s future care but also stipulate exactly what kind of care you expect your pet to receive.

Complete control over every aspect of your pet’s future care
Stipulate their foods, their schedules, even their veterinarian
Revocable, so you can change and amend your trust at any time
Designate a separate trustee to oversee the funds and create a “checks and balances” system within your trust
Can be activated if you become disabled or incapacitated (a Will can’t do that)
And because a Pet Trust is fully enforceable by the courts, you can rest easy knowing that your pet’s well-being will always be safe.

IS MY PET REALLY AT RISK?

According to animal welfare organization “2nd Chance 4 Pets,” over 500,000 pets are abandoned each year due to the death or disability of their human companions. That’s 500,000 too many. What’s worse is that those pets could have been protected with just a little planning. Think about it: what will happen to your pet if you become disabled? What if you’re no longer able to speak for yourself? How will the courts know what to do with your pet? And how can you make sure that your beloved animal doesn’t end up in a shelter somewhere or worse, alone on the streets? Because sadly, that happens all the time.

With a Pet Trust, you can prevent your pet from becoming another statistic. Give us a

IRA & Retirement Planning

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RETIREMENT PLANS AND ESTATE PLANNING

At first glance, the concept of Individual Retirement Accounts (IRA), 401(k)’s and other retirement plans seems simple enough: A structured way to save for your golden years while deferring taxes on your growing nest egg. Unfortunately, that simple idea becomes one of the most complex areas of estate planning once IRS rules are applied.

MAXIMIZING THE VALUE OF YOUR RETIREMENT ASSETS

To ensure you are protected, an estate planning attorney must consider tax reduction techniques as they apply to your individual situation, and interpret complicated income tax rules and IRS regulations. Fortunately, our estate planning attorneys immerse themselves daily in the questions and concerns that IRA investors face in planning their estates.

6 STEPS TO BEGIN PLANNING

As you take steps to organize your affairs, decisions must be made concerning which family members are intended to benefit from the estate plan, which include your IRA and other retirement assets. Each choice you make may have important tax consequences. Consider these steps as you start to plan:

Survey your assets: Such as investments, savings, retirement plans, real estate, life insurance, annuities, businesses, other personal assets, etc.
List key contacts/relationships: Such as estate planning attorney, financial advisor and CPA to use for yourself and your family
Organize important papers: Will, Trust, deeds, beneficiary designations, life insurance policies and account statements
Estimate what you’ll need: To ensure financial security during your lifetime
Define your goals: Such as providing for your spouse, children, grandchildren, charitable donations, etc.
Get professional guidance: From an estate planning attorney, financial advisor and CPA

Legacy Planning

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The best things in life aren’t things. Such a simple statement, but it holds so much meaning and intent. We know there is value in our financial assets, but more importantly, there is even greater value in our family treasures like family history, morals, beliefs and heirlooms. These treasured assets are the ones that are most often overlooked in traditional estate planning.

Legacy Planning is a more holistic approach to estate planning. It is the creation of a definitive plan for managing your total wealth while you’re alive, distributing your estate how you choose after your death, and a clear plan to pass on your legacy. Your estate includes all assets of any value that you own. This includes non-financial assets as well as financial assets, including real property, business interests, investments, insurance proceeds, retirement accounts and personal property. Your legacy also includes important decisions that ensure your family’s core values, responsible behaviors and community involvement, are passed on to future generations. Keep in mind, your legacy also includes personal effects, such as family heirlooms, stories, and accumulated wisdom and life lessons of your family.

We offer a wealth of free information and free estate planning seminars in our area. Read our Estate Planning Articles or join us for a free Estate Planning Seminar.

We want you to feel confident about the choices you make – let us be your guide on the path toward preserving your family’s future.

Trust Administration & Probate

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If your family has experienced the loss of a family member, our law firm can assist you with the legal process that occurs when a loved one passes away. Our law firm strongly believes that a wisely drafted, carefully executed estate plan is the critical component of a family’s wealth management. Our firm’s guiding principle is to provide families with quality Trust Administration and Probate services tailored to each client’s specific needs and goals.

We offer free, no obligation consultations for any family who has experienced the loss of a loved one.

STEPS TO TAKE WITH A WILL

If your loved one had a Will, the family will go through a process called Probate. This checklist outlines the steps to take when a loved one passes away with a Will.

STEPS TO TAKE WITH A LIVING TRUST

If your loved one had a Living Trust, the family will go through a process called Trust Administration. This checklist outlines the steps to take when a loved passes away with a Trust.

IMPORTANT NOTE:

Do not retitle any assets before speaking with a qualified estate planning attorney. That meeting should take place approximately two weeks after your loved one has passed.

Veterans Affair

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JOHN R. VERMILLION and JENNIFER C. VERMILLION have each received accreditation by the Department of Veterans Affairs (“VA”) to prepare, present and prosecute claims for veterans before the VA. Accreditation refers to the authority granted by the VA to those attorneys who meet the standards established by the VA. The privilege of accreditation carries with it the responsibility to maintain specified standards of conduct and comply with the laws that govern VA representations, as set forth in the United States Code and the Code of Federal Regulations. According to federal law, attorneys who do not receive VA accreditation are prohibited from assisting claimants in the preparation, presentation and prosecution of VA claims, regardless of whether or not the attorney charges legal fees for those services. Unaccredited attorneys may only provide limited services to veterans, such as providing general information about VA benefits, and may not assist veterans in the preparation, presentation, and prosecution of their claims. The VA accreditation system is designed to ensure that lawyers who represent VA claimants have a thorough understanding of the VA health and benefit systems, so that they may provide quality assistance in the preparation, presentation and prosecution of those claims.