On the door of my new law office, it says “Estate Planning & Elder Law”. It didn’t take long for someone to ask the question, “So what is Elder Law?”
Elder Law means that we strive to serve a broad range of legal issues that affect seniors including business succession planning, estate planning, long-term care planning, Medicaid planning, and asset protection. Two examples will illustrate the type of issues that we help clients with on a day-to-day basis.
Recently I had a single client who owned an apartment building and a few other pieces of real estate. He needed a Limited Liability Company created for his real estate holdings, and then he wanted a trust to ensure that things were simple and easy for his two children. That’s more of a classic estate planning client. That’s one type of case we work on each day.
Another recent client was a husband and wife. The husband was 11 years older than the wife. Also, the husband’s family had a history of experiencing health issues about age 70. The husband’s father had required skilled nursing home care for several years and it had wiped out all of his parent’s savings except for his mom’s house. What this couple wanted, especially the husband, was a plan or strategy, so that if one of them went into a nursing home, the other would not end up broke. This is more of an elder law client. For them, we were able to use a trust as part of a strategy to protect their assets.
More and more, individuals are telling us that they want to be proactive and do what they can to protect their hard-earned assets. We can help you do that. Our clients often report how much they learned about strategies they didn’t even know existed during their initial consultation. If you would like to schedule an initial consultation, give us a call at 573-334-5125.
The Law Office of Mark McMullin – Estate Planning & Elder Law