Quick. You or your senior loved one is running a fever, coughing and struggling to breathe. You suspect COVID-19 and a full-blown medical emergency starts to unfold. Medical professionals will need to quickly know the patient’s health conditions, medications, healthcare providers and emergency contacts.
Are you ready?
The Centers for Disease (CDC) recommends developing a Care Plan now as part of your emergency preparedness.
What is a Care Plan?
A care plan is a document that summarizes a person’s health conditions and current treatments for their care. The CDC offers a handy form you can use, Complete Care Plan. This is a fill-able form you can complete on your computer or print and complete by hand.
How Do You Develop a Care Plan?
The CDC offers these tips
Start a conversation about care planning with the person you take care of.
Talk to the doctor of the person you care for or another health care provider.
Ask about what care options are relevant to the person you care for.
Discuss any needs you have as a caregiver.
And remember, care plans can reduce emergency room visits, hospitalizations, and improve overall medical management, especially during a medical emergency.
Several coronavirus scams are surfacing which will affect seniors most of all. Here are some scams to watch out for and reliable sources for information.
Maryland U.S. Attorney Robert K. Hur is “encouraging all Marylanders to be aware of individuals attempting to profit from the coronavirus pandemic,” reported Marcia Murphy, a USAO spokeswoman. The Cecil Whig’s recent article entitled “Maryland U.S. attorney warns of COVID-19 scams; Cecil County remains vigilant” cautions that coronavirus scams are being uncovered around the country.
Scammers have been sending e-mails to people claiming to be from local hospitals offering coronavirus vaccines for a fee. However, no vaccine is currently available for the coronavirus. Some of these criminals are using websites that appear to be legitimate but are actually fake websites that infect the users’ computers with harmful malware or seek personal information that can be later used to commit fraud. Many of these coronavirus scams prey on the most vulnerable, especially the elderly.
Effected individuals need to contact the police if they think someone has targeted them for a scam and to educate themselves on the COVID-19-related scams by checking official government websites, like the CDC.gov for information. Many governmental groups, including at the state and local levels, are also hosting coronavirus information pages. For example, Harris County, Texas has provided a public health page with information about the virus and resources for assistance. http://publichealth.harriscountytx.gov/Resources/2019-Novel-Coronavirus
Individuals need to scrutinize anyone who makes a contact with them about a COVID-19 vaccine—which does not exist—and to report any such interaction to law enforcement.
Late last week, U.S. Attorney General William P. Barr sent a memo to all U.S. Attorneys, in which he made the investigation of these coronavirus scams and the individuals perpetrating them a priority. Therefore, federal, state and local law enforcement agencies are prepared to investigate these frauds.
The Federal Trade Commission has consumer information about coronavirus scams on its website, including a complaint form to report scammers. Elderly victims can also call the newly launched Elder Fraud Hotline at 833-FRAUD-11 (833-372-8311), if they believe they are victims of coronavirus scams—or any other type of fraud.
In addition to selling bogus cures and infecting computers by using COVID-19-related communications, other examples of coronavirus scams include:
Phishing emails from entities posing as the World Health Organization or the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention
Those asking for donations for fraudulently, illegitimate, or non-existent charitable organizations; and
Scammers posing as doctors, who ask for patient information for COVID-19 testing and then use that information to fraudulently bill for other tests and procedures.
Barr asked the public to report suspected fraud schemes related to COVID-19, by calling the National Center for Disaster Fraud (NCDF) hotline (1-866-720-5721) or by e-mailing the NCDF at disaster@leo.gov.
There are ways to remove your house from your trust, but work with an estate planning attorney to do so while preserving the trust benefits!
Occasionally clients ask for assistance in removing their house from their trust. They do so to facilitate refinancing the house, the client wants to add a relative to the title, to ensure the home is considered a residence for Medicaid purposes or some other similar issue. There are a number of issues to consider before doing so as the recent nj.com article entitled “I want to revoke a trust on my house. What do I do?” points out. Whether it is a good idea to remove your home from your trust and actually doing so will require the assistance of an experienced estate planning attorney.
The answer to a question about how to get a house out of your trust is going to be in the trust terms themselves. However, if the terms of the trust are silent, the answer may be found in the trust laws in the state statutes. If answering the question in general terms, the primary concern is whether the trust is revocable or irrevocable.
The first step is to determine whether the trust is revocable. Most clients use revocable trusts, so assuming it is a revocable trust, the trustor (person who set up the trust) has the right to remove the house from the trust. The trustee (probably the same person) can execute a deed conveying the property from the trust to the trustor. That takes the property out of the trust.
In the majority of cases, this will solve the problem. Also, if the property was removed to refinance, you can safely convey it back to the trust once the refinance is done. Similarly, if a client wants to add someone to title to change where the property goes at death, it is often better to just change the trust terms to leave the residence to the beneficiary. This is often better for taxes as well.
If the trust is irrevocable, it means that the house can’t be removed from the trust unless the terms of the trust permit it. There are exceptions, such as asking a Court’s permission to revoke the trust or remove the property, or in some cases, terminating the trust with agreement of the trustee and beneficiaries, but these are more difficult options and not guaranteed.
Next, let’s look at the reason why the home was initially put in a trust. It is important to keep these ideas in mind as removing the property from the trust may negate important benefits. See here for the benefits https://galligan-law.com/category/trusts/page/6/ There may be alternatives which accomplish the same goals as well.
If the purpose was to lower estate taxes, it may make sense to remove the house from the trust. This is especially the case if the property is in a state that doesn’t have state estate taxes. Very few states still do. An estate rarely meets the threshold for federal estate taxes, so clients actually save taxes by removing the property from trust.
If the property is owned by an irrevocable trust for asset protection in long-term care planning, it might make sense to keep the property in the trust. However, if you are using a revocable trust and want to consider asset protection in long-term care planning, it is often better to keep the property in your name. This is because Medicaid may exempt your residence if you own it personally. In our office, we prepare “Lady Bird deeds” for Texas residences which allow a client to own the residence personally, and transfer it to the trust automatically when they pass away. This works with both asset protection planning and probate planning.
If the trust owned the property for probate avoidance, the property often will be put back into the trust or conveyed at death to the trust such as with the Lady Bird deed.
In sum, there are some reasons to remove property from a trust, but doing so should always involve an experienced estate planning to preserve the benefits of the trust and to ensure your goals are met.
