You've all heard the stories of people losing their family homes when a person on Medi-Cal dies.  They're true.  Medi-Cal can take your family's home if an owner of the home was a Medi-Cal recipient.  In fact, you are required to report the death of anyone who was a Medi-Cal recipient just so that they can decide if they are going to go after their assets or not.

When you send the notice to the Department of Healthcare Services, they will respond with a claim for repayment of all the payments they made after the Medi-Cal recipient turned 55 years old.  This claim will be asserted against any assets the recipient owned when he died whether they are in a revocable living trust, a probate, an IRA or most other forms of ownership.

There are some limitations.  Medi-Cal will not take the home while a spouse is still alive.  In that situation, Medi-Cal will take the home when the surviving spouse dies.  Now if the family is survived by a minor, blind or disabled child, Medi-Cal will not take the home at all.  Finally, Medi-Cal cannot take the home if it has been properly transferred into a Medi-Cal House Trust.

With the Medi-Cal House Trust, the elder retains the right to live in the house for as long as he is able but the rest of the interest in the house is transferred to the beneficiaries of the trust (usually the children).  A successful Medi-Cal House Trust ensures that the beneficiaries get a step-up in capital gains basis, that the house is not subject to estate tax, that the elder never has to move against his wishes and that Medi-Cal can make no claim against the property.

P.S. For those loyal readers who are interested, I'm delighted to announce my engagement to Bennett Braverman, another estate planning attorney.

"The Social Security Administration has unveiled an online calculator that will project your Social Security benefits based on your actual work record. The agency has other online calculators and every year mails benefit estimates to adult workers. But this latest calculator goes further than these, allowing you to quickly run various scenarios based on earning projections and differing retirement ages. "I'm impressed. It's a wonderful tool. It brings some clarity to one of the key sources of income for people in retirement," says Stuart Ritter, a T. Rowe Price Associates financial planner who tried the calculator yesterday. "Knowing more about your Social Security benefits will help you plan better for what you need to be saving." Find the Retirement Estimator on the agency's home page at www.ssa.gov."

Source: NAELA e-bulletin and Baltimore Sun.  For the full story go to:   http://www.baltimoresun.com/business/investing/bal-bz.ym.ambrose22jul22,0,4246352.column
To go to the calculator: http://ssa.gov/estimator/

While involved in a chain-reaction freeway accident, a vehicle lost control, vaulted over the center median barrier, and landed on top of plaintiff's vehicle, resulting in traumatic brain injury.

Verdict: $22,566,373

Spilled coffee caused a driver to swerve across the centerline and collide head-on with a car that then rolled over, leaving the 48-year old driver with devastating injuries.

Verdict: $16,789,835 

Source: California Bar Journal

One of the most powerful tools in the landlord's asset protection kit is the Limited Liability Company.  Unlike insurance, LLCs have no exclusions for mold or other types of liability.

Recently, Los Angeles County courts awarded another large mold verdict.  Here's the verdict as reported in the California Bar Journal:

"Water Damage

Verdict: $859,478

Water damage from a leaking bathtub forced a neighboring tenant from his unit during mold and asbestos remediation..." 

Creating an estate plan is a very personal matter, and is usually done privately, with your attorney and with your partner, if you have one. However, there are some circumstances under which estate planning should be a family affair-perhaps even a multigenerational one.

Sean Condon writes about when it might be appropriate to include the whole family in the estate planning process in his article Estate Planning Can Be A Multigenerational Matter. Condon's article mentions specific situations in which families would want to consider planning as a whole unit, including the following:

Planning for succession within a family business.

When multiple generations of families own property together.

If the family is responsible for significant debt.

If a family has a history of supporting certain charitable foundations and desires to continue doing so.

To provide for family members who live out of the country.

To make provisions for a non-traditional family situation, such as unmarried partners.

In many situations, you won't have to choose between an estate plan that is private and one for your extended family. There are many ways to create individual estate plans for each nuclear family while still respecting and arranging for matters that affect the extended family as a whole. Of course, the process is easier if each nuclear family is able to work with the same attorney, but it is certainly not necessary as long as each attorney and family is willing to communicate and act together.

If you aren't sure if you should plan privately for your family or include your whole multigenerational unit in the process, give our office a call. We can help you look down the road ahead and create a plan of action that will make every member of your family feel secure.

- Voltaire (1694-1778)

- Steve Martin

--Jorge Luis Borges (1899-1986)

We all know the importance of annual check-ups. We have our yearly visits to the doctor and dentist, we review our finances at least once a year during tax season, we even take stock of our closets during spring cleaning! To everything there is a season, and your estate plan deserves no less.

Many people are tempted to think of their estate plan as a one-shot deal, but the truth is that your estate plan is an investment and deserves the same annual maintenance and attention as any of your other investments. In fact, your estate plan is more than an investment of money, it's an investment in your future, and your children's and grandchildren's futures as well. 

Take the recent example of Anna Nicole Smith and her out of date Will. Smith's 6 year old Will leaves everything to her deceased son, and nothing to her living baby daughter. To further complicate things, some of the language in the Will seems to exclude Smith's future spouses and children. Smith's Will most likely very adequately expressed her desires for the protection and execution of her estate at the time it was written, but even the best attorneys can't anticipate how a client's situation and desires will change in future years.

How often you need to review your estate plan will depend a lot on your family's personal and financial state of affairs, although not entirely. Families and finances ebb and flow, relationships grow or fall by the wayside, and tax laws definitely change, all of which have a bearing on your Trust, Will, Health Care documents, and others. This means that depending on how in flux your personal/financial situation is, you should be reviewing your estate plan every one to five years.

Keep your estate plan as strong and healthy as your body, your teeth, or your stock portfolio. Call your attorney and review your plan regularly!

By guest blogger Jenni Buchanan