Will Making a Gift Conflict with Medicaid?

Will Making a Gift Conflict with Medicaid?

People usually make gifts for three reasons—because they enjoy giving gifts, because they want to protect assets, or minimize tax liability. However, gifting in one’s elder years can have expensive and unintended consequences, as reported in the article “IRS standards for gifting differ from Medicaid” from The News-Enterprise.

The IRS gift tax becomes expensive, if gifts are large. However, each individual has a lifetime gift exemption and, as of this writing, it is $12.06 million, which is historically high. A married couple may make a gift of $24.12 million. Most people don’t get anywhere near these levels. Those who do are advised to do estate and tax planning to protect their assets.

The current lifetime gift tax exemption is scheduled to drop to $5.49 million per person after 2025, unless Congress extends the higher exemption, which seems unlikely.

The IRS also allows an annual exemption. For 2022, the annual exemption was $16,000 per person. Anyone can gift up to $16,000 per person and to multiple people, without reducing their lifetime exemption. Be sure to read our article, IRS Announces New Lifetime and Gift Tax Exemptions.

People often confuse the IRS annual exclusion with Medicaid requirements for eligibility. IRS gift tax rules are totally different from Medicaid rules.

Medicaid does not offer an annual gift exclusion. Medicaid penalizes any gift made within 60 months before applying to Medicaid, unless there has been a specific exception.

For Medicaid purposes, gifts include outright gifts to individuals, selling property for less than fair market value, transferring assets to a trust, or giving away partial interests.

The Veterans Administration may also penalize gifts made within 36 months before applying for certain VA programs based on eligibility.

Gifting can have serious capital gains tax consequences. Gifts of real estate property to another person are given with the giver’s tax basis. When real property is inherited, the property is received with a new basis of fair market value.

For gifting high value assets, the difference in tax basis can lead to either a big tax bill or big tax savings. Let’s say someone paid $50,000 for North Dakota land 40 years ago, and today the land is worth $650,000. The appreciation of the property is $600,000. If the property is gifted while the owner is alive, the recipient has a $50,000 tax basis. When the recipient sells the property, they will have to pay a capital gains tax based on the $50,000.

If the property was inherited, the tax would be either nothing or next to nothing.

Asset protection for Medicaid is complicated and requires the experience and knowledge of an elder law attorney. What worked for your neighbor may not work for you, as we don’t always know all the details of someone else’s situation. Therefore, it’s essential to work with our team of elder law specialists at Legacy Design Strategies with offices in Omaha, Iowa Falls, and Minot. Schedule a free call today to discuss how best to protect your property and still qualify for Medicaid.

Reference: The News-Enterprise (Aug. 6, 2022) “IRS standards for gifting differ from Medicaid”

Caring for Your Aging Mom

Caring for Your Aging Mom

Mom’s aging.  And the faithful caregiver who has been there for you throughout your life may now be starting to show signs of aging like forgetfulness or anxiety over making big decisions.  If dad’s passed away or unable to help care for mom, sooner than later, whether she wants to admit it or not, she will need your help.

As life expectancy increases, and baby boomers advance well into senior years of their own, the need for caregiving in Iowa Falls will only continue to rise. But who will provide caregiving for mom once her memory really fades or she needs regular nursing care?  What happens if a nursing home is necessary?  Do you know whether mom has a plan for nursing care expenses if she might need it?  What legal documents does she have in place to express her wishes for care?

According to Wealth Psychology Expert and Coach Kathleen Burns Kingsbury, 61% of women would rather talk about their own death than money.  Many older women in the Midwest were raised thinking that “it’s a man’s job to manage money,” and therefore, women are often uncomfortable talking about money or finances or may simply be unaware of their own financial situation.  Yet, you may find in your conversations with mom about planning for the future that she’s grateful to have help with these issues. As she continues to age, it’s more important than ever to plan a discussion now.

Here are some tips on how to broach the sensitive subjects of money and mortality with mom.

Schedule a time: This can be an overwhelming topic, but don’t ignore it. Scheduling dedicated time to open the dialogue and creating a timeline to complete the basic estate planning documents can make the process more manageable and keep everyone involved accountable.

Share your knowledge:  Share what you know about what the documents mean, how and when they come into play, as well as what happens if there’s no estate plan in place. Remind mom that this is her chance to ensure that her wishes are carried out.

Ask questions: If your mom is still in a sound state of mind, she is in a position to be involved in the decision-making. Ask her open-ended questions like what, if any, estate planning your mom or parents may have done.  Start by asking if she has met with an estate planning attorney to have a Will, a Power of Attorney, a Health Care Proxy and a Living Will created.  Document as much as possible without judgment. Talking about planning for incapacity may be a harder conversation. What resources are available if needed for long-term care? If she owns a long-term care insurance policy, find out where it is so you can access it if and when the time comes. Does her estate plan include a Medicaid Asset Protection Trust (MAPT) or has any Medicaid planning been done? Our articles on planning for incapacity may help the you in your discussing including: What Estate Planning Documents are Used to Plan for Incapacity?,    How Does Estate Planning Work for Caregiving Children? and  Powers of Attorney and Advance Directives

Share your plan: Sharing your ideas and discussing your own plans can ease tension and help eliminate fears. It shows your mom that she’s not alone in the planning process. If she has not had any legal planning completed yet, explain what you have done for your own family and explain why it’s important for you as a parent, and for her as a grandmother, to take care of this.

Leave the conversation open-ended: The key to these planning conversations is empathy because many seniors are experiencing a variety of emotions. Reassure mom that you’re available for future conversations and will plan to check back in at the times set forth in the timeline you created together.

You’ll also want to talk with mom about providing information for financial, legal, and medical contacts in Iowa Falls or her community. This can be a little overwhelming, so it may help to break this into a series of categories. Try setting a deadline for one checklist a week.

This is the contact information you’ll want to gather:

Legal and Financial
Estate Planning Attorney
CPA
Financial Advisor
Retirement Accounts
Pension
Social Security
Investments
Checking and Savings
Insurance Policies – Home, Auto, Umbrella

Medical
Primary Care Physician
Pharmacist
Ophthalmologist
Any other health care providers
Medicare or Health Insurance Company

Household
Electricity
Mortgage or Rent
Cable
Landscaper
Telephone
Auto Loan or Lease Payments

Online Accounts
Social Media
Websites
Streaming Subscriptions

Community Contacts
Community Organizations
Homeowner’s Association
House of Worship

These are not easy conversations for many adults, so be patient with your mom. It may be hard for her to become comfortable with sharing this kind of information or perhaps she doesn’t know the answers to many of these questions, so there might be quite a bit of investigative work involved in caring for your mom in Iowa.  Remember to schedule several times to meet with her so that neither of you becomes overwhelmed. The time you spend now to gather her information and gain an understanding of the support available to her should she become incapacitated will be invaluable in the future.

Remember that you are not alone in having these challenging conversations!  Contact our team at Legacy Design Strategies to speak with one of our Elder Law Attorneys about how to approach these discussions with mom or create the planning documents that she might need. You can schedule a free call now.

Protect Your Elderly Parents from Scammers

Protect Your Elderly Parents from Scammers

Thinking on a very practical level, if you were a thief and had to choose a target, it would likely be someone who has wealth and is vulnerable—the picture of an elderly person, especially one who is likely to be isolated and may have cognitive issues. According to the Federal Trade Commission, consumers aged 60 and older filed 467,340 fraud reports in 2021, reporting total losses of more than $1 billion.

A recent article from cbsnews.com, “How to protect elderly parents from financial scams,” says that consumers age 60 and older are less likely to report losing money to fraud than those aged 18—59. Still, when they do report a loss, it tends to be for more money, especially among those 80 and older. They have the highest median loss of all groups.

Older adults in states like North Dakota, Iowa, and Nebraska are likelier to lose money on scams involving tech support, prizes, sweepstakes, lotteries and friends and family impersonations. What can you do to protect your elderly parents against scammers?

Talk about it. Scams target everyone. Therefore, it is an easy topic to bring up. First, start the conversation with your experiences or a trending news story. Next, explain specific scams, like someone reaching out through social media saying they want to be friends, followed by an urgent request for money or fake text messages from a grandchild who needs bail money. People informed about scams’ specifics are less likely to respond.

Use anti-fraud tools. Spam-blocking apps on cell phones can send unknown numbers to voicemail immediately. A credit freeze can secure credit information and is easily temporarily unlocked for legitimate access. Setting strict privacy tools on social media can also limit the number of scammers who can get through.

Signing up for financial account monitoring or receiving alerts for transactions is easily enough put into place. However, in some instances, it would be wise to allow adult children to monitor these accounts, depending upon the parent’s comfort level with sharing this information.

Put legal tools into place. A durable power of attorney, revocable trust, or, if appropriate, guardianship, can be among the most effective ways to keep an older adult’s assets safe from scammers. If a revocable trust is created, an adult child can quickly step in before too much damage is done, whether it’s a fake charity or a “kidnapped grandchild” scammer.

Know the warning signs. An older adult who is suddenly reluctant to talk about their finances had said they are having trouble paying bills when they never had a problem before or is receiving a high number of text messages or phone calls and insists on being alone when they respond may have become a victim of fraud.

Scammers are especially good at creating a sense of urgency, saying their victims must send money or gift cards immediately, or the IRS or police will arrive at their door. The latest wrinkle is the use of artificial intelligence to mimic a loved one’s voice, and the technology is so good that even experts are fooled. Our article, How To Avoid Senior Financial Abuse provides additional strategies specifically related to financial elder abuse.

Avoid shaming loved ones. The embarrassment of being the victim of elder financial abuse worsens a bad situation. Don’t scold an elderly person for being fooled; they certainly will be angry enough at themselves for being taken. Reassuring words are more likely to allow the victim to keep some of their dignity, while encouraging them to call you if, and more likely when, they are confronted with another scammer.

If you are worried about your elderly parents or believe that they may have been victims of fraud, it’s important to help them investigate the issue and protect their financial accounts.  Our team of elder law specialists at Legacy Design Strategies cares deeply about providing elderly people and their families protection and a sense of relief when guarding assets. Schedule a free call today to discuss ways we can help guide your parents. You can also learn more about our work that can help to protect your elderly parents from scammers in our masterclass: How To Get The Best Nursing Home Care For A Loved One — While Protecting Your Nest Egg.

Reference: cbsnews.com (April 10, 2023) “How to protect elderly parents from financial scams”

How Bad Is Caregiver Burnout?

How Bad Is Caregiver Burnout?

Chief among the findings of a 2022 AARP survey of Nebraska voters is an emphasis on improving support for families providing long-term care services who are likely to suffer from caregiver burnout.  Changing workplace policies for employees who serve as caregivers to provide unlimited unpaid work leave as well as increased paid leave for caregiving duties were top desires for those surveyed.

According to a new survey by Seniorly, a national network of senior care advisors, besides losing members of the workforce who give up their jobs to take care of others, over the past six years, the percentage of family caregivers who say their own health status is fair or poor nearly doubled, going from 12% to 21%.

Clint Rendall with Aadi Bioscience, biopharmaceutical company, agrees that being a caregiver can place a lot of mental, physical, and emotional strain on individuals.

“We get so stressed personally,” Rendall said. “Whether that’s with the workplace, or providing care for someone that we stop caring for ourselves and then it’s sort of a vicious cycle.”

Unfortunately, many family caregivers experience burnout characterized by mental, physical, and/or emotional exhaustion that impacts one’s wellbeing and causes an individual to shift in their life perspective from positive and compassion to negative and apathetic.  Seniorly’s article, “What is Caregiver Burnout,” highlights several of the warning signs of caregiver burnout such as lack of interest in social engagements, mood swings or short temper, and constant illness.  The article also outlines the importance of caregiver self-care and how these methods ensure the health and safety of the caregiver.

Nebraska caregiver burnout is not unique, but affects caregivers nationwide.  The AARP notes that the system in the United States of providing long-term care for those who can no longer care for themselves is deeply flawed, costly, and becoming a crisis we must all address as a nation or personally.  The article, “Long-Term Care: The Crisis Everyone Must Face,” cites that 53 million Americans of all ages serve as unpaid family caregivers who spend “a portion of their day to feeding, driving, cleaning, paying bills and ensuring medicine gets taken by a loved one not able to do these tasks on their own.”  Many of these caregivers are in what’s known as the Sandwich Generation caring for not only their own minor children, but also caring for an aging parent. Nearly 70% of Americans who reach age 65 will need long-term care services notes the AARP. “On average women will need help for 3.7 years, and men for 2.2 years.”  For most people, that care is provided in their homes and often by those who are unpaid, such as spouses, adult children and other loved ones.

It’s obvious that solutions are needed for policies related to employees who are caregivers and those receiving long-term care.  One relief program designed for caregivers is respite care, where a loved one can be cared for without family aid for up to several hours or days a week.

Mary Ann Mondragon, who is a caregiver specialist at Caregivers SOS, a WellMed charitable foundation program, said there is lots of help available.

“We have training. We have classes for the caregivers. We have a stress busting class that will actually be starting in April. And it’s a nine week class,” Mondragon said.

“And it helps the family caregivers learn how to take care of their loved ones. How to take care of themselves more importantly.”

If you’re looking for help with caring for an aging parent or an ill or disabled spouse, you’ve come to the right place! At Legacy Design Strategies with primary offices in Omaha, Nebraska; Iowa Falls, Iowa; and Minot, North Dakota, we have a full team, more than 25 people of elder law specialists that work with families all over these territories on planning for long-term care and avoiding caregiver burnout. Schedule a call with our team today to discuss how we can help you keep your property in the family so that it is preserved for future generations, but at the same time, ensure your loved one is cared for in the way that you feel comfortable.

How Important Is It to have Long-Term Care Insurance?

How Important Is It to have Long-Term Care Insurance?

It becomes especially important to plan for the future when the world around us seems so volatile and unpredictable. We can’t control future health care costs, but we can plan for them, says a recent article titled “Economic instability and the need to plan for long-term care” from The Indiana Lawyer. Failing to plan could mean lost assets and a lost legacy.

According to Genworth’s Cost of Care survey, from 2004 to 2021, the cost of long-term care has outpaced inflation by a large margin. Many of the increases were driven by supply and demand issues. There aren’t enough people to care for the growing population of people needing services, which will continue to be the case for at least the next decade. A total of 10,000 boomers turn 65 every day and 70% will require care and support services in their lifetimes.

How can assets be protected from long-term costs?

One of the most frequently used tools is an asset protection trust or an irrevocable trust. The irrevocable trust cannot be modified, amended, or terminated without permission of the grantor’s beneficiary or beneficiaries. Once the grantor transfers assets into the trust, the grantor no longer has the rights of ownership. The trust can be designed to minimize taxation, maximize access to long-term benefits and protect assets.

The trust must be drafted properly, so trust income and principal, if needed, can be accessed.

The timing is critical. Asset protection trusts must be created when there is no immediate health care crisis, and the grantor has no need for long-term care. The best trust is created when the person is in good health and of sound mind.

Those who are nearing retirement, passed retirement age or who may have health issues in the distant future and expect to need Medicaid in the future are best candidates for an asset protection trust.

Medicaid’s Five Year Look Back Period

Planning needs to be done at least five years in advance, as Medicaid looks at the applicant’s past five year’s finances to see if any assets were sold or gifted for under market value. Transferring assets to an irrevocable trust is treated as a gift and violates the five-year look back, making the person ineligible for Medicaid coverage. Nursing home care will have to be paid out-of-pocket until the person becomes eligible.

Asset protection strategies are available for those who need immediate protection of assets. However, they have to done quickly and correctly with an estate planning elder law attorney. People who have suffered a fall and have significant injuries or who have received a diagnosis of a difficult disease should speak with an elder law attorney in a timely manner. They’ll need to discuss preparing for a Medicaid application, what assets can be protected and steps they need to take. The earlier the plan is put into place, the better.

Reference: The Indiana Lawyer (Aug. 3, 2022) “Economic instability and the need to plan for long-term care”

What Is the Main Purpose of a Trust?

What Is the Main Purpose of a Trust?

There are advantages and disadvantages of an irrevocable trust, and you’ll want to be fully informed before taking steps that may be costly to undo, explains the article “Understanding your trust” from The Sentinel. Once your home is deeded to an irrevocable trust, you won’t be able to make any changes without getting permission from the beneficiary or beneficiaries named in the trust. Your rights of ownership are transferred to the trust, when you deed it to the trust.

A separate legal agreement with the trustee, the person in charge of the trust, will be needed to give you a legal right to occupy the home also. Any changes could be made but will take time and could be costly. Changes can also only be made, if the beneficiaries agree.

There was a time when lenders inserted clauses into mortgages that any time a sale or transfer of the deed occurred, full payment of the mortgage would be due. This changed, and today the mortgage is not due just because of a change in the deed. However, it may be a challenge to refinance, if the home is held in an irrevocable trust.

For most people, the reason to put a home into an irrevocable trust is to prevent the home from being lost to a creditor, including protecting the home’s equity from the cost of nursing home care, during life or after death. In some states, like Pennsylvania, the state will initiate a collection action against the estate to recover the amount paid for the deceased homeowner’s nursing care costs.

The move to put a home into an irrevocable trust can work as long as the trust remains intact, and the homeowner does not apply for financial assistance for nursing home care for at least five years from the date that the deed was transferred as recorded in the courthouse.

If long-term care needs arise before that time, putting the home into an irrevocable trust may not serve its intended purpose.

There are some tax benefits from an irrevocable trust. If the homeowner lives at least one year after the home is deeded to the trust, in some states no inheritance taxes will be due on the home. Check with a local estate planning attorney to learn what the rules are in your state.

If the trust is prepared by an experienced elder law attorney, it is likely that the capital gain on the sale of the home by the trust after the homeowner’s death will be taxed based on the home’s value at the time of sale, rather than the value at the time it is placed into the trust or on the day of death.

If the home is the only asset in the trust, the taxpayer ID of the trust will be the homeowner’s Social Security number, and no annual tax return is required. If, however, other assets, particularly income-producing assets, are placed in the trust, then the trust needs to have its own EIN (a federal tax identification number) and annual tax returns will need to be paid. Taxes on a trust are normally at a higher rate than individual income rates.

Your estate planning attorney will explain the numerous strategies that can be used to protect your assets and your home from the high cost of long-term care. There are many Medicaid compliant techniques and tools, depending upon the situation of the individual and the family.

Reference: The Sentinel (April 23, 2021) “Understanding your trust”

Elder Financial Abuse Risk Increasing for Seniors Isolated by Pandemic

Elder Financial Abuse Risk Increasing for Seniors Isolated by Pandemic

The extended isolation and loneliness during the coronavirus pandemic is creating the perfect storm for financial exploitation of seniors, who are unable to visit with family members and friends, reports Fredericksburg Today in the article “SCC urges awareness of investment fraud among seniors due to increased pandemic isolation.” The unprecedented need to forgo socializing makes seniors who are already at risk, even more vulnerable.

In the past, scammers would deliberately strike during a health crisis or after the death of a loved one. By gathering data from obituaries and social media, even establishing relationships with support and social groups, scammers can work their way into seniors’ lives.

Social distancing and the isolation necessary to protect against the spread of the coronavirus has left many seniors vulnerable to people posing as their new friends. The perpetrators may not just be strangers: family members are often the ones who exploit the elderly. The pandemic has also led to changes in procedures in care facilities, which can lead to increased confusion and dependence for the elderly, who do not always do well with changes.

Here are a few key markers for senior financial abuse:

  • A new friend or caregiver who is overly protective and has gotten the person to surrender control of various aspects of their life, including but not limited to finances.
  • Fear or a sudden change in how they feel towards family members and/or friends.
  • A reluctance to discuss financial matters, especially if they say the new friend told them not to talk about their money with others.
  • Sudden changes in spending habits, or unexplained changes to wills, new trustees, or changes to beneficiary designations.
  • Large checks made out to cash, or the disappearance of assets.
  • Signatures on checks or estate planning documents that appear different than past signatures.

Not being able to visit in person makes it harder for family members to discern what is happening.  However, there are a few steps that can be taken by concerned family members. Stay in touch with the family member, by phone, video calls, texts or any means possible. Remind loved ones that scammers are always looking for an opportunity and may try to exploit them during the pandemic.

Every community has resources that can help, if elder financial abuse is a concern. An elder law estate planning attorney will be able to direct concerned family members or friends to local resources to protect their loved ones.

Reference: Fredericksburg Today (June 20, 2020) “SCC urges awareness of investment fraud among seniors due to increased pandemic isolation”

The Symptoms of Early-Onset Alzheimer’s Disease
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The Symptoms of Early-Onset Alzheimer’s Disease

Considerable’s article entitled “7 surprising early signs of Alzheimer’s” provides us with some signs of early-onset Alzheimer’s disease.

Theft or other law-breaking. Any behavioral change as people age is of concern, but this can be a sign of Frontotemporal Dementia (FTD), another progressively damaging, age-related brain disorder. FTD usually hits adults aged 45-65. People’s executive function—their ability to make decisions—can be impacted by FTD, which may explain why they become unable to discern right from wrong.

Frequent falls. A study of 125 older adults asked them to record how frequently in an eight-month period that they fell or tripped. Researchers examined the brain scans of those who fell most frequently and saw a correlation between falls and the early onset of Alzheimer’s Disease.

Forgetting an object’s function. We all forget where we put the keys. However, if you can’t remember what a key is for, or where dirty dishes are supposed to go, then it may be the first signs of Alzheimer’s Disease or dementia.

Inappropriate diet. Prior to the onset of Alzheimer’s, patients typically to eat more (roughly 500 calories more a day) than their aging counterparts but they still tend to lose weight. Doctors think this is a metabolic change. Some elderly actually eat inanimate objects prior to their diagnosis, but researchers don’t know the reason. Because Alzheimer’s and dementia affect the brain’s memory, it may be because their brain receives hunger signals but is unable to discern how to react to them. Some patients eat paper or other inedible objects.

Inability to recognize sarcasm. If you fail to recognize sarcasm or take it very literally and seriously, it may be a sign of atrophy in your brain. A study at the University of California – San Francisco found that Alzheimer’s patients and those with Frontotemporal Disease were among those who couldn’t recognize sarcasm in face-to-face encounters. The brain’s posterior hippocampus is impacted, which is where short-term memory is stored and where a person sorts out such things, like sarcasm.

Depression. If someone has never suffered from clinical depression but develops it after age 50, it could be an early sign of Alzheimer’s. It doesn’t mean if you’re diagnosed with depression in older age that you will develop Alzheimer’s or other cognitive decline. However, you might, so get treatment sooner because some researchers believe that hormones released in the depressed brain may damage certain areas of it, leading to the development of Alzheimer’s or other dementia.

Unfocused Staring. Alzheimer’s Disease is a change in cognitive and executive functioning in the brain. This means that your ability to recall facts, memories and information is compromised, as well as the ability to make decisions. The brain becomes unfocused and staring in a detached way may be an early sign of so-called “tangles” in your brain.

These symptoms may be signs of Alzheimer’s Disease, or they may be the signs of other underlying issues. See your doctor if you have any of these signs. This may be a sign of something else but talk to your doctor to be safe.

Reference: Considerable (December 8, 2020) “7 surprising early signs of Alzheimer’s”

What Is a ‘Survivorship’ Period?

What Is a ‘Survivorship’ Period?

A survivorship clause in a will or a trust says that beneficiaries can inherit, only if they live a certain number of days after the person who made the will or trust dies. The goal is to avoid situations where assets pass under your beneficiary’s estate plan, and not yours, if they outlive you only by a short period of time. While these situations are rare, they do occur, according to the article “How Survivorship Periods Work” from kake.com.

Many wills and trusts contain a survivorship period. Most estates won’t rise to the level of today’s very high federal estate tax exemption ($11.58 million for an individual), so a long survivorship period is not necessary. However, if the surviving spouse must wait too long to receive property under the will—six months or more—it might harm their eligibility for the marital deduction, even if they are made in a qualifying trust or an outright gift.

Even if a will does not contain a survivorship clause, many states require one. Some states require at least a five-day or 120-hour survivorship period. That law might apply to beneficiaries who inherit property under a will, trust or, if there is no will, under state law. This usually does not apply to those who are beneficiaries of an insurance policy, a POD bank account (Payable on Death), or a surviving co-owner of property held in joint tenancy. To learn what states have a set of laws, known as the Uniform Probate Code or the revised version of the Uniform Simultaneous Death Act, speak with a local estate planning lawyer.

Survivorship requirements are put into place in case of simultaneous or close to simultaneous deaths of the estate owners and the estate beneficiaries. This is to avoid having the distribution of assets from an estate owner’s estate distributed according to the beneficiary’s estate plan, and not the estate owner’s plan.

For an example, let’s say Jeff dies and leaves his estate to his sister Judy. Jeff has named his favorite charity as an alternative beneficiary. Jeff’s assets would normally go to his sister Judy. They would only go to his favorite charity, if Judy were not alive at the time of his death. However, if Jeff dies and then Judy dies 14 days later, Jeff’s assets could go to Judy’s beneficiaries under the terms of her will. The charity, Jeff’s intended beneficiary, would receive nothing.

The family would also have the burden of dealing with not one but two probate proceedings at the same time.

However, if a 30-day survivorship clause was in place, the assets would pass to his favorite charity, as originally intended. Jeff’s estate plan would be carried out, according to his wishes.

These are the types of details that make estate planning succeed as the estate owner wishes. Having a complete and secure—and properly prepared—estate plan in place is worth the effort.

Reference: kake.com (March 31, 2020) “How Survivorship Periods Work”