When someone creates a DIY will, they may have something that amounts to one piece of an estate plan. Even if that same person takes their will to an estate planning attorney and that attorney completely rewrites it (to fit the client’s specific needs and wishes), the...
J. Kevin Tharpe, P.C.
Self-Settled & Third-Party Special Needs Trusts
Although we have discussed how and why you need to create a special needs trust, it is essential to distinguish between a self-settled trust and a third-party one. Self-settled trusts can be particularly confusing because they are also referred to as first-party...
Building An Estate Plan Can Be Done As A Team
When you watch our show, Truth in Planning, you will notice two people discussing estate planning and elder law stories—and one of them isn’t an attorney. The show includes attorney J. Kevin Tharpe and his longtime friend and co-host Gary Anderson. Though Gary is not...
Estate Planning & Elder Law: Distinct But Complementary
It is very common. When you discover that an attorney builds estate plans, you may see “elder law” as a separate practice area. Though the skills attorneys develop through crafting estate plans may lay the foundation for a career in elder law, they are still two...
Prepping For Your First Estate Plan
Even if you have never considered creating an estate plan before and have not yet begun, you still have made the responsible decision to start. To help you along, we will provide some insight about what you can do before you ever meet with an estate planning...
Benefits For An Aging Veteran
There are over 18 million veterans in the United States. Almost 1 out of every 10 Americans has served in the military. These people represent critical moments in our history—from World War II to the Global War on Terrorism. Even the most recent conflict has veterans...
What A Will Cannot Do
It is important to note that this is not a condemnation of a common estate planning tool referred to as a will—just the opposite. The point of highlighting the limitations of a will is so you can fill the gaps it leaves with other documents. An estate plan is a...
When To Modify Your Estate Plan
You would have a difficult time finding an attorney who creates estate plans to claim that people don’t need one. That isn’t because they are trying to sell you on something. It’s because they have likely seen and witnessed the consequences of failing to develop an...
The Medicaid Look-Back Period
Here is a scenario that many people find themselves in: they have to find a way to pay for a nursing home or other long-term healthcare facility that they cannot afford. Realistically, most people can’t pay these sort of costs out of pocket. It would not be out of the...
Crisis vs. Long-Term Medicaid Planning
If you do any amount of research for elder law or estate planning, you will see terms such as “crisis” and “long-term planning.” Though both of these terms apply to elder law, they represent different situations and needs. Even people new to elder law should...
