When clients come to Lake Shore Legal seeking an estate plan, their goals are routinely to ensure that the assets they own pass to the correct recipients upon death. One of the more common and popular methods to ensure that clients’ wishes and goals are achieved is to place assets into trust. Once the asset is in a trust, the asset is considered to be owned by the trust and governed by the trust instrument. The trust instrument directs how the asset is to be treated and ultim

Many people do not think about probate until someone has passed away. Probating of an estate, while not a common event that people encounter, is an important aspect of making sure that a decedent’s last will and testament is properly followed. Lake Shore Legal is here to offer assistance to those needing to file a probate, distribute assets, determine heirs, and file the necessary probate documents at the local probate and family court. The information below briefly explains

Without proper planning, many people do not realize the financial cost that a nursing home or long-term care placement can have upon the assets of an individual needing such care until it is too late to protect the assets. In most cases, for an individual to even qualify for MassHealth (the Massachusetts component of Medicaid), that individual will need to deplete his assets down to about $2,000. That means that an individual could be forced to liquidate and spend away any sa

I routinely come across young individuals, whether married or single, with minor children who do not have any estate planning documents in place. These individuals state that they are young, healthy, and why would they ever need to spend money for a will or an estate plan. But when I ask them who is going to take care of the child if something happened to them and/or their spouse, or if they really trust their 16 year old child to be responsible with all their assets, they do

A properly drafted Last Will and Testament is a fundamental part of a proper estate plan. Without a Last Will and Testament the disposition of your assets upon your death will be controlled by the Massachusetts Intestacy Laws. Ultimately, the Intestacy Laws would dictate how much of your estate your living relatives receive upon your passing. The Intestacy Laws, however, do not specify who gets what assets, or how certain items are divided. Instead under the Intestacy Laws, t