Estate Planning & Administration
Monaghan Safar provides personalized estate planning services, including the drafting of wills and trusts. Our approach to estate planning typically includes a comprehensive review of each client’s planning needs as well as the traditional estate planning documents. Our goal is to ensure that your estate plan is something you don’t spend time worrying about as you go about your life.
Many people may become disabled or need some amount of care within their lives. To obtain the care they need and other assistance at a reasonable cost, they must qualify for Medicaid and other government programs based on financial need. We help our clients to legally protect assets so as to retain or obtain eligibility for these sometimes life-giving benefits.
No one can know what the future will bring, so we ensure that our client’s are prepared for life-changing possibilities. This planning also applies to our clients who wish to provide for a disabled heir in a will or a trust.
Sometimes the greatest service we bring to a client is our depth of experience and resources in aging and disability matters. A client may come in to our office for a specific legal issue such as a new Will, but that client often leaves with a feeling that the greatest value is the guidance and support which comes so naturally from each attorney and staff member.
In addition to helping our clients plan for the future, we also ensure that their assets and intentions will be protected and respected by the court system.
Wills & Trusts
Outline how your assets will be distributed after your death. Without the proper documentation in place, your estate is allocated per state law, commonly to your closest biological relatives with no regard for the circumstances of your relationship or their situation.
We are qualified in the use of wills and trusts and other estate planning tools. We achieve great comfort and success for our clients because we focus on the lifetime needs of our clients and then work that “lifetime plan” into how assets will be distributed upon death.
Long-Term Care Planning
We help our clients pursue alternatives to nursing homes but if a nursing home or other extensive care is necessary, we help alleviate the otherwise overwhelming burden of placing a loved one in a facility. We accomplish our client’s goals by protecting our clients’ life savings against catastrophic care costs and by lending our expertise to assist families to access the best of long-term care. Our attorneys help people to protect their life savings while accessing better care.
Advance Health Care Directive
A framework for your desired medical treatment that goes into a registry to provide guidance in the event you are unable to communicate your wishes.
General Durable Power of Attorney
Authorize an agent to act on your behalf in a wide range of matters that explicitly does not terminate in the event of your disability or incapacity to act for yourself.
Enhanced Life Estate Deed
Convey your real estate property upon your death, keeping it out of probate court, but maintain exclusive rights to the property during your lifetime including the ability to sell or reconvey at any point.