Author: Nick

Sirkin Law Group is hosting and presenting a series of two conservatorship seminars in May 2020 for California families facing conservatorship issues.  The Conservatorships Seminar series aims to provide simple explanations and answers to questions by parents and children who have family members who are so disabled that they cannot take care of themselves.

Dates and Times for the Conservatorships Seminar in Los Angeles County are as follows:

May 28, 2020 11a:  Conservatorships for Special Needs Adults and Developmentally Disabled Persons called Limited Conservatorship

May 29, 2020 11a:  Conservatorships for Elderly: What every family member needs to know about a conservatorship.

Register here:  http://conservatorshipseminars.com

Call Conservatorships Lawyers in Los Angeles, Sirkin Law Group, P.C. at 818.340.4479.  We serve all of Los Angeles County, located in Woodland Hills, and in Glendale California.  California Conservatorship Seminar Series

Are you considering a special needs trust? Special trusts are not just special needs trusts, they are larger categories of trusts.  They are trusts for special and specific purposes.  When and why you should consider a special trust depends on your specific reasons. Some reasons to create a special trust is to inspire a beneficiary to behave a certain way to benefit from the special provisions in the trust.  For one thing, you can create special trusts to handle many different aspects of a beneficiary’s life. 

For example, marital issues and problems of your children may lend themselves to a special trust specifically for a child who is either going through a divorce or contemplating a divorce.   Leaving discretionary distributions to that child held in a special trust, or forcing accumulation of income during a divorce of a child can create a way for parents to protect the inheritance of a child from being used up during a divorce if a parent dies while a child is divorcing.

Another way a Special Trust can be used is to provide for a child who may have substance or alcohol abuse problems.  The purpose of this type of trust can be limited to paying for rehab or other medical treatment.

The mental health of a child can also play into the creation of a special trust.  If you have a child for example, with a bipolar disorder, you may create a trust that keeps the funds restricted for medical use during bipolar episodes.

Talk to our lawyers for special trust planning and special needs trust questions as part of your estate plan.  Our attorneys at our Woodland Hills and Glendale law offices are here to assist you with a consultation about special trusts.   Call 818.340.4479 for a free consultation appointment.

By: Mina Sirkin, Special Needs Trust Attorney

Elder Law Essential Knowledge: Activities of Daily Living Described here

If you are like most families, chances are that you come across caregiving issues for an older parent and need some elder law knowledge about the definition of essential ADLS and elder law. Aging parents often need help in determining if they can stay at home with a little help.   In many cases, going to a nursing home can be avoided, if you plan in advance of becoming incapacitated physically and mentally.   One of the first things that you need to learn about is the activities of daily living, called ADLs.

The National Paliative Research Center has put out a great list of ADLS, which can be listed and summarized as:

1. Bathing
2. Dressing
3. Transferring
4. Feeding
5. Continence
6. Toileting

The checklist for ADLS also includes the KATZ Index of Independence which can be completed in order to know what level of function exists in each area listed above.   We believe California residence benefit from not only the KATZ index but from taking this checklist to their elderly parent for self-assessment by the parent.

Lawton-Brody also has a scale to determine other factors needed for independent living. Print the scale and examine it with your parent.

1. Can your parent use the telephone or other communication device?
2. Can he or she shop for food?
3. Can he or she fill prescriptions at the pharmacy?
4. Can he or she prepare food?
5. Can he or she do housekeeping?
6. How about Laundry? Can he/she do his own laundry?
7. Can he or she manage bills and collect his or her income?  Ask about management of assets as well.

Elder Law Essential Knowledge: Activities of Daily Living Described here

Note: ADLs are different from Activity of Living, called AL as developed by nurses to check the well-being of an individual which AL’s are listed below:

The ALs are listed as:

• Maintaining a safe environment
• Communication
• Breathing
• Eating and drinking
• Elimination
• Washing and dressing
• Controlling temperature
• Mobilisation
• Working and playing
• Expressing sexuality
• Sleeping
• Death and dying

Source: Wikipedia

Talk to our elder law attorney, Mina Sirkin, to obtain elder law knowledge or more information about elder law in Los Angeles by calling 818.340.4479 or by email at Info@Probate.La or Info@Sirkinlaw.com.  Our attorneys are experts in Elder Law in Los Angeles County California and can help you figure things out about ADLs and aging in Los Angeles.

Elder Law Essential Knowledge: Activities of Daily Living Described here

Sometimes people are unsure about whether their selected trustee is suitable to act as a successor trustee. You may be thinking of the process of estate planning and selecting your trustee. One way to discover the capabilities of your future Los Angeles trustee is to test his or her abilities now.

Creating a test trust to determine your child’s capability of managing money is not difficult. A test trust is usually a trust with little assets. Any person can create multiple trusts. You, as a parent may consider creating a test trust for the particular that you are considering as the main successor trustee of your trust. Here are the steps for examining the fitness of your successor trustee before trust administration in Los Angeles:

1. Create the test trust;
2. Fund it with a specific sum of money;
3. Give instructions to your proposed trustee to invest the money;
4. Ask your trustee for an accounting of the test trust;
5. Evaluate the trust and the performance of the trustee in 6 months and in one year. Repeat.

Once you see the trustee’s actual performance, you can then determine, if your child is ready to be a successor trustee of your main trust and able to administer your trust in Los Angeles.

Mina Sirkin is a trust administration attorney in Los Angeles who is Board Certified as a Specialist in Trust Law in the State of California. Call for successor trustee capacity problems 818.340.4479 or email here.

Many people form prenuptial agreements before they marry.   Frequently, in second marriages, prenuptial agreements address rights to trusts and estates of each party. 

For example, a prenuptial agreement can be used to ask for a waiver of rights of the new spouse in the will of the other spouse.  It can include a waiver of a claim after death, as well as a waiver of any homestead rights of the spouse.

If you are getting ready to get married, you should deeply explore what your spouse wants to happen to his or her estate, if he or she dies, and how you would be supported.  This is extremely important when there are children from the first marriage, and the possibility of having children in the second marriage.

Consider that there may be a large mortgage on the house.  Ask your prospective spouse, how that mortgage will be paid for, if he or she dies.  In whose name is the loan?  Lenders can call the loan when the person who owes the money dies.  If the loan is is one spouse’s name, death of that spouse can create major financial problems involving loans.

You should also discuss social security payments to the surviving spouse, its amount if either spouse dies.   ERISA and other pension rights should also be discussed because ERISA rights cannot be waived in a prenuptial.  The waiver must actually be signed after the marriage, so the prenuptial agreement requires language that forces the spouse to sign the ERISA waiver after the marriage.

Talk to our expert lawyers and attorneys about your prenuptial agreement and its impact on your estate plan and trusts and estates, by calling 818.340.4479 to set up a free consultation in our Woodland Hills, San Fernando Valley, Ca law firm.

By: Mina Sirkin, Trust and Estate Attorney, California frequently writes and speaks about complex issues involving estate planning in California.   Ms. Sirkin is an attorney Board Certified as a specialist in Estate Planning, Trust Law and Probate in Southern California, with offices in Woodland Hills and Los Angeles County Ca.  Call 818.340.4479 or email Info@SirkinLaw for a free consultation appointment to plan for your estate and spousal property issues including premarital agreements and post-marital agreements.

Astonishing Data about the Age of Caregivers in America

Very interesting excerpt about the astonishing data about caregiving, how elderly are caregivers for other elders and caregiver age of Americans from the Journal of American Society on Aging: New American Gothic: Older Americans as caregivers. California residents should carefully review these:

“Although this is the first issue of Genera­tions devoted entirely to older adults as care­givers, such caregiving is not new. The average age of caregivers in the United States is just one year shy of AARP membership—age 49—and the Family Caregiver Alliance (2018) reports that more than one-third of all caregivers have reached age 65. Furthermore, data from The Partnership for Solutions (2004) show that the number of hours dedicated to caregiving is highest among the oldest age groups; the aver­age caregiver ages 75 and older is providing more than thirty hours of care per week.

Probate Law  Intersectonn of probate, elder abuse and double damages

An individual’s conviction under Penal Code Sec. 368(d) established her civil liability for elder financial abuse under Welfare and Institutions Code Sec. 15610.30. The doctrine of judicial estoppel barred the individual from challenging the amount she stole from the elder when she had stipulated to the amount of the restitution award in the criminal proceedings. Probate Code Sec. 859 does not permit a wrongdoer to avoid the statutory penalty of double damages by beginning to make restitution after a criminal conviction, but the restitution payments made before the restitution award was reduced to a judgment should have been credited to the principal amount of the restitution amount rather than to accumulated prejudgment interest.

Kerley v. Weber – filed Oct. 3, 2018, Second District, Div. Two
Cite as 2018 S.O.S. 4930
Full text click here >

Talk to our Los Angeles attorneys lawyers about financial elder abuse and how you can double charge the abuser in the estate.   Call 818.340.4479 for more information on elder financial abuse.

If you recall, a petition for a temporary conervatorship was filed by Tim Conway’s daughter, with a competing petition filed by his wife.   In September, Judge Robert Wada, a Los Angeles judge denied the conservatorship petition by a daughter of 84-year-old actor-comedian Tim Conway to be appointed as her father’s conservator, and fount that the daughter’s concerns about her stepmother’s medical decisions are moot for now because he has been hospitalized since Sept. 3. Tim Conway Conservatorship Rejected by Judge in Los Angeles.

If you need help in the Los Angeles California Conservatorship court, call Mina Sirkin, conservatorship media expert at 818.340.4479 with all contested conservatorship and uncontested cases.

Taking care of our friends and family is an important role and mission for all of us. Aging parents or incapacitated special needs adult children can require an extra level of care. This extra care can come in many forms, ranging from delivering meals and groceries to taking your relative to important medical appointments. In most cases, informal care is sufficient. In some cases, these steps may not be enough to provide sufficient care to our loved ones. When your family member needs help taking care of him or herself, it may be time to get a conservatorship.

A conservatorship is a court-ordered authorization allowing one person to make certain decisions and provide particular care for another adult. There are two general types of conservatorship: Conservatorship of the Person and Conservatorship of the Estate.

Conservatorship of the person means that the conservator is responsible for providing the physical assistance necessary for the cared-for adult, usually called the conservatee. This means making sure the person has food, medication, clothing, shelter, and any other basic needs. The conservator can also communicate with the conservatee’s health-care provider to ensure the best and most appropriate health care. Healthcare decision making is one of the largest tasks of a conservator.

By contrast, the conservator of the estate is meant to protect the finances of the conservatee. It includes finances in addition to legal decision-making for in estate related issues, such as in carrying forward lawsuits. The conservator will be responsible for paying bills and wisely handling the income of the conservatee. The conservator will have access to bank accounts and should try to financially protect the conservatee from those who would try to financially exploit the conservatee. It is possible for the same person to be named both the conservator of the person and estate.

In order to obtain a conservatorship over an incapacitated adult, you will need to file a petition with the court. Most of our cases involve children whose parent has become incapacitated. This petition will have to provide very particular information, not least of which will be an explanation of why the proposed conservatee is unable to handle his or her own affairs. The conservatee will have the opportunity to appear in court and object to this designation, as will other close family members. A court will do its best to closely tailor a conservatorship to provide the least restrictive type of conservatorship that is necessary to provide the appropriate care and oversight for the proposed conservatee.

We have extensive experience in helping our clients with establishment of a conservatorship. Call us today to get a consultation to see how we can help you protect your family member.