Long Island Elder Law & Estate Planning

A Long Island trust lawyer can provide you with help using powerful legal tools to protect your family and wealth. Trusts are a versatile tool that you can use to accomplish many goals related to asset protection, incapacity planning, legacy planning, and more. There are different types of trusts and strict rules for trust creation, so you should make sure you have the information you need to make fully informed choices about creating a trust. Mark S. Eghrari & Associates PLLC can help. long island trust lawyer

Our legal team can guide you through determining if you need a trust and can help you with the logistics of creating a legally valid trust. To discover more about how we can assist you, give us a call. If you are not sure whether you actually need a trust lawyer to help you or not, you should also consider these signs that you need to talk with a lawyer who knows New York’s trust law and who can help to make that law work for you.

4 Signs You Need to Talk with a Long Island Trust Lawyer

Four key signs that you need to talk with a Long Island trust lawyer include the following:

  • You have heirs or beneficiaries who have special needs or who require more assistance managing trust assets. Most methods of transferring assets to heirs, like creating a will or using pay-on-death accounts, will not give you much or any continued control over assets. This can be a problem if you’re leaving money to someone under 18 and want someone to manage the funds until a child is old enough to be responsible. It can also be an issue if you have heirs or beneficiaries who aren’t responsible with money or who are disabled and whose means-tested benefits, like Medicaid, could be at risk if assets are transferred.
  • You have assets that you want to pass on quickly to heirs or beneficiaries after your death. The probate process takes a long time, which can put families in a bad spot as they wait for an inheritance. If you’d prefer that assets pass more quickly so your family will inherit your wealth without long delays, you can create a trust. This will facilitate the use of the trust administration process, which is typically faster, cheaper, and easier than the probate process.
  • You are concerned about the management of certain valuable assets in the event of incapacity. If you become incapacitated, someone must begin to manage your property. If you haven’t planned ahead in case of incapacity, your assests could end up being managed by whomever the court decides to appoint. Instead of leaving the fate of valuable investments up to the person who the court just happens to appoint, you can use a trust and select a backup trustee to manage the assets if something happens to you.
  • You are worried about what will happen to your assets if you must seek nursing home care. Nursing home care is expensive and typically not paid for except by Medicaid. Unfortunately, if you haven’t taken steps to protect assets, you could be forced to spend down wealth by paying out-of-pocket for nursing home care you need. Only after you’ve spent enough that you have few resources will Medicaid begin to pay. Creating the right type of trust could make it possible to protect at least some of your money and property while still getting Medicaid coverage.

Mark S. Eghrari & Associates PLLC can assist you in these situations and many more. It is very common for people to not fully understand trusts and to to not realize that a trust could benefit them. Trusts are not only for the wealthy and, in fact, can be just as important for people with more modest incomes and assets so they can protect what they have worked so hard to acquire.

Getting Help from A Long Island Trust Lawyer

Mark S. Eghrari & Associates PLLC can discuss your estate planning and asset protection goals with you to determine what your options are for trust creation. We can help you to decide if creating a trust is right for you, can facilitate the trust creation process and can assist you in ensuring that you’ve selected the trust that provides the benefits that you expect.

To find out more about creating a trust or about how a Long Island trust lawyer can help you, join us for a free seminar. You can also give us a call at (631) 265-0599 or contact us online to talk with a compassionate and knowledgable member of our legal team.

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About Mark S. Eghrari, Estate Planning Attorney

Mark S. Eghrari is an attorney in private practice in Smithtown, New York. He has been in practice since 1988. Mark S. Eghrari provides extensive estate and tax planning services to individuals and businesses. Mr. Eghrari’s primary focus is helping clients avoid probate, minimize or eliminate Federal and State Estate taxes and protect their assets from the high cost of nursing care, if they become ill.