• The new community spouse resource allowance (CSRA) is $109,560. The 2008 CSRA is 104,400.
• The new maximum monthly maintenance needs allowance (MMMNA) is $2735.  The 2008 MMMNA is $2611.
• The minimum monthly maintenance needs allowance stays at $1750 until July 1, 2009.

The new numbers are effective January 1, 2009 and reflect an increase in the CPI of 4.9% from September 2007 to September 2008.

Questions about what these numbers mean? Get our FREE Guide to Colorado Medicaid and learn some of the important legal and financial strategies that families are using to qualify for financial assistance with their nursing home costs legally and honestly.

With the help of a skilled Colorado Medicaid attorney, you or a loved one can protect assets without spending down everything to the poverty levels prescribed by Medicaid. However, most people are completely unaware of their planning option.

In desperation, most people make terrible mistakes by doing things without the advice of Medicaid counsel, such as giving assets away to the children in hopes of qualifying for Medicaid.  Such gifting will lead to Medicaid penalties, tax problems, delayed Medicaid eligibility and, of course, the complete loss of control over the assets given away.

Medicaid laws are complex, strictly enforced and continually changing.  Making them work to your advantage requires the experience of an elder law attorney who focuses on his or her practice on Medicaid planning.  If you or a loved one is facing a nursing home crisis, give us a call or request our FREE Guide to Colorado Medicaid.  We can put you on the right path to protecting the home and savings before it’s too late!

This problem is easy to solve with a Bulletproof Trust.  With proper trust planning, the funds left to a surviving child will remain in trust with all of the money available to your grandchildren when a child dies.  All of the money goes to the children of that deceased child, (your grandchildren), and no one else.  The ability of the Bulletproof Trust to keep family assets in the family blood line makes these types of trust extremely popular with our clients blessed with grandchildren.  The use of a Colorado Living Trust with special Bulletproof Trust provisions is the answer.

While it’s true that you can give assets to your children to protect them from loss in the event you have to go to a nursing home later, it takes five years before your assets escape the scrutiny of Colorado Medicaid. However, the gift of assets to your children will cause multiple issues, including tax problems and the loss of control of your assets. Once you give your assets to your children, you can never get them back. If your children get sued, go through a divorce, run into debt problems or simply fail to honor your wishes, you will regret the decision of giving the assets away directly to your children.

An alternative is to give your assets away to an irrevocable trust rather than to your children. The irrevocable trust, called a Five Year Trust, will allow you to live in your home for the rest of your life, continue to receive the interest or dividends off of your savings and investments for the rest of your life and protect your assets throughout your lifetime from all of the things that can go wrong with your children as previously mentioned. Your Five Year Trust can be designed to transfer unspent assets at death down to your children and protect those assets for both your children and your grandchildren through the additional supplement called a Bulletproof Trust.

The Five Year Trust is an irrevocable living trust. It also avoids probate and adverse tax consequences connected with giving away assets. To be effective, it must be drafted with extreme care so that Colorado Medicaid will not consider it an available resource at some later time when you apply for Medicaid benefits. The counsel of an experienced elder law attorney is absolutely mandatory in this type of matter. If you have an interest in studying this option further, please give us a call at (303) 423-8423 and request our FREE white paper entitled “The Five Year Trust.”

At home, you need to develop a routine for both of you. Rituals are also very important (a bedtime ritual, for example). If your loved one always checked the doors to make sure they were locked before going to bed, continue this ritual. If he ate a bowl of ice cream before bed, continue this. You want him to feel at home, and these routines and rituals help with that. If he is restless before bed or having a difficult time falling asleep, let him get up and do the ritual.

The routine for the day can consist of eating at certain times, taking medication at a certain time, going to check the mail at the same time every day, bathing on certain days, going to the hairdresser or barber on certain days, and anything else you want to add to your routine or schedule. Even drinking water at scheduled times each day is advisable. This adds to the routine while encouraging hydration at the same time. Making time in your schedule to sit down and relax is also important. You both need to do this so you can regroup.

Other examples of activities that can be included in your daily schedule are going for a walk, feeding the dog, folding towels, taking out the trash, reading the newspaper, drinking coffee, going tor a drive, getting ice cream.

Try to have fun with this, but avoid becoming rigid. Remain flexible so if the activity you had planned isn’t working for your loved one, don’t argue. Just go with the flow and move on to the next thing. If the previous activity needs to be completed, such as dressing, go back later and try again.

A: If books have become too long, and she is losing interest, try giving her short stories. You can purchase all sorts of reading material at thrift stores or used book stores. Ask her to read recipes to you when you are in the kitchen. She’s not only reading, but she is helping you. Comprehension really isn’t an issue because she isn’t actually doing the cooking.

You can go to your local library and check out books on tape. There are all types of books, magazines, and newspapers on audio cassettes and CDs. In some areas, you can also check out a tape player and keep it at your home for as long as it continues to benefit your mother. The tape player is designed to be user-friendly for individuals who are blind or have other disabilities. Headsets are also available so she can listen anywhere and any time without disturbing others. Check out books that are upbeat, inspirational, or funny. If you check out the newspaper, she could internalize the information and become more confused, anxious, or agitated. Pay attention to the volume. If it is too loud, it can cause your mother to become overstimulated, which can lead to anxiety, agitation, or even wandering.

Many libraries have reading programs. She could ride the bus or have a friend or family member take her to listen to the programs. Senior centers also have similar programs.

She could attend an adult day care center and join in the activities there. If she can still read but doesn’t comprehend, she could read to the other clients and feel she is helping them. This would help her self-worth. Many times, centers have reading times so she could listen to a live person read.

You could also find a volunteer organization such as a neighborhood girl or boy, a neighbor, church member, civic organization, or family member to come over and read to her. This would be a great service project for a student. Many people are willing to be help; they just need to be approached.

Reading together can be quality time you could spend with your mother. But, if you are unable to do this, do not feel guilty. Find someone to do it for her. But if you are looking for something to do with and for your mother that would be beneficial for both of you, read to her. Even if she doesn’t completely comprehend what is being read, she is experiencing an activity she has always enjoyed, and that feels good to her.

Surviving spouses usually think the estate of their deceased spouse must go through a Colorado probate. They don’t understand that jointly titled assets will pass directly to the surviving joint tenant when one spouse dies. All that is necessary to clear title to that property into the name of the surviving spouse is simply the filing of the spouse’s death certificate. Ninety five percent of married couples own their real estate in joint tenancy.

Automobiles are usually owned between spouses as joint tenants. Even when cars or trucks are owned only in the name of the deceased spouse, title can be switched to the surviving spouse at the DMV with only a one page form called a small estate affidavit. This does not involve probate and can be done ten days after the deceased owner’s death.

Credit union and bank accounts held in joint tenancy can be changed to the name of the surviving spouse simply by tendering an original death certificate. The same thing can be done with jointly titled mutual funds or brokerage accounts.

Many estates are more complicated than what I have just described; however, the vast majority of estates that we see are relatively simple and do not involve a probate–particularly between spouses when one spouse survives and most of the property was in joint tenancy.

When the second spouse dies and the property passes down to the children, it’s another story. Proper planning to avoid probate through a Colorado living trust, PODs, TODs and beneficiary designations on life insurance, IRAs and 401(k)s is relatively simple.

Our firm offers FREE guides for anyone who wants to know the basics of probate and how to avoid it…Get your copy of The Colorado Guide to Probate and The Colorado Guide to Living Trusts today!

One of the most common support systems for your loved one is the early stage support group. It is sponsored by the Alzheimer’s Association and has started to catch on around the nation. This support group is designed to meet the support needs of the person who has been recently diagnosed and is in the early stages. A skilled facilitator guides the group in discussions about issues such as the diagnosis and what it means, financial and legal concerns, and family issues and feelings. This group is a place to express innermost feelings in a safe place with others who understand. They laugh, cry, eat, and problem solve together. Groups typically meet once a month for 90 minutes. Someone from the association can assess the individuals present to determine if they are able to endure the meetings. While they are meeting, their family members have their own meeting in a separate area, typically in the same building. Their group is also facilitated by a skilled professional or caregiver. They, too, deal with similar issues and can rely on others in similar situations.

Support is also available through web sites. A group called DASN (Dementia Advocacy and Support Network) provides support and information to individuals with dementia and their families. This network was designed for persons with dementia by persons with dementia. They can be found at www.dasn.org or by phone at (406) 222-4477.

Individual support can be found through professional counseling, members of the clergy, or home health care agencies.

For more information on support, you can also contact the Alzheimer’s Disease Education and Referral Center (ADEAR) at (800) 438-4380 or the National Institute on Aging, Alzheimer’s Disease Information: (800) 222-2225.

When our clients plan with a Colorado living trust, they plan with the goals in mind of avoiding probate and, in some cases, death taxes. Unfortunately, good intentions seem to fade as time passes.

During the initial design and implementation of their Colorado living trust, clients are taught how to transfer assets into their trust now and how to transfer assets that they acquire later.  To avoid Colorado probate, we need to transfer all real estate interests by deed to the name of their living trust.  If they own real estate outside the state of Colorado, we seek the assistance of an attorney in each state to help with the deed work.

Mutual funds, CDs, savings accounts, money market accounts, brokerage accounts, savings bonds, promissory notes, business interests and other securities need to be transferred to the name of the trust during the planning process.  This is done by changing the title ownership on the accounts or the stocks and bonds, naming the trust as the owner.  With written instructions, most of our clients can make these changes on their own.  We always handle the deed work.

Regardless of how well the initial funding is done, problems seem to develop later on when assets change.  When refinancing real estate, title is usually transferred out of the trust so that the trust owners can secure new financing.  Frequently, the trust owners fail to transfer the property back into the trust.  If a death occurred, this property would go through a Colorado probate or a probate in whatever other state that property was located.  We caution our clients to contact us whenever they refinance property so that we can help them flip the property back into the trust when the loan transaction is complete.  Unfortunately, many do not heed this warning.

Our clients change brokers and investments as time goes along.  Although our clients may have titled their securities properly at the time they created their trust, they may neglect designating their trust as the title owner of their new accounts when changes are made.

Similar oversights occur with CDs.  The general rule is to name the trust as the title owner of all CDs, savings accounts and money market accounts.  Because these accounts get changed frequently, clients often forget to stay on track.

In an effort to help our clients avoid making these mistakes, we have created a trust maintenance plan we call the “Inner Circle” which is designed to help our clients catch these errors before they become problems.  Through the Inner Circle, our clients are invited back to our offices once every three years for a complete planning review to correct funding errors.  Our monthly newsletter also keeps our clients informed of new laws and strategies and reminds them to continually be vigilant when it comes to titling their assets in their Colorado living trust.  When real estate is purchased, sold or refinanced, we offer to do all of the deed work without charge as a benefit of Inner Circle membership.

In short, keeping trusts fully funded is an on going process that requires attention to detail.  Funding is the secret to avoiding probate.