Aging Americans have plenty to consider in their later years, everything from managing their health to handling retirement to drafting a will for their estate. This is a major life step for someone to take, and it can get complicated, involving paperwork, money, and planning for the future. Elder care law is there to help, and any senior citizen can get estate planning from an elder law attorney or an estate planning lawyer. With elder care law in place, any senior citizen can breathe easy knowing that his or her estate and future plans are in good hands.
Americans and Aging
The population of aging Americans is growing fast. In fact, over the course of the last 10 years, the population of those aged 65 or over grew by 33%, and between 2006 and 2016, that population expanded from 37.2 million people to a total of 49.2 million, and that figure could hit 98 million by 2060.
What lifestyles do these older Americans lead? They are often solitary in their living arrangement, given how among non-institutionalized seniors, around 28% of them lived alone in 2017. Among them, 9.3 million were women, and around 4.5 million were men. And in that same year, about half of women 75 or older, or 45%, were living by themselves. Sometimes, they need assistance with daily living; around 60% of Americans 65 or over need this sort of help. Meanwhile, on average, living in a nursing home can be fairly expensive. In a place like Long Island, for example, the costs can reach $15,000 per month. What is a senior citizen to do with his or her finances and estate? Elder care law can handle that.
An Elder Law Lawyer and the Client
According to Daily Caring, a senior citizen can get a referral based on a relative getting similar help from such a lawyer, or through the help of financial advisors or accountants. Often, if a senior citizen has his or her needs organized and clear right away, that person can get a short, free consulting session with lawyers. This allows the client to determine who sounds the most trustworthy and capable of helping out.
Finding elder care law continues when the potential client takes note on what each attorney says and compares them, then using that info and each lawyer’s experience and skills, can decide which is the right one to hire. Once this is done, the lawyer can render assistance.
Writing a will is vital for any senior citizen, and often, Americans do not even write their wills, either due to procrastination or the belief that their small estate does not warrant one. However, if a will is not written, the person’s estate may end up in the hands of greedy or unscrupulous family members, and creditors pay pounce on it with no regards to what the person’s family wants. Instead, elder care law allows a client to have a professional, technical will written so that his/her will gives money and other property to the intended people in the intended amounts. Family members under 18 years old may have trusts set up for them based on the will’s content, and if the deceased had a privately owned business, then that business must factor into the will as well, and that can be complicated without a lawyer’s aid.