When qualifying for long-term Medicaid, there are asset and income restrictions. In many states, the applicant cannot have more than $2,000 in assets and receive benefits. Luckily, the equity in the applicant’s home is an excluded asset, up to a certain amount. But in order to have the home’s equity excluded, must the applicant have occupied that home prior to applying for benefits? This issue was recently litigated in Texas.

Business owners can be so concerned with day-to-day operations that they fail to prepare for the inevitable day when they are no longer able to run their business. There always seems to be time until there is no more time. Business succession planning may be the “single-most neglected aspect” of running a company. Further, this issue is relevant to business clients as well as to attorneys who run their own practices. Whether plans to depart the business are imminent or far-off, it is important to act now, as proper business succession planning can often take several years to implement.

Protecting assets is a major goal of estate planning, and as of March 2022, nineteen states have statutes that allow the creation of a domestic asset protection trust (DAPT). A DAPT is an irrevocable trust designed to protect trust assets from beneficiaries’ creditors. An even better version of this trust is the hybrid DAPT, which can offer another layer of protection for your client. Read on to learn how it works.