Stone Law Offices, Ltd.

Scammers Beef Up Efforts in a Crisis

“The Inspector General of Social Security, Gail S. Ennis, is warning the public about fraudulent letters threatening suspension of Social Security benefits due to COVID-19 or coronavirus-related office closures.”

As if the elderly didn’t have enough to endure, now comes word that scammers who typically prey on seniors are upping their game. Stating that Social Security offices around the country are closed, which is true, scammers are targeting seniors with letters threatening the suspension of their Social Security payments due to pandemic-related office closures.

It’s true that the offices across the country are closed, but Social Security employees are continuing to work, says the My Prime Time News article “Inspector General Warns Public About New Social Security Benefit Suspension Scam.”

What’s more, the Inspector General notes that the Social Security Administration (SSA) will not suspend or discontinue benefits because their offices are closed. The Inspector General has received reports that beneficiaries are receiving letters that advise them to call a phone number referenced in the letter.

Scammers then talk the callers into providing them with personal information or make arrangements for the seniors to send them retail gift cards, wire transfers, internet currency or even sending cash by mail. Otherwise, they tell the seniors that their benefits will be cut off until the office reopens.

Any communication that is received with that message, by mail, phone or email, is fraudulent and should be dismissed. Social Security will never:

• Threaten with benefit suspension, arrest or legal action, if a fine or fee is not paid,
• Promise a benefit increase or other help in return for direct payment,
• Request or even accept payment by retail gift card, wire transfer, internet currency or prepaid debt card,
• Demand secrecy about payments, or
• Send letters or reports with personally identifiable information through the U.S. Mail.

Anyone who receives a letter, text, call or email that concerns an alleged problem with a Social Security number should not respond. The challenge is that the communications sometimes include a person’s Social Security number, or contains names, addresses or other information that is accurate. This is because scammers have purchased information illegally, not because the information is legitimate. Anyone receiving any communication from Social Security that demands immediate attention or threatens the end of benefits, should not respond directly to that communication.

Instead, report the scam to the Social Security Administration through its website. If you have any doubt about the validity of the letter or email, speak with a trusted friend, family member, or estate planning attorney. Don’t fall for it—especially during these tense times.

Nursing Home Care Costs and Applying for Medicaid

“Have you priced nursing homes lately? In Texas, you are looking at an average annual cost of $50,000. We are on the low end; nationally, the average annual cost is closer to $75,000. New Jersey costs a whopping $109,500 annually.”

Medicaid provides several programs funded through a state-federal agreement, explains the article “Planning a must: Medicaid and paying for nursing homes” from The Dallas Morning News. One of the programs provides long-term nursing home care benefits to pay for nursing home or approved residential care facilities. However, requirements to qualify for Medicaid vary widely from state to state. It’s best to speak with an elder law attorney, who will be able to help you plan in advance.

Let’s take Texas as our example. To qualify in the Lone Star state, you must have a medical need and fall under the income and asset caps, which change yearly. In 2020, the income limit for an individual is $2,349 and the asset (resource) amount is $2,000. For a married person, your spouse can have income and resources that are protected, $25,728 is the minimum SPRA (the minimum resource protected amount) and the maximum is $128,640. The monthly maintenance needs allowance for a spouse is $3,216.50. If they sound like low levels, they are. However, there are some assets that Texas does not count. The well spouse may continue to maintain the family home, as long as its value is less than $595,000. A car, burial plots and prepaid funeral arrangements are also permitted.

For most people, this presents a bad situation. Their assets are too high to qualify for Medicaid, but they don’t have enough money to pay for nursing home care. That’s where Medicaid planning with an elder law attorney comes in. The attorney will know where assets can be shielded to protect the well spouse and how to work within the Medicaid requirements.

A word of advice: Don’t start giving away assets because you think that you can do this yourself. The first rule: there is a five-year lookback period, and if assets have been distributed within a five year period of the person applying for Medicaid, their eligibility will be delayed. The rules about gifting assets are complicated and mistakes are non-negotiable.

Be careful of elder exploitation. Planning for Medicaid is one thing, being convinced to impoverish yourself so someone else can have a luxurious lifestyle is another. There’s a fine line between the two. Be aware of the difference. An attorney can play an important role here, since they have a legal and ethical responsibility to protect their client’s interests.

Be certain that you have a Durable Power of Attorney in place. Why? If you become incapacitated during the process of Medicaid planning, your agent will be able to help with Medicaid planning and file for the Medicaid application.

Don’t sell your home. In most states, the primary residence is a protected asset for Medicaid. Once it is sold, however, the proceeds of the sale are considered a personal asset and will be counted.

It’s also important to understand that Medicaid does not pay for all nursing home stays. Medicaid pays for a nursing-home designated “Medicaid bed” in a semi-private room. Depending on where you live, there may not be as many Medicaid beds as there are people who need them.

An elder lawyer will be able to help you and your family with planning for Medicaid, and with an application. You’ll be better off relying on the help of an experienced attorney.

Fraudulent Social Security Calls Still Targeting Seniors

“You’ve probably received one: A recorded call warns of a problem with your Social Security number. To fix it and avoid legal action, you’re told, you must call back immediately—and pay up.”

You’d think everyone would know to ignore these calls. However, these criminals are so convincing, says The New York Times in the article “How Not to Become a Victim of Social Security Fraud Calls,” that many people fall for the schemes and end up losing money. They buy gift cards and often, give up their personal PIN (Personal Identification Number), losing thousands of dollars.

It’s not clear whether the volume of calls is increasing. However, the government is getting thousands of complaints about them, reports the Social Security Administration’s inspector general, Gail Ennis. There have been 250,000 online complaints made, since a new dedicated digital reporting form was released in November 2019.

Other regulators are also reporting a flood of complaints. The Federal Trade Commission has received more than 166,000 complaints about fraudulent Social Security calls last year, and the average individual loss is about $1,500. The Senate’s Special Committee on Aging said that Social Security impersonation schemes were the single most reported fraud on its fraud hotline last year.

In January, the committee heard from a woman who lost $150,000 in a Social Security scheme.

The government is trying to fight the fraud in a few different ways. The Justice Department took legal action in January against two telecommunication companies that it says serve as “gateways” for illegal robocalls, by funneling them to the U.S. from oversees. However, stopping the calls is not easily accomplished. There are many gateway telecommunications companies, so hitting two just means that the criminals will take their business elsewhere.

Congress passed the Telephone Robocall Abuse Criminal Enforcement and Deterrence Act (TRADED), which requires telecommunication companies to adopt technology to identify spoofed calls. Spoofed calls are calls that appear to come from legitimate phone numbers. However, the FCC has yet to set rules for how the law will be carried out, so relief for consumers may be as far as a year away.

Here’s what you need to know about Social Security and other fraudulent calls:

• Don’t answer calls from unfamiliar numbers. Let the calls go to voicemail, or the answering machine, if you still use one.
• If you answer the phone and someone demands money immediately, hang up.
• Report the call to the inspector general’s office on the Social Security Administration’s website. There’s a form that asks you to create a unique identification number, so you can ask for that number if anyone calls to verify their identity.
• Be aware that even a phone call that appears to be from Social Security mostly likely will not be from the agency. Schemes that involve a suspension of benefits work because they target senior’s biggest fear—losing their benefits.
• There are other Social Security schemes. Some involve official looking papers, and there has been an increase in the number of scams that start with an official-looking text. The Social Security Administration does not text people, unless they have signed up to have authentication codes sent to your phone when logging into a Social Security account.

There’s not much that can be done by the individual to stop the endless stream of robocalls. You can register your number on the Federal Trade Commission’s Do Not Call list, but that will only reduce calls from legitimate telemarketers. The criminals will still call. The best advice is not to answer the phone, unless it’s from someone you know, and never, ever give in to demands of immediate payment. That’s always a red flag for fraud.

C19 UPDATE: Keeping Ourselves and Our Elderly Loved Ones Safer

If you’re caring for an older loved one, you might be worried. Here is what you need to know to keep elderly people safer, and what to do if they do show symptoms of COVID-19.

We have all been warned that our elderly loved ones are at heightened risk during the coronavirus pandemic. If you are a caregiver for someone in this high-risk population, here are some tips from Dr. Alicia Arbaje, who specializes in internal medicine and geriatrics at Johns Hopkins.

1. Keep Yourself Well
   Be sure to follow all the guidelines and precautions about social distancing, hand washing, and cleaning to keep yourself well.
2. Limit In-Person Visits
   It may be emotionally challenging but keeping in-person visits to a minimum is the best way to reduce the risk of infection. When you can’t be there in-person, use technology to stay in touch. Teach your older loved ones how to use video chat applications. Remember to add captions to your videos if they are hearing-impaired. Also, encourage others to telephone or send cards or notes as well.
3. Be Creative About Home-Based Projects
   Now may be a great time to encourage your loved ones to record their personal stories, organize family photos or reconnect with old friends online.
4. Decide on a Plan
   Discuss now your emergency response plan. Who will be the emergency contact? Do you know where the estate planning documents are and can you quickly access them, especially health care directives?

If you or your loved one do not have an updated will or trust and health care documents, please reach out to our office. We can help get planning in place quickly and easily and are even offering virtual meetings now to keep everyone safe.

What if your elder loved one starts to develop symptoms?

If you or your loved one learn that you might have been exposed to someone diagnosed with COVID-19 or if anyone in your household develops symptoms such as cough, fever or shortness of breath, call your family doctor, nurse helpline or urgent care facility. For a medical emergency such as severe shortness of breath or high fever, call 911.

Financial Elder Abuse Is Growing

“A suspicious email, a strange phone call from an unknown number, an overzealous financial adviser, a close family member: what’s the connection between all these people and things? It's financial elder abuse.”

Financial elder abuse is defined as the “fraudulent or otherwise illegal, unauthorized or improper act or process of an individual, including a caregiver or fiduciary, that uses the resources of an older individual for monetary or personal benefit, profit or gain, that results in depriving an older individual of rightful access to, or use of, benefits, resources, belongings or assets.” That’s from The Older Americans Act of 2006.

Consumers Digest estimates that there are at least five million cases of financial elder abuse in America every year. An article titled “Population ages, financial abuse rises” from the Reading Eagle wisely notes that seniors are not just being targeted, they are the bull’s eye.

One of the reasons is because many older Americans live in isolation. A person who spends most of their time alone will welcome any simple human interaction, including talking to anyone who calls on the phone, unknown neighbors introducing themselves, marketing mail or interactions on the internet. This desire for company makes seniors more likely to ignore warning signs and to hand over money and control of their assets.

Do you wonder what kind of person would hand over their power of attorney to a stranger? The plain truth is that most financial elder abuse is committed by people who are closest to the senior. Family members are far more likely to prey on seniors than a stranger.

One financial advisor notes an instance where a scammer forged a check for $25,000 in a senior’s name, then kept doing it until she had stolen up to $75,000. She did it repeatedly, because she knew that she could get away with it.

The key to prevention is planning. First, seniors should simplify their financial and legal matters. Surrounding yourself with trusted advisors and family members who serve as checks and balances for each other is a good idea. It’s sometimes hard to know who to trust sometimes, especially family members. An estate planning attorney should be part of your team, and everyone should work together.

If you become suspicious that financial fraud is happening to you or a loved one, you may want to reach out to the Adult Protective Services office in your community. They will be able to advocate on behalf of the senior.

Treat everything and everyone with a degree of suspicion. If someone knocks on the front door and says they can offer you a discount on tree removal or roof repair because they are in the neighborhood, don’t believe them. You should also have an estate plan in place that protects your assets, so they are less vulnerable to a scammer.

COVID-19 Estate Planning Action List

Over the next several weeks, we will be sending out additional resources and updates on the impact of COVID-19 on your personal and business plans.  As such, be sure to watch for our newsletters, blogs, emails, webinars, and posts to our website (www.nvestateplan.com).  In the interim, following is a checklist of short-term actions you can take to assure your estate planning remains a success:

• Conduct a “fire drill” of your estate planning documents, if not done within the last 3 years, i.e., do you have a complete, comprehensive, and current estate plan.

• Confirm all of your assets are in alignment with your estate plan, i.e., are your assets titled in the name of your Living Trust, and beneficiary designations updated.

• Clarify the location of your important papers (Will, Trust, Powers of Attorney, Insurance Policies, Bank Statements, etc.) and communicate the location to your named successor trustee(s) and key family members.

• Communicate with your family members regarding your wishes and expectations about your estate plan.

• Complete the personal stuff, i.e., complete your Personal Property Memorandum and Memorial Instructions in your estate planning binder.

• Connect (safely) with your friends, family, and others; don’t allow “social distancing” to become “social isolation.”

• Contact us if you have any questions or concerns about your estate planning or if there is any need to update the same.

All of us at Stone Law Offices are here to assist and support you as we all work through this challenging period together.  If you have any questions, or if you need assistance with the review or update of estate planning, probate, trust administration, asset protection, and business planning legal needs, please do not hesitate to contact us at 702-998-0444, or schedule a complimentary consultation. 

We look forward to the future time when we sit together in a COVID-19 free world.  In the meantime, stay safe and stay healthy!!!

Planning for Long-Term Care Before It’s Too Late

“A strong long-term care plan spells out where you would like to live, how you plan to get around, and who will oversee your financial and health decisions when you’re incapacitated.”

Starting to plan for elder care should happen when you are in your 50s or 60s. By the time you are 70, it may be too late. With the national median annual cost of a private room in a nursing facility coming in at more than $100,000, not having a plan can become one of the most expensive mistakes of your financial life. The article “Four steps you can take to safeguard your retirement savings from this risk” from CNBC says that even if care is provided in your own home, the annual median national cost of in-home skilled nursing is $87.50 per visit.

There are fewer and fewer insurance companies that offer long-term care insurance policies, and even with a policy, there are many out-of-pocket costs that also have to be paid. People often fail to prepare for the indirect cost of caregiving, which primarily impacts women who are taking care of older, infirm male spouses and aging parents.

More than 34 million Americans provided unpaid care to older adults in 2015, with an economic value of $522 billion per year.

That’s not including the stress of caring for loved ones, watching them decline and needing increasingly more help from other sources.

The best time to start planning for the later years is around age 60. That’s when most people have experienced their parent’s aging and understand that planning and conversations with loved ones need to take place.

Living Transitions. Do you want to remain at home as long as is practicable, or would you rather move to a continuing care retirement community? If you are planning on aging in place in your home, what changes will need to be made to your home to ensure that you can live there safely? How will you protect yourself from loneliness, if you plan on staying at home?

Driving Transitions. Knowing when to turn in your car keys is a big issue for seniors. How will you get around, if and when you are no longer able to drive safely? What transportation alternatives are there in your community?

Financial Caretaking. Cognitive decline can start as early as age 53, leading people to make mistakes that cost them dearly. Forgetting to pay bills, paying some bills twice, or forgetting accounts, are signs that you may need some help with your financial affairs. Simplify things by having one checking, one savings account and three credit cards: one for public use, one for automatic bill-paying and a third for online purchases.

Healthcare Transitions. If you don’t already have an advance directive, you need to have one created, as part of your overall estate plan. This provides an opportunity for you to state how you want to receive care, if you are not able to communicate your wishes. Not having this document may mean that you are kept alive on a respirator, when your preference is to be allowed to die naturally. You’ll also need a Health Care Power of Attorney, a person you name to make medical decisions on your behalf when you cannot do so. This person does not have to be a spouse or an adult child—sometimes it’s best to have a trusted friend who you will be sure will follow your directions. Make sure this person is willing to serve, even when your documented wishes may be challenged.    

Can You Apply for a Mortgage at an Advanced Age?

“Federal law, under the Equal Credit Opportunity Act, forbids discrimination in the mortgage market on the basis of age. Nonetheless, loan officers say older borrowers often don’t realize they can get loans with terms that will expire on their 110th, 120th or nearly 130th birthdays.”

A senior loan officer with a mortgage company in Florida recently wrote a 30-year loan for a retiree who was purchasing a home in New Port Rickey. He didn’t expect to have trouble qualifying for the loan, but he was surprised that he did.

That’s because he was 97 years old.

Under the Equal Credit Opportunity Act, federal law forbids discrimination in the mortgage market on the basis of age, reports The Wall Street Journal in a recent article “You’re Never Too Old to Apply for a Mortgage.” However, most seniors don’t know that they can get loans that will expire on their 110^th, 120^th and even later birthdays. In fact, the Federal Housing Finance Agency says that borrowers over age 65 make up ten percent of all mortgages originated annually.

Some lenders are working harder to find ways to qualify retirees, including rolling out lending programs that allow borrowers to use their investment portfolios to qualify without taking monthly distributions. Loan officers, especially in areas with large numbers of retirees, have become skilled at adding up income streams, helping borrowers establish new ones and willingly guiding them through the process.

The simplest way is for a retiree to add up their monthly fixed income from all sources, which are then treated like a salary by the lenders. If those numbers are not high enough, the next step is to create an ongoing distribution from a retirement account, like an IRA or 401(k). For one mortgage lender, a retired borrower needs to show $8,000 of monthly income for a 30-year home purchase loan. The borrower set up a distribution for that amount from an IRA worth $500,000, and had her financial advisor draft a letter to the lending company about the new income stream. This made her qualified for the loan, even though at that rate, her entire IRA would be drained in five or six years. Fannie Mae rules only require that distributions are guaranteed to continue for three years.

If the property produces income, those funds can be counted towards the qualifying amount. However, the underlying value of the property, even if it is owned outright or if there is a lot of equity in the home, is not considered by the lender. Property tax and homeowner’s insurance are measured as debt in the debt-to-income equation.

If qualifying is still a problem, lenders are increasingly willing to include stocks, bonds, and mutual funds. This is very different than creating a distribution steam that counts as income. The borrower is not required to take a monthly amount from their portfolio. The lender uses a formula called “asset depreciation” or “asset annuitization or depletion” to impute a monthly distribution from the investment portfolio.

Some jumbo lenders who cater to high net worth individuals have more liberal asset depreciation programs. In New York, an 83-year-old retired co-op owner received a $1 million, 10-year, interest only adjustable rate mortgage for a re-finance at a highly competitive rate through a bank’s program similar to an asset depreciation plan. With the deposit of a few hundred thousand dollars into the bank, the owner qualified based on a portfolio of stocks and bonds valued at $1.6 million.

Speak with your estate planning lawyer before making this kind of large financial decision, since it may have a significant impact on your overall estate plan.

What Should I Keep in Mind, When I Remarry?

“When you remarry, you're not only combining residences with your new spouse, you're also merging your finances. If you have children, it may involve some financial-related stress. For instance, you might need to factor in child support payments or consider whether your new marriage will impact your children's inheritance.”

Before you remarry, discuss any past financial issues with your fiancé, and plan for success, by considering some important ideas.

U.S. News & World Report’s recent article, “6 Financial Considerations for Remarriage,” lists six financial considerations and crucial steps to take before you remarry:

1. Revise Your Budget. Whether this is your first, second, or third marriage, couples need to create a budget for daily spending, monthly expenses and big-ticket purchases. You should also talk about your household expenses and costs related to children from a prior marriage. If you have to pay alimony, let your new spouse know. It’s also a good time to talk about credit card debt, past investments you've made and retirement accounts. You may want to draft a prenuptial agreement.
2. Inform your Fiancé of Any Financial Obligations, Including Child Support. Before getting married, review the laws to see how child support may be impacted by marriage to a new person. While it's unlikely that you would lose your child support if you remarry, the family court may reduce the amount. If a person paying the child support is remarrying, they should talk to their partner prior to the marriage to make certain they understand the amount of the payments.
3. Check Insurance and Benefits. A frequent mistake when remarrying, is not updating the beneficiaries of life insurance policies. You also may have to look at other updates to your coverage, like who will be on your health plan, and you may need to modify your homeowner’s insurance with a spouse and children in residence. Understand that if you get government benefits, like Medicaid or Social Security, you could forfeit your Medicaid eligibility when you remarry if your spouse's income is too high to be eligible. You might also discover that your Social Security benefits from an ex-spouse will stop, after you remarry.

A second marriage may also increase a parent's income for federal financial aid purposes for college. If a parent is the custodial parent for the FAFSA (Free Application for Federal Student Aid), their income now may include their new spouse's income. It is important to discuss saving for college and tuition costs, as well as if either partner has children from a prior marriage, whether each spouse will save money for tuition costs.

5. Estate Planning Is Critical. Check your estate planning before remarrying. That includes a will, medical powers of attorney, do not resuscitate orders, durable powers of attorney, designations of guardianship or consent to adoption and various trusts, including trusts for special needs children. If you have children from a prior relationship, hire a qualified estate planning attorney.
6. Create an Inheritance Plan. If you have children from a prior relationship, you need to put the right estate planning documents in place to protect them from being disinherited. In some states, a last will and testament may be enough, but in others it may make sense to also have a revocable living trust.

The biggest mistake that couples commit when entering their second marriage, is thinking that their own children will inherit any of their estate, if they die first. Perhaps the adult children will inherit some of the estate, but you should speak to an estate attorney to create a customized strategic plan. In many instances, the living spouse will change the plan and leave everything to their children and nothing to yours.

When Will the VA Process My Vietnam “Blue Water” Benefits?

“Veterans Affairs officials are confident they’ll be able to start processing ‘blue water’ Vietnam veterans disability claims at the start of next year, but also acknowledged a tight timeline ahead for the training and technology work to get the department ready for those cases.”

House lawmakers have expressed worries that even minor issues in the processing of “blue water” Vietnam veterans disability claims, could result in major delays for veterans who have already waited decades for these benefits.

Military Times reported in its recent article that asks “Will VA be ready to process new ‘blue water’ Vietnam veterans benefits next year?” VA officials promise that they will start processing cases in January 2020. However, critics and veterans’ advocates want that to happen more quickly. Advocates have also demanded that the White House speed up the timeline for the benefits.

“These people have waited too long, and we finally have the legislation in place,” said Rep. Mike Bost, R-Ill., ranking member on the House Veterans’ Affairs committee’s panel on disability assistance. “We need to get it done.”

Last summer, President Trump signed into law a bill that finalized presumptive benefits status for “blue water” veterans who served on vessels off the coast of Vietnam during the war.

Under Veterans Administration regulations, vets who served on land in the war are presumed to have toxic exposure related to spraying of the defoliant known as Agent Orange during the Vietnam War. However, sailors on ships off the coast of Vietnam weren’t given the same concession.

However, the new law will see as many as 90,000 veterans become eligible for the new presumptive status, which will mean thousands of dollars in disability benefits each month.

This legislation let VA officials delay processing those cases until the beginning of 2020, even though some cases were already being considered due to a federal court ruling earlier in this year.

Advocates and some members of Congress have complained that the delay has put another unfortunate burden on veterans, who have suffered from Agent Orange exposure for decades.

In an update hearing before the committee, Veterans Affairs Deputy Under Secretary for Field Operations, Willie Clark emphasized that the delay was required to get department systems prepared for the anticipated onslaught of blue water claims.