Elder Law Report
Elder Law Report
Protecting Love With A Plan
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Valentine’s Day is a perfect reminder that love isn’t just a feeling—it’s a plan. We sit down as father and son, both elder law attorneys, to map out clear steps that protect the people who matter most. From choosing a trustee for minor children to keeping your home out of probate, we explain how straightforward documents can prevent the messes that break hearts and budgets.
We start with practical strategies for families with kids: creating a trust that funds education and daily needs, naming a trustee you trust, and using term life insurance with smart beneficiary designations so money lands exactly where it should. Then we move to the home, walking through how an enhanced life estate—often called a Lady Bird deed—lets you keep control while ensuring the property passes smoothly to your chosen heirs without court delays. Along the way, we show when a trust and a deed can work together to add control and protection.
Spousal protection takes center stage as we unpack joint family trusts, general durable powers of attorney, and healthcare powers of attorney. Marriage alone won’t unlock IRAs, bank accounts, or real estate decisions; authority must be granted in writing. We share how to avoid costly guardianships, prepare for long-term care and creditor risks, and keep decisions in the family. Finally, we tackle blended-family pitfalls, explaining how intestacy can split assets in surprising ways—and why a clear will or trust prevents conflict and preserves peace.
If you want your love to last longer than flowers, give your family clarity, not questions. Subscribe, share this with someone who needs a nudge to plan, and leave a review with the one document you still need to sign.
Happy Valentine's Day. Happy Valentine's Day, Jordan.
Jordan McIntyre:Happy Valentine's Day, Dad.
Greg McIntyre:I am here. I'm Greg McIntyre, Estate Planning and Elder Law Attorney with McIntyre Elder Law, talking about Valentine's Day and estate planning and protecting the ones you love. And I'm here with somebody that I love and also is a coworker of mine and a colleague and a fellow attorney, my son Jordan McIntyre. So, Jordan, you know, the first thing that comes to mind when I'm on a call with you or we're talking about this is gosh, you know, protecting your children. Um, if you have children, underage children, especially, I guess. Um, you know, what are some things that let's say a couple with two minor children might want to contemplate or do to make sure that they're protecting their loved ones, their children.
Jordan McIntyre:Yes, and you you have six kids, so you're probably better to speak to this. But I know for my clients, I've set up trust where you know mom and dad have a brother or a sister or a friend who they want to be to the trustee and manage assets for their minor children. So you want to make sure that college is paid for, there's money set aside to take care of them as they get older. And if you're leaving behind significant assets, um someone manages that for their behalf. And we can certainly set up trust to take care of minor beneficiaries and protect um your children.
Greg McIntyre:You know, one of the things that comes to mind, uh, especially for a young couple with two children or more or less, one or one to one or more children, is you know, not only having your assets if there was a tragic accident and both parents were gone, um, having your assets to go to that trust to be managed for the benefit of the children, but also um life insurance. You know, term life insurance is so cheap. You know, I'm not an insurance agent, but to have term life insurance um where the beneficiary is maybe the other spouse and then the second successor beneficiary is that trust, if both pass, um, then that can really help further fund a trust to provide for children. Um, so trust can all can operate to own and control assets during your life, and it can also act as a receiver to receive things like life insurance proceeds if you pass away to fund what could be raising children, sending them to college, and getting them into a life and career. Um, so that's that's a really, really good thing to do and talk about this Valentine's Day is protecting the ones you love and the ones you love the most, um, you know, each other and your children, right? Um, you know, what about protecting the assets like the home, Jordan? You know, um, how do we make sure we can protect the home?
Jordan McIntyre:Well, at McIntyre Elder Law, we use Lady Bird deeds. It's a great way to protect a primary residence and and get it to beneficiaries. Um, and that's an enhanced life estate deed. So our recommendation if you have spouses, make sure that you and your wife are on the deed, and then you leave the home to children of your choosing or people you're choosing outside of probate. So that's a great tool we use. We use trust to protect homes as well, and really a combination of the two, but I'd say ladybird deeds and trust planning to protect your primary residents.
Greg McIntyre:Sure, absolutely, absolutely. And that protects it. You know, if you're a married couple, let's say you're you're an aging married couple in the going into retirement in retirement age, the ladybird deed protects it not only just for you individually, but also for your spouse, right? So it protects for both of you guys. So that's an eye at the next point, which is protecting your spouse, you know. So protecting your home could be part of that, is protecting that for your spouse. What is another way, Jordan, or what are some other concerns that we might want to think about with a married couple and protecting each other?
Jordan McIntyre:Yeah, so you want to make sure that there are plans in place in the event that we have a lot of older clients. Let's say dad goes into a facility and then mom is, you know, losing capacity. We want to make sure that in the event that there's some health care expenses or any creditor claims out there, that that both spouses are protected and the assets are protected. So that still leads into to trust planning. That we can put those plans in place to take into account health scare emergencies and creditor, creditor claims and make sure that the assets are still protected for both spouses.
Greg McIntyre:Sure. Yeah. Trust, you know, we we do not only trust for single folks, individual trust, but also what we call joint family trust, which is a trust that a husband and wife, both as the trust makers, joint combined trust makers, can set up one trust for both of them to operate for the rest of their lives. Um, and that and the assets, the home, other assets can be placed within that trust. Um, in addition, you know, thinking about how to avoid guardianships, I think, Jordan, is really spousal protection also. So making sure that I have general durable power of attorney, healthcare power of attorney in place, and then I've named my spouse to be the agent. Because you might say, hey, we're married, and that should give me the rights to do that, but it doesn't. Good luck accessing, you know, anything with real estate, doing anything with real estate where you're joint owners or uh bank accounts, where there's individual accounts or a retirement account, like an IRA, 401k. There's just individual things that the other spouse is locked out of if there's not a valid, good, comprehensive that has specific grants of authority, power of attorney, general durable power of attorney in place to name the agent that's going to handle that for the principal. And then might want to make your trusted child or children as the successor agents. And same thing with the healthcare power of attorney. Those are I cannot stress the importance of that because if you don't have that in place, then you're looking at going after guardianship for a spouse, a spouse or a parent. And that's a court process that's lengthy and it's more costly. And, you know, certainly we can benefit more as attorneys if you don't do it and you hire us to do the guardianship because it costs a lot more. For a fraction of that, you can put in place those estate planning documents and plan ahead. Planning ahead is always the most efficient and cost-effective way to do it. It's just we as human beings are primarily motivated by fear and the imminent fire that's in front of us, the imminent crisis. Let's get away from that. If I would stress this Valentine's Day that really love, you know, is is about um really thinking ahead, thinking, caring. And part of that is really planning ahead for what might come. And we can really help with that with the state planning. Um, you know, what about caring about yourself? I mean, I think to be able to love someone else, it starts with you. You have to love yourself to fully be able to love someone else. And we need to take care of ourselves also, really. What is it? The the uh this is overused and this is uh cliche maybe at this point, but if the oxygen masks drop out of the ceiling on a plane, who do they instruct you to put the oxygen mask on first?
Jordan McIntyre:Yourself.
Greg McIntyre:Why?
Jordan McIntyre:Because if you're not, if you're you're not getting oxygen, you can't take care of anybody else.
Greg McIntyre:Yeah. I mean, if you're if you're passed out, you can't surely can't help anybody else. So you need to make sure you're squared away before you worry about somebody else. You need to love yourself, and that's going to allow you to really see what the other person needs and help them too. So the power of attorneys, I can't stress that enough. General durable power of attorney, healthcare power of attorney for yourself, making sure that you have your will andor trust together that takes care of you during your life and then and then passes everything to the person you want it to go to. Make sure that the spouse gets it. Jordan, I've met with many clients that that are spouses. Um, you know, their their spouse just passed away and they don't have a will in place, and they're shocked to learn that they now own all the assets, one-half with their child, or or with a child of his of a previous marriage, right? Or or or one third if if he had more than one child when he passed away, or the spouse did, right? So, so sometimes you can see you know subsequent marriages that yield really weird outcomes, uncomfortable outcomes in the end, if you don't plan ahead and put in place wills or trust and and state clearly and properly drafted comprehensive legal documents, who gets what? Because trust me, the state has the statutes of intestate secession, which we call the state's will, which has already made that decision for you and allows you to make it for yourself if you take advantage of that. But that's a state planning. So Jordan, I love you, son.
Jordan McIntyre:I love you too.
Greg McIntyre:Thank you for doing this Valentine's Day edition of the Elder Law report. Um, this has been Greg McIntyre, proud father and estate planning and elder law attorney here with my son Jordan McIntyre, also estate planning and elder law attorney. Thank you, Jordan. You have a great day.
Jordan McIntyre:Thank you. You too.
Greg McIntyre:Bye.
Jordan McIntyre:Amen.