Happy New Year to everyone out there from me and the McIntyre Elder Law team! Exclusive right here 2020 we will be working extremely hard for clients and adding nursing home litigation to our areas of practice. We will always fight for you! Happy New Year!!!
Happy New Year! Hey guys. This is Greg McIntyre with McIntyre Elder Law and I’m going to go home to party hard with my wife and children and my wife’s mother tonight, and we’re going to stay in there. We’ll probably get to bed before midnight, but I wanted to wish everyone out there a happy New Year. I am going to meet with Brenton tomorrow. We’re going to be doing planning. We’re going to start off with a workout and do planning all day on the new year and I’m excited about that.
There have been some amazing things that have happened with our firm this year. We’ve had a lot of growth over the last two years. I’m extremely grateful and thankful for that. There have been some bad things and some sad things that have happened this year also. I’ve been reflecting around this time of year on the great things and the not so great things. But I think for me, even when the not so great things happen, I’m able to review and see what I could have done differently, or how we can make things better. And that can mean anything from working with someone, to client services to, what kind of man I was, how I ate during the year.
My dream is to get up at 4:00 every morning and knock out a couple of hours of exercise and maybe some meditation before I start my day. But that doesn’t always happen mainly because life happens. So I’m always trying to get there, but I never quite get there. But I promise you that I will continue to try to be an educated attorney in our practice area, estate planning and elder law. That our firm will have a commitment to client and customer service to help you and your family achieve your goals, whatever it may be. Estate planning, probate, probate litigation, and I’d like to announce… That was Southern… Like to announce a new area of law that we are implementing within our firm that’s rarely done, but needs to be done because it is so needed. This is the first time I’ve ever said this to anyone outside of a small circle of people. We will start our nursing home litigation practice in 2020. We will start our nursing home litigation practice in 2020.
I was in court today with a woman who is almost 90 years old. And it was a litigation case. And I was helping her against another family member and we won. We were very lucky, very gracious. But I love to fight hard for clients and people out there that know me from another life when I was doing nothing but courtroom and trial litigation. I think would tell you that I fight extremely hard for our clients. We’ve been very effective in fighting for clients and we’re going to be.. I’m excited because I feel like we will be very effective at fighting for people who have been injured, hurt because of the negligence, malfeasance, bad actions of nursing homes out there. So I’m putting people on notice and I’m letting potential clients know and letting you guys know that I enjoy what I do. It’s not always roses. It hasn’t been always roses this year. I promise you we will keep working hard and I’ll work to be the hardest working attorney out there. If I can, I will try.
Please let me know if you ever have any questions, call us. (704) 749-9244 or online at mcelderlaw.com. Thank you to each and every client. I hope you have a great night. Be safe and give somebody, hopefully family, a hug and kiss tonight. Happy New Year.
As we enter the new year, you may be asking yourself the same question you likely ask every year: “how is this year going to be different?” Every new year, we make our resolutions and our goals but, despite our best intentions, we tend to somehow fall short of our goals. It’s not because of lack of ambition or willpower. We fail to reach our potential because we lack the tools and the plan necessary to succeed. Another way to put it is that we lack clarity.
It makes sense to fall short of a goal if you lack clarity; after all, how easy is it to hit a bullseye if you’re wearing a blindfold. Therefore, the first step to success is to gain clarity.
So, what is clarity? Clarity means a clear vision, a workable plan and tools to accomplish that plan. Elder Law is clarity. It’s the bright blinking exit sign in the labyrinth of legal issues you encounter as you age. Elder Law gives you a vision, a workable plan, and tools to accomplish that plan. Without clarity, your attempt to protect your assets, preserve your legacy, and safeguard your wellbeing is shrouded in a fog like haze, making it easy to run headlong into the legal pitfalls that tend to befall us all.
Too many people suffer through the legal maze of aging. Too many people are taken advantage of. Too many families suffer avoidable hardship. This is a call to action. Let’s gain 2020 vision this new year. Allow McIntyre Elder Law to provide you with clarity. Our experienced attorneys are ready to help. Call (704) 259-7040.
A power of attorney document should be straight-forward, right? You just name a person or two in a cookie cutter document and they act as your agent . . . easy peasey. As you probably guessed, since I’m writing a whole article on it, a power of attorney document must be tailored specifically for you.
Let’s Define
Let’s begin by defining a power of attorney. It’s a document where in which you name a person to act on your behalf, as if they were you, for legal, financial, or healthcare purposes. The person who gives the power is the “Principal” and the person who receives the power is the “Agent”. The “legal and financial” power of attorney is known as the General Durable Power of Attorney; this is separate from the “Healthcare” power of attorney. General means that it covers, generally, all legal and financial matters. Durable means that the power survives incompetency, incapacity, or lapse of time.
Now that we have an idea of what the Power of attorney is, let’s look at some questions you should be asking yourself with regard to your power of attorney.
Does it Look Legit?
Okay, so this doesn’t sound like it should matter, but it does. Your power of attorney document, by its nature, is a document that is shown to a third party—that is, a person other than the principal or agent. The agent using the power of attorney needs to be able to use it and if a third party e.g. bank questions its legitimacy, it could delay very important tasks the agent needs to fulfill.
Does it give the requisite Authority?
Just because a power of attorney is general, does not mean it gives your agent the necessary powers to meaningfully act on your behalf. Some powers of attorney fail give certain powers that your agent would need to protect you in a variety of situations. But, just as important, some powers of attorney do not make it clear what power is being given.
Let me explain by way of example: you are named as agent and in the power of attorney document it says that you have the authority to engage in banking transactions. You go to the bank, and for a good reason, you ask to close out the principal’s bank account and have a check made out for the funds in the account. The bank asks to see the power of attorney document and you point to the provision that says you have the authority to do “banking transactions”. But what does that mean? Surely “banking transactions” doesn’t include everything that can be done with regard to a bank account. The bank wants to err on the side of caution, so they refuse to do what you ask even though you have power of attorney. Your stuck and all because the document isn’t specific.
When is it Effective?
You should ask when the power of attorney actually becomes effective. Some people have what’s called a springing power of attorney. A springing power of attorney means that the power only “springs” forth when the principal becomes incompetent, incapacitated, or otherwise unable to act for themselves. If the power of attorney is not springing, then it becomes effective immediately upon signing.
So, which one should you have? Well, the springing power of attorney makes some people, whom may be hesitant to give away power, more comfortable. But, its inefficient. For example, how do you prove someone is incompetent? Maybe you need to get their primary physician to write a letter. This can take days or even weeks to accomplish.
You name and agent so that they can act on your behalf, they step in and make day-to-day decisions as well as big decisions, and you want them to be able to make these decisions immediately when they’re needed.
Delay can cost money, assets, and inheritances. It can also subject the principal to healthcare scenarios that they specifically want to avoid.
Does my Power of Attorney Work for Me?
Lastly, you need to ask: does my power of attorney work for me? If you want a review of your power of attorney documents or if you have questions about your estate plan, let the experienced attorneys at McIntyre Elder Law assist you. Call us at (704) 259-7040.
Merry Christmas to all our CLIENTS!!! From the McIntyre Family to you and your family… we truly appreciate the opportunity to work with each and every client. Merry Christmas!
Greg, Stef and the 3 littles bake Greg’s late grandmother’s recipe for Honey Bun Cake. Great holiday tradition and show to remember loved ones, have a good time with family and bake a DELICIOUS CAKE! We ate the whole thing by day’s end.
A tie? Pajamas? Give a gift that keeps on giving for generations. Give the gift of planning with McIntyre Elder Law. Call: 704-259-7040 or online at: mcelderlaw.com/holidays.
It’s that time of year again. Time for our family of clients to schedule their free annual reviews. If there has been a change in your family, and your life during the past year it is a great time to schedule your free annual review to ensure you were state plan still meet your needs. Call our office today to schedule: 704-749-9244 or online at: mcelderlaw.com.
IF YOU ARE A CLIENT:
I hope that this letter finds you well, and I want to tell you how much I value the trust you have placed in me as your attorney. As a service to you and my other valued clients, I offer a free review annually, not only to have the chance to visit and catch up with how you are doing, but also to review your estate plan and other documents in light of any possible changes. Such changes can occur because of a change in your situation or at the whim of a well-intended legislator, but with just a few minutes in my office, we can insure that everything is in place in accordance with your needs and wishes. Below is a short list of some such occurrences which may create a need for minor – and, infrequently, major – changes to protect your home, other property and assets, and your hard-earned money:
· Marriage
· Birth of Child
· Divorce
· Birth of a Grandchild
· Death of a Spouse or Family Member
· Child Becoming 21
· Purchase or Sale of a Home
· Change in Resources/Inheritance
· Purchase of Rental or Vacation Home
· Special Needs Child or Spouse
· Declining Health
· Aging
Please call at your convenience, and we will set up a few minutes for you to either come to my office or, if you would prefer, meet in your home – or in a restaurant over a cup of coffee (I’ll buy). As always, whether or not you have any changes which affect your situation, there is no obligation for this meeting; it is totally free of charge to you, a valued client, and I look forward to hearing from you soon. You may reach me at my office at 704.749.9244.
On this day I am thankful for everything in my life. For the people whom I love. For my work. For my team. For my family. I am even thankful for the bad times because they taught me lessons and helped me appreciate the good times even more. Happy Thanksgiving to you and your family. – Greg McIntyre
Elder Law Report: How to Protect the Things You are Thankful For: ALSO… Join us for our office Thanksgiving party!!!
Greg McIntyre: As I walk through the office, I’m smelling the turkey. Look at that. Bam. Bam. We’re having Thanksgiving dinner here at the office and it got me thinking today for the Elder Law Report that I wanted to talk about, a little bit about Thanksgiving, what we had to be thankful for. I’m going to film a little of our office Thanksgiving, too, so I’ll show you what we’re doing. People in there hard at work. Felicia. We’re going to have our whole office coming together today. And they’re going to be coming together … Hey, Brent.
Brenton: Hey. Oh, doing a video.
Greg McIntyre: Yeah.
Brenton: Looking good.
Greg McIntyre: I didn’t have it facing forward, I had it facing toward me.
Brenton: Oh, okay. Well, I waved and I guess you didn’t catch it.
Greg McIntyre: You know, Brent, what I was talking about today, here’s our cook. Our chef. My wife’s at home making stuffing by hand.
Sonya: Green bean casserole.
Greg McIntyre: That turkey I just showed you in the oven, Sonya who is literally … I mean, she’s a great cook.
Sonya: Thank you. I love it.
Greg McIntyre: And loves cooking. We’re all going to be together, our whole office.
Sonya: Whole office.
Greg McIntyre: We thought it was important to-
Sonya: I want everybody here.
Greg McIntyre: … shut down the Charlotte office literally today, come in to the Shelby office.
Sonya: And break bread together.
Greg McIntyre: And break bread together and be together. And that’s what families on Thanksgiving.
Brenton: It’s like a pilgrimage.
Sonya: It is.
Greg McIntyre: Yeah, a pilgrimage. We are making a pilgrimage-
Brenton: From Charlotte to Shelby.
Greg McIntyre: … all of us to be together today. This is, yes, Plymouth Rock.
Brenton: And we are the Indians.
Greg McIntyre: I guess the point that I was thinking about and the message that I was going to send is we could talk about legal planning on this episode. We could talk about lady bird deeds, help you save your home and pass it to the kids. We could talk about foundational work, general durable power of attorney, healthcare power of attorney, living will and will that if you don’t have in place could jeopardize you or your loved ones’ ability to save your home and other money or property if you become incompetent or incapacitated because of illness or injury. We could talk about trust that can help you protect your assets, maximize your taxable exemption, control money and property well after you’re gone. We could talk about those things. But what’s really important is the fact that we’re going to be together. And that presents an opportunity.
Sonya: It does.
Greg McIntyre: When families come together at Thanksgiving and around the holidays, they really have an opportunity to get together to talk, to discuss things. And sometimes it’s hard to talk to mom or dad.
Sonya: It’s the hard questions to ask.
Greg McIntyre: It’s hard. For me, it’s hard to think about stepping up and approaching my mom or my dad and saying, “Hey, look. I’m concerned about these things. We’re all getting older. We ain’t getting no younger, right?”
Sonya: Not yet.
Greg McIntyre: And what are your plans? Do you even have the basic things in place that if something happened to you that we would be able to take care of you and keep the band playing, keep the bills being paid, keep the accounts being managed? Do you have things in place to protect real estate, to protect your retirement? Those are tough conversations to have, but they need to be had.
Sonya: It’s questions that need to be asked.
Greg McIntyre: That’s right.
Sonya: And what more of an important time and availability to make that happen is when all of the family, especially extended family who may be out of town who are going to play a part in this decision making and help come to those decisions, so this is the perfect time to sit around the table, break bread with your family, and have those tough conversations.
Greg McIntyre: Literally sit around the Thanksgiving table and take time over the holidays. For me, I’m going to Savannah, Georgia because my family moved there in 2002 with my dad’s job. My four sisters are there. I’m going to take four days. I’ll probably leave Wednesday evening and I’ll be down there through Sunday.
Sonya: Awesome, awesome.
Greg McIntyre: And we’re just going to hang out together. There’s plenty of opportunities for me to go hit a golf ball with dad and talk to dad about it.
Sonya: Spend some time.
Brenton: And you know, speaking of hard conversations, I think that our clients if I had to guess are very thankful for the fact that we have hard conversations with them. Our consultations are real and that’s what we asked you to do and we employed you to do to sit down with your parents, with your loved ones, with your siblings and have those hard conversations, because what you get from that is peace of mind.
Greg McIntyre: We have those conversations every day. That’s a good point.
Brenton: Yeah. And vitamin G as Bob would say, that vitamin G, that gratefulness that you have afterwards of having that conversation and getting things in place and feeling like you have some structure there and not having to worry.
Greg McIntyre: And that’s the peace of mind, right?
Brenton: That’s right. That’s the peace of mind.
Sonya: You can’t put a price on that.
Brenton: No, you can’t.
Greg McIntyre: I mean, I have clients who call me and tell me that they literally stay up nights, they stay up nights worrying.
Brenton: Oh, man. Yeah.
Greg McIntyre: They stay up nights worrying.
Brenton: That gets me every time, too, because you don’t have to.
Greg McIntyre: Getting those planning elements in place can save you from that, can give you that peace of mind. So I would employ you …
Brenton: Implore?
Greg McIntyre: I would implore you. I employ you. Actually, I kind of feel like I work for her a lot of times, okay? This is our office manager. And my unsteady hand. Don’t let me drop you, okay? I employ you. This is not funny anymore.
Brenton: Implore.
Greg McIntyre: I implore you. Sit down at the table, at the Thanksgiving dinner table. When I’m taking a walk with dad or hitting a golf ball with dad or maybe get in the kitchen with mom and have a few of those tough conversations. Hey, as a conversation starter, some times I’ll show you what can help. This is a great help conversation starter. This is Saving the Farm, a book I wrote, a practical guide to the legal maze of aging in America. It talks about foundational planning, lady bird deeds, trust planning. We’d be glad, we’d love for you to have a copy. Call us to get a copy, 704-749-9244 or go to MDElderLaw.com/savingthefarm, okay? That’s a great conversation starter. Great gift and great bedside table book or coffee table book for mom or dad when they’re looking and thinking about how to make that planning happen and what to do.
I hope everyone out there has a Happy Thanksgiving. Please watch for a few minutes longer. I want to show you our great team and I want to show you what we’ve made for Thanksgiving dinner at our office, a little pre Thanksgiving so we can come to Plymouth Rock, right?
Brenton: That’s right.
Greg McIntyre: So we can come here to McEntire Elder Law to our home office and break bread together. So have a great weekend, have a great holiday. Bye.
Sonya: They got passed down and now it’s mine. That’s what they have, but instead of being that color it’s [crosstalk 00:07:08].
Greg McIntyre: This is the knife.
Sonya: That’s the knife.
Greg McIntyre: You could hack up a turkey with this thing.
Sonya: That’s what your daddy does. [crosstalk 00:07:14]
Greg McIntyre: This kind of smells when you run it.
Sonya: You don’t get no turkey. No turkey for you.
Greg McIntyre: No, I just mean the knife. You can smell-
Sonya: You can smell the love. They got passed down and now it’s mine. That’s what they have, but instead of being that color [crosstalk 00:07:32].
Greg McIntyre: This is the knife.
Sonya: That’s the knife.
Greg McIntyre: You could hack up a turkey with this thing.
Sonya: That’s what your daddy does. [crosstalk 00:07:40]
Greg McIntyre: This kind of smells when you run it.
Brenton: I was reading your name tags-
Greg McIntyre: Trick or treat, smell my feet. Give me something good to eat. Oh, wrong holiday.
Stefanie: Wrong holiday.
Greg McIntyre: You made all this, Stefanie?
Stefanie: I did. Sonya made the turkey and she made-
Greg McIntyre: Sonya made the turkey, you made all this. My wife and firm manager, Thanksgiving party. Thank you, Sonya.
Sonya: You’re welcome. Let’s eat.
Greg McIntyre: Thank you.
Stephanie: You’re welcome.
Greg McIntyre: Wife. Stephanie.
Taylor: Stephanie, I just want to let you know that I made it today. I wasn’t invited but I made it.
Greg McIntyre: Where’s everybody at?
Taylor: I wasn’t invited.
Stefanie: I’m sure that-
Greg McIntyre: Is this everybody? We didn’t get everybody here.
Stefanie: You were invited, it was just like unspoken.
Sonya: You just knew you were supposed to be here.
Brenton: [crosstalk 00:08:26]
Greg McIntyre: Unplug the phones.
Speaker 6: Jessica.
Jessica: Yes, ma’am?
Speaker 6: For guardianship, do I just message you and [crosstalk 00:08:42]-
Greg McIntyre: Where’s everybody else in the back?
Brenton: [crosstalk 00:08:42]
Greg McIntyre: I just filmed you doing that. Come on, eat. Woo.
Stefanie: And he won a truck. I won a door prize from [inaudible 00:08:57] Woodworking, but I got to go pick it up. I won it three weeks ago and I forgot to go get it.
Greg McIntyre: You’re fine.
Sonya: We need to be playing the Adam Sandler [crosstalk 00:09:08].
Brenton talks about his career, tells us a little bit about himself, and why he practices elder law.
Hi, Brenton Begley with McIntyre Elder Law. And I wanted to jump on today and tell you why I chose elder law as a profession. You know, there’s lots of different types of law and I could’ve chose any one of those. I’ve actually done a few types of law, but elder law is my favorite one. Okay. And I decided to do this type of law because it makes me happy. Selfishly it really does make me happy. And the reason why it makes me happy is because I care about my clients that care about the law. And my clients really do care about the law. They want to know how to preserve their assets, they want to know how to protect their assets. They want to know how to make sure their children or their children’s children benefit from their hard earned money and assets.
And my clients do care about the law. When I say that, I mean it. And I love being able to educate them about the things that can help them preserve their assets and maybe pay for their long term care. Right? And I have clients that come in all the time and say, I just feel like there’s such a lack of information out there. And that’s true. They tell me, why don’t more people do a Lady Bird Deed? Why don’t more people know about the benefits of a trust and avoiding probate? And the reality is that there’s just a severe lack of education out there for people like you. Right?
And that’s what my goal is to educate. I love to teach. If I wasn’t doing this, I would probably be some type of law professor, right? But there’s lack of information out there for my clients. So this is what I chose to do is to teach every day my clients, new concepts to help prevent their money, their hard earned assets from being taken. Okay?
And that’s why we started McIntyre Elder Law in the first place is to protect people like you who have concerns about what’s going to happen in the future. How am I going to pay for longterm care? What risks do my assets face? We would love to tell you how that works, right? All of that and more. And we have a lot of information. Like I said, we love to teach. We put videos out all the time. We’ve written books. We have a podcast. If you want more information, I encourage you to visit our website at www.mcelderlaw.com or call our office (704) 259-7040.
