Switching Places: How Children Can Protect Their Parents
In the last few years, the United States has started to see a distinct change in the age of the population. In 2009, over 15% of the United States population, or almost 50 million people, were age 65 and older. Advances in medicine have increased our overall life spans significantly; however, with these advances comes a darker, more sinister development: increasing incidence of elder abuse. The Baby Boomers hold the greatest concentration of wealth and, as they age, they face a higher risk of neurological issues such as Alzheimer’s or dementia. Those two factors make our older adults... Read More
Away At College: A Student’s Health Care
Every year as universities reopen, attorneys receive panicked calls from parents whose children are away at school with health problems. A freshman breaks his jaw in an intramural football game. A sophomore crashed her bike into a cement post on the side of the road. A junior swam under a pod of jellyfish that stung his back and sides: A dozen stories in every law office show how parents often learn what health forms they need after the jaw breaks or the jelly fish stings.
Sometimes the calls come from a panicked parent begging for a way to coax a caregiver into... Read More
Kids’ Nights Out: Making Sure Children Travel With the Right Paperwork
Parents with children headed for trips with scouts or school often contact me about what forms they need to complete for their children before the group leaves town.
What questions should a parent address concerning paperwork that will accompany a child on a trip with a group or a non parent? The following represent some good starting points for grandparents or aunts and uncles taking a grandchild for the week, the group leader of any outing, or even for the parents of any traveling child:
What States Will the Trip Be Traveling Through?
Requirements for paperwork can vary from state to... Read More
Where There’s a Will, There’s a Wait!
What Medicine Can Consumers Take to Cure the Cuts to California’s Constricted Courts?
Teachers and firefighters are not the only public employees to fall beneath the steamroller of nationwide budget cuts: March’s issue of the ABA Journal outlines a litany of problems in cashstrapped courts of twenty-nine states that range from suspending civil jury trials in New Hampshire to judges soliciting free office supplies for their courts in Georgia. The article, titled “Beggaring Justice,” quotes witnesses at a hearing in California who state that budget crunches in courts have led to a... Read More
Joint Tenancy: Who Really Survives?
Any accountant, real estate agent or attorney who is reviewing a married couple’s household documents can tell you that one thing pops up on the deeds to homes more than any other phrase: Joint Tenants with Rights of Survival. It means that if one of the people on the deed (usually the husband or the wife) dies, the other automatically owns the property without going through probate administration.
Too bad that one good idea carries so many bad consequences in the same case. Consider the downside of this survivorship concept:
Joint Tenancy causes married couples to likely... Read More
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