Growing older is a natural part of life, but becoming a senior citizen does not have to mean helplessness or isolation; in fact, while the senior population of the United States is growing and many seniors live alone, they can call upon all sorts of personal care and legal assistance with anything they need, and an elder care attorney is often the key to making sure that one’s estate is in good hands and safe from disaster or exploitation. An elderly citizen has probably saved up a large sum of money in various bank accounts, and this person may also own a small private business and have some of their wealth tied up in assets such as cars, expensive china or antiques, houses, or vehicles such as boats or private jets, and a senior citizen can be at ease when they know that these items in their estate will be handled in a legal and responsible way that coordinates with that person’s own will and intentions. An estate planning lawyer is a great idea for those who have not yet drawn up a will but need to, and elder care law is often based on how to handle one’s possessions after they pass on and prevent issues from coming up. In fact, it has been found that a substantial number of Americans do not even have a will at all for one reason or another. But an elder care attorney can take care of this. Why get help for writing a will?
Americans and Age
The elderly population of the United States is substantial, and such citizens will almost certainly have sizeable estates that should be handled in a legal and practical manner after the owner passes on. A person’s intentions for the use and distribution of their estate can be enforced much more easily when elder care law is involved, and an elder care attorney can handle this. After all, it has been found that over the past decade, the population of those aged 65 and over has grown by 33%, and between 2006 and 2016, that population has grown from 37.2 million to 49.2 million, and many of these senior citizens will need assistance with making sure that their estates will be taken care of with a legally solid will.
It has also been found that middle-aged and younger American adults do not have a will at all, and this can be a problem when they grow older and have an estate to think about. Why do these people lack written wills? Sometimes it is mere procrastination, and in other cases, these citizens feel that their estate is too small to bother writing a will for. In any case, a person’s estate, regardless of its size, may be meaningful or important to family members, and those family members will certainly want those items and money to be handled well, and this can be done with elder care law and a good estate planning lawyer.
Why a Will?
There may be a number of problems for a person’s estate if they pass on without having a legally sound will to control it. Creditors may take anything or everything that they want after the person passes on, without giving family members a chance to acquire anything for themselves, and this may especially be the case if the deceased owned their own business. And even if creditors are not an issue, some family members may get carried away and take too much of a person’s estate and leave little, if anything, for everyone else.
For these reasons and more, a senior citizen is encouraged to make use of elder care law to hire an attorney and get a compelling will written that carefully lays out what the senior citizen wants done with everything. This can help fend off creditors or ambitious family members, and the person writing a will can also appoint a trustee for a family member under the age of 18. An elder care attorney will be familiar with how estates are used (or misused) after a person’s passing, and they can write the will so that creditors and family members must treat the estate as the deceased intended, even if those other parties have their own legal representation.