In the summer of 2021, the Colorado governor signed the Colorado Privacy Act into law, and it went into effect exactly two years later. Now that the Act has been in place for six months, we are starting to see its positive effects on the lives of everyday Coloradans, and we are also starting to get questions about what some of the Act’s terms mean.

In short, the Colorado Privacy Act takes steps to protect individuals’ personal data. The more we use our phones, travel, make purchases, browse the web, and log onto social media, the more of our personal data is out there and potentially at risk of being used without our consent. With the Colorado Privacy Act, we, as consumers, maintain the right to access, delete, and correct our personal data. This data includes financial data, which is often part of clients’ efforts to protect their assets and guard against creditors, lawsuits, and other financial losses.

Protecting You Against the Sale of Personal Data

Importantly, the Act allows individuals to decide that websites cannot sell their personal data for the purpose of marketing – many sites, for example, use consumers’ data to keep records on which demographics are flocking to their pages, which they can then use to create targeted advertisements with the goal of selling more products to more people. With the Colorado Privacy Act, though, individuals can opt out of the processing of their personal data for targeted advertising.

Individuals are also now able to opt out of the use of the sale of their personal data and the use of their data for profiling, which happens when companies keep information on consumers to track what they like, don’t like, and might be interested in going forward.

Protecting You Against Broad Use of Cookies

You might have noticed the Act’s protections in place if you have noticed opt out “pop ups” on websites, which give you control over whether cookies can be used. “Cookies” are pieces of data that are stored within a web browser, such as Safari, Google Chrome, or Internet Explorer. If you allow your browser to use cookies, the browser can then retrieve the cookies at a later time to (again) tailor advertisements to you or profile you as a consumer.

Protecting You Against Entities’ Access to Sensitive Data

The Act also requires companies to obtain opt-in consent before processing certain types of sensitive data, such as: children’s information, genetic and biometric data, racial and religious beliefs, a mental or physical condition, sex life, sexual orientation, and citizen status. This is good news for parents who worry that their children’s information might be used or compromised against their consent, and it highlights the importance of monitoring your children’s online activity as they increase their digital footprint over time.

Protecting You through Data Protection Assessments

The Act includes a provision that mandates that companies must conduct regular data protection assessments. This kind of assessment helps companies manage the privacy risks that arise from their interactions with other companies and individuals online. If you are not aware of your employer’s efforts to keep your data safe, you have every right to ask about what is being done to identify and manage specific privacy risks.

Enforcement: How Does it Work?

Importantly, each Colorado Privacy Act violation is punishable by up to $20,000 and is enforced by Colorado’s attorney general. If the attorney general becomes aware of a violation, the attorney is required to issue a “notice of violation” and allow companies to fix the privacy issue within 60 days. After those 60 days pass, however, companies could be at serious risk of having to pay for their failure to comply with the terms of the Act.

The Act is, overall, a major step forward for the state of Colorado. Colorado is the third state in the United States to pass this kind of legislation, following California and Virginia. While the novelty of the Act leaves several questions about how well it will work, how strictly it will be enforced, and how easily individuals will be able to use it for their advantage, the beginning phases of the Act’s implementation have been positive.

To fully understand how the Act works and how it might affect you, we recommend that you contact an attorney that can advise you from a professional standpoint. As you think through your long-term plans, you should consider how to keep your information private so that your assets can be well-protected as you move forward. Most importantly, however, you should know your rights under Colorado law, and you should take action if you believe your rights might have been violated at any point.

Speak With a Boulder, Colorado Estate Planning Attorney Today

If you have questions about your rights and remedies under the Colorado Privacy Act, contact the Braverman Law Group today. Our Boulder, Colorado estate planning lawyers are committed to providing individualized services, holistic representation, and powerful execution of experience-based legal strategies. Our practice areas include estate planning, trust administration, special needs planning, Medicaid planning, and asset protection, and we serve clients throughout Colorado’s Front Range.

For a free, no-obligation consultation with one of our estate planning attorneys, give us a call today at (303) 800-1588. If you prefer, you can also fill out our online form to tell us about your legal issue and have an attorney reach back out to you as soon as possible.

In fact, a Power of Attorney is both more powerful and less powerful than we need. Basic Powers of Attorney often do not include the provisions we need to plan for nursing home care. If the Power of Attorney does not specifically authorize an action – like picking up mail or signing required form Powers of Attorney at banks and investment companies – then that action is not authorized.

Thief Daughter

This can become a real problem at banks because they often refuse to honor Powers of Attorney that are older than six months or that are not on their proprietary forms. If the Power of Attorney authorizes the Agent to sign a bank’s Power of Attorney form, that may resolve the issue. Few Powers of Attorney authorize the actions necessary to plan for nursing home care benefits.

At the same time, the Power of Attorney can be too powerful. If we are incapacitated and cannot supervise our Agent, who does? The answer is no one. The District Attorney can get involved in cases where the Agent is misusing the Power of Attorney for their own benefit but someone has to call the D.A. to tell them what’s going on.

If you are aware that a Power of Attorney or an elder’s or disabled person’s finances are being abused in Boulder County, call Adult Protective Services at 720-564-2283 right away. If you are outside of Boulder County, call your police department’s non-emergency number or your District Attorney’s office.

We had a recent case where a daughter had abused a Power of Attorney, using her dad’s checking account debit card as if it were her own for salons and pet toys. The other daughter did not find out about this abuse until after the father died. We are helping our client to take those fraudulent expenses out of what the abusive daughter inherits. But if the father had lived a few more years, the abusive daughter could have spent everything leaving their father impoverished.

One way to protect yourself from abuse is to be extremely careful in who you name to be your Agents. We attorneys see children financially abuse their parents all of the time so don’t just assume your child will take good care of you. If you have seen your child act responsibly with substantial sums of money and compassionately towards you, then consider naming them as your Agent. If your child is addicted to credit cards or carries animosity towards you, consider someone else.

A powerful way to protect yourself from abuse is to create a revocable living trust. The structure of the trust requires your successor trustee (the person in charge if you become incapacitated) to send financial reports to your beneficiaries. That will shine some daylight on what your successor trustee is doing and invite the people you care about the most to examine what your successor trustee is doing with your money. With most of your assets managed by your trust, your Agent has much less control over your future.

Finally, make sure your trust and Power of Attorney authorize the making of gifts if nursing home care is in your near-term future. That will allow the people you trust to get you qualified for Medicaid in appropriate situation

Below are some simple steps for creating your first estate plan.

Write — and sign — a will

While you may decide to create a trust later in life, most people creating an estate plan for the first time find that a will is just what they need. With this, you name an executor who is given the responsibility of distributing your estate upon your death. And of course, you also name a beneficiary or beneficiaries.

Create a durable power of attorney

It’s hard to think about, but there could come a time in your life when you don’t have the capacity to make your own decisions. This is when a durable power of attorney can help. With this document in place, another person can step in and make key decisions on your behalf, such as those pertaining to health care and finances.

Get organized

It’s hard to create a comprehensive estate plan when you are disorganized and have no idea what you should and shouldn’t do. Yes, it can take some time to get everything in order, but you’ll be glad that you did once you begin tackling the process.

A good place to start is to gather bank statements, pay stubs and life insurance documents together so you are able to include all of your assets. Also, don’t forget about any digital files that you need to share upon your death.

When you’re young, it’s hard to imagine that you need to create an estate plan. Instead, you assume that you have plenty of time to think about this in the future. While you may be right, it’s not a risk you should be willing to take.

It’s never too soon (or too late) to create your first estate plan. Learn more about the process, set goals and focus on your legal rights. Doing these things will put you on the right path.

While you hope this happens, there is no way of knowing for sure what the future will bring. You must realize that changes to your estate plan are necessary every now and again. If the time comes, don’t hesitate to take immediate action, just as you did when creating your estate plan in the first place.

Reasons to update your estate plan There are many reasons to consider an update to your estate plan, including but not limited to the following:

• The person you named as beneficiary is no longer living
• You have gone through a divorce
• You have recently tied the knot
• You need to name someone else in your will or trust, such as a new child
• To change guardians, trustees or personal representatives
• A child has reached the age of 18
• A recent decrease or increase in the value of your estate
• To do away with a will and create a trust
• The recent acquisition of a valuable asset, such as through an inheritance or lottery payout

Along with the above, there is one last time when it makes sense to update your estate plan: after a few years have passed.

The passage of time is one of the best reasons to review your estate plan for potential updates. If you get into the habit of reviewing your plan at least once a year or every other year, you’ll never have to worry about going too long without the right details in place.

It goes without saying that creating an estate plan in the first place is a big step. It may not be something you want to do, but once it’s complete you feel better about the future.

Just the same, you may not be excited about altering your estate plan over the years. But once again, you need to do so in order to protect you, your family and your assets.

Now that you know when to update your estate plan, you can take action as necessary to give you the peace of mind you deserve.

As you age, you may find it more difficult to think about estate planning. Even if this is challenging for you, it’s important to take the right steps at the right time. You don’t want to find yourself in a bad spot, such as falling ill before you have everything in order.

Here are a handful of estate planning tips to follow later in life:

• Prepare for incapacity. You hope this never happens to you, but you could face incapacity at some point in your life. To protect against this, you’ll want to create a power of attorney for both your health care and finances. With the right attorney in fact in place, you’ll feel much better.
• Understand the steps you can take to help your loved ones avoid probate. This is something to think about any time you’re estate planning. The best way to avoid probate is through the use of a trust, not a will.
• Consider any steps you can take to lower the impact of estate and income taxes. There are things you can do, such as making charitable gifts, which can make you feel good now while saving your loved ones money in the future.
• Review your beneficiaries. Again, this is something you want to do often, but it’s even more important later in life. You want to make sure the beneficiaries you named in the past still make sense in the present. For example, if you recently went through a divorce, you may need to make some changes to this part of your estate plan.

Estate planning can bring many challenges to your life, especially as you age. If you’re in the later stages of your life, there are certain steps you must take to ensure that your estate plan is exactly the way you want it to be.

As you learn more about the best estate planning strategies and your legal rights, you’ll come to realize what you should and shouldn’t be doing.

They say that in the past Robin Williams had battled depression and substance abuse and that he had recently received a diagnosis of Parkinson’s, which often brings treatment-resistant depression with it. As someone with bipolar disorder who has experienced serious and treatment-resistant depression, I can relate. When the doctors can’t help and everything hurts, a person reaches a point where it’s hard to believe that this horrible painful state can ever improve.

It’s hard, as someone who wasn’t in Mr. Williams’ inner circle, to imagine him depressed. As a fan, I always saw him the way his director wanted his character portrayed or, when he was doing stand-up, as his “on” self. But I also saw the kindness of spirit his actions evidenced.

Did you know that on September 11, 2001, he gave blood instead of staying glued to his TV like the rest of us? Within three days, he was at ground zero, heartening the police and firefighters there who were doing the gruesome and heart-rending work of finding the bodies of the victims. Mr. Williams was involved – seriously involved, with his time, not just his money – in something like 30 charities.

So I don’t write this blog article, examining Robin Williams’ Estate, in a laughing mood. I’m not writing to poke fun. I’m writing because if a wealthy, presumably well-advised, celebrity can make these obvious mistakes in his estate planning, then so can you, or your parents, or your kids.

I am sure that good things will continue to come from his time on this planet with all of us. Maybe one of those good things will be better estate planning for Gen-X’ers and Williams’ other fans of all ages. Already I’ve seen people treating depression differently, more like the illness that it is and less like some kind of character flaw or weakness.

Here are the lessons I’ve pulled from what has come out about Robin Williams’ Estate in the weeks after his death:

1. Lack of Privacy

How is it that copies of Robin Williams’ two trust documents for his three children are all over the internet right now? It’s because the trust documents were incomplete.

They both named the same two co-trustees but provided no instructions in the event that one of those co-trustees was unable or unwilling to continue to act in that role.

In fact, one of those co-trustees died and the trusts were silent about who was to be trustee in that case. (Williams had funded the two trusts during his lifetime, probably for tax planning reasons, and they were irrevocable, meaning that Williams could not name new trustees himself.) Once a co-trustee died, the other co-trustee had no choice but to go to court and seek the court’s order naming a new trustee or co-trustee.

Once the matter is taken to court, the trusts become a matter of public record and are available to any conman, tabloid reporter, or inheritance-seeker who wants a copy.Williams’ loss of privacy could have been avoided if he had:

(1) named backup trustees and specified what was to happen if one of the co-trustees became unable or unwilling to act; and/or

(2) named a trust advisor who had the power to name trustees in the absence of a trustee able and willing to act.

So far, it appears that Williams learned his lesson as none of his other estate planning documents has leaked. In fact, it looks like he had a fully funded revocable living trust plan. If he had had a will-based plan, the will would probably have been filed by the family by now and, as it would be a matter of public record, the tabloids would have found it. Good job the second time around, Robin.

2. Generic Distribution Ages

Although I’m relying on the public trusts for this information, there is no reason to think he created any later trusts any differently. He directed that the trusts be distributed in thirds at ages 21, 25 and 30. That is a very generic choice of ages. It’s on hundreds of thousands of trusts for hundreds of thousands of very unique and individual children. How many of them are really mature enough to handle a third of everything they are ever going to inherit from their parents at age 21?

How would you have handled that sum of money when you were 21? What would you have done with it? Would you have saved it for retirement? Can you think of anyone you know who would have used all that money to buy drugs and maybe have harmed themselves irreparably?

If you think you would have spent it on your education, then don’t worry, you would not have been harmed by a later distribution age or scheme. That’s because most trusts include provisions that allow distributions to be made before and between those distribution ages for “maintenance, education, support & health.” Generally that phrase has been interpreted to mean that the beneficiary can receive money for reasonable living expenses, education and medical expenses.

At Braverman Law Group, we’re more thoughtful about choosing ages that really work for our clients’ unique family arrangements based upon their children’s maturity levels and knowledge and interest in finance, the availability of friend or family mentors for their children, and other factors.

We also tend to use those ages in a unique and very different way. Rather than forcing a distribution of a huge portion of a child’s inheritance, we allow the child to continue to benefit from the asset protection available only to money in trust while gaining more control over the trust (for example, by being a co-trustee).

Remember, with the ability to distribute for maintenance, education, support and health, the child lacks for nothing essential. So, rather than distributing one third or one half of the trust at a particular age, we keep the money in trust where it is protected from creditors, failed business plans, divorces, bankruptcies or other financial problems and disasters, while giving the child gradually more control over that money as she gets older.

Eventually, the child becomes the sole trustee, has total control over the money, but it is still protected from financial disaster by the trust. (More than a few clients have asked if they can make a trust like that for themselves. Unfortunately we have to tell them it’s not nearly as easy to do it for yourself as it is to do it for someone else.)

We have no way of knowing whether Williams changed this provision to something more suited to his particular children and the financial challenges each one of them could be facing at distribution time, aged 21, 25 or 30. Let’s hope he got better advice and did change those provisions.

Oh, Robin, why didn’t you let me do your estate plan? I would have been delighted to! And I used to live so close to L.A.! But not to your Napa Valley residence… so maybe I wasn’t the most convenient attorney… we could have done the planning by Skype!

Related Posts: Inherited IRAs: Sweet or a Trap?

There are so many easy ways to screw up your estate plan – which can damage family relationships for life in many cases – and so few ways to make sure it’s right. I’ll share how our clients get peace of mind that their plan’s going to provide what they need and bring their family closer, not the opposite.

Not Having a Plan

In a sense, everyone does have an estate plan: state law makes this point a certainty. It simply may not be the plan that you had in mind, or that your family would have preferred.

Every state has laws of “intestacy.” Intestacy is the word for dying without a will. The laws of intestacy don’t control assets that have beneficiary designations (unless those beneficiaries have also died) so this “plan without a plan” can result in very unfair and unequal divisions of assets.

One major pitfall to be aware of in Colorado’s laws of intestacy is the treatment of the surviving spouse. Your surviving spouse will NOT inherit everything you have built together. The half that is deemed to be yours will be divided between your spouse and your next of kin.

Watch out, because this will affect you too if your spouse is the one who dies first. You don’t want to have to sell your home to pay out to your spouses’s next of kin!

Another major downside to not having a plan is that you have no provisions for how to care for you if you become incapacitated. In Colorado, that means two important things: one, your loved ones are going to have to spend a bunch of money and time begging a judge for permission to care for you and two, you are going to be kept alive, even as a hopeless vegetable with no quality of life for as long as technologically possible (and that can be a long time!).

How Forbes Got It Wrong: “It simply may not be the plan that you had in mind, or that your family would have preferred.”

I guarantee that it will not be the plan you had in mind, or that your family would have preferred. Let me list just a short sampling of the things people discover about failure-to-plan plans that they usually do not like:

~80% of people become incapacitated during their lives for some period of time.

Court Hearing

If you have no plan, all of your financials and medical information becomes part of the court (i.e. public) record so that someone (not of your choosing) can get the court’s approval to make medical and personal decisions for you (and get paid for it out of your money).

~Likewise, when you die, every single thing you own is itemized for the public record along with who is getting it, how old they are and where they live. It makes for very convenient sales target list-making for the honorable and just target list-making for the dishonorable con men and women who are known to work the probate lists.

~The amount that you can pass on free of estate tax has changed every year since 2001.

Forty percent

Yes, we have a $5M exemption now. But Obama has proposed a $3.5M exemption and what’s to stop the next proposal from returning to $1M or even $600,000? (That would mean that anything you own after the first $600,000 would be taxed at the rate of (probably) 40% due within 9 months of death.)

It’s all so avoidable!

What makes the idea of getting your estate plan done so scary for you? Take just two minutes right now and come up with three obstacles to getting your estate plan done. Then come up with the three best reasons to get it done. I’ll bet if you compare the two, the obstacles are *nothing* compared to the reasons to do it.

You know that Bennett Braverman and I are experienced in all sorts of fascinating family and asset arrangements and we can probably help you with yours too.

Best Regards, Diedre Braverman

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I visited the eye doctor today. My vision has changed a lot since I got my prescription lenses only 6 months ago. I think of optometry as a pretty unchanging area of medicine (“Is it better with one? Or two? One? Or two?”). I was surprised that they had two new tests for me today: to check the health of my areas of my eye deeper than my retina.

Your regular (annual to no-more-than-every-three-years) legal planning check up is similar to your annual eye exam. You and your attorney are searching for the changes that are particular to you (like the testing of your eye’s vision – your prescription). And you’re also looking for changes that apply to most or all patients: the new exam technologies.

Let me put this another, more graphic, way. When you leave your attorney’s office with your shiny new estate plan, all of the pieces that are particular to you are fresh and current: like fresh peaches.

And they have been baked into a pie of legal language designed to achieve your current goals within the context of the laws as they were written at that moment in time. In a way it’s a sort of snapshot. But on with our food analogy. The peaches of your particular family and assets and choices are blended with the pie crust of today’s laws including tax codes and out comes a tasty pie!

In estate planning, the annual checkup can be divided into the same two categories. The first category is the changes that are particular to you such as the financial maturity of a child that you now want to name in positions of responsibility or the birth of a grandchild whose education you want to help with.

These changes can become dramatic over time. So dramatic, in fact, that the old estate planning documents are no longer made with fresh peaches. If they had a smell, it would seem to come from these:

The second category is the changes that apply to all legal planning clients with a plan similar to yours. These changes could be the result of changing legal strategies: a creative lawyer somewhere has punched a hole into a previously solid strategy so that your lawyers must be even more creative in restructuring the plan to achieve your objectives. They could be the result of changes in applicable laws: Congress makes yet another change to the estate tax system and your lawyers must adapt your plan to take full advantage of all deductions and exemptions permitted under the new law. Or they could be the result of changing legal technology: your lawyers or someone they know have developed a new tool or technique that better achieves your objectives than what was state-of-the-art legal practice the year before. These are all changes to your pie crust.

If you add the rotten inside ingredients to outdated outside ingredients you end up with a pie no one wants:

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Tax-free Versus Tax-deferred

Retirement Accounts – 401(k)s, (403(b)s, IRAs and others – have wonderful tax advantages. Some allow you to put pre-tax money into an account, which then grows tax-free for years or evendecades until you withdraw it. When you withdraw it, you pay tax on the withdrawal. So they aren’t “tax-free”, they’re “tax-deferred.”

Others, called Roth accounts, work differently. You put after-tax money in them (in other words, you have paid income tax and other taxes like unemployment, etc. on the income before you deposit the money into the account). The money grows tax-free. That is, you do not pay income tax each year on the gains in the account. Then, when you withdraw the money, it’s all tax-free: both the after-tax deposits you made and the gains on those after-tax deposits which you never did (and never will) pay any tax on.

These are pretty compelling reasons for putting money into Retirement Accounts.

Estate Planning with Retirement Accounts

How big can it get?

From an estate planning perspective, Retirement Accounts provide some attractive planning options. You can pass Retirement Accounts on to younger generations in ways that allow your beneficiaries to defer paying taxes on the funds in the accounts for, perhaps, decades as the inherited Retirement Accounts grow tax-free (for Roths) or tax-deferred (for non-Roths). When we’re talking about an inheritance by a prudent 20-year old or, even more securely, a trustee for a 20-year old, the inherited Retirement Account could be worth two or three or ten times its original value when inherited.

Types of Retirement Account Investments

Now, there is a question I often get that I must answer here in a way that you may not like. Unlike other kinds of accounts, most Retirement Account custodians only offer paper investments as options for investment. That leaves out entire classes of investment such as real estate, tax liens and small businesses. This article ends here if you own a 401(k) or 401(3)b and you can’t roll it over into an IRA.

If you have an IRA, or the option to rollover into an IRA, there are a few “self-directed IRA” custodians (a “custodian” is the company that holds your money and complies with IRS requirements for IRA reporting and – most importantly – gives it back to you when you want it) who will permit you to invest in any of those non-traditional classes of investment.

Protect Yourself From Danger

Caution up front makes for a safe retirement later.

A web search will turn up a few. Because they are not well-known companies, I cannot tell you about any experiences our clients have had with any of them. But please do read this warning from The North American Securities Administrators Association Self-Directed IRA Fraud. I also encourage you to check out this alert from the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC): Self-Directed IRAs and the Risk of Fraud It’s a pretty murky area so keep a sharp eye out and tread carefully. You don’t want to lose everything because you tried for a few extra points on your return.

To maximize the tax-free or tax-deferred growth of your Retirement Accounts, please give us a call at (303) 800-1588 to schedule a no obligation consultation. We’d love to help!

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AgingParents.com did an article listing “5 Things You Need To Do After A Holiday Visit With Aging Parents.” Depending upon how prepared your parents are, you could go through these five keys in five minutes or, at the other end of the spectrum, you may need to schedule a family meeting and another visit.

First, find out what legal planning documents your parents have. If they have not been reviewed in the last three years or if your parents don’t have any, help your folks find an estate planning attorney in their state who can help them make sure they have an effective plan in place. Because every family is unique, I won’t attempt to list every legal document they might need, but here are some of the most frequently necessary:

• Revocable living trust: this trust can ensure your parents will avoid the need for a financial Guardianship or Conservatorship in the event one of them becomes disabled. The trust can also make Probate unnecessary after a parent dies, saving the family stress, strain, delays and money.
• Will: when there is a revocable living trust in place, the will just leaves everything to the trust. If, however, your parents have opted to plan without a revocable living trust, the Will is the key document that determines who gets what. It does not provide protection against the need for a financial Guardianship or Conservatorship, and it does not avoid Probate.
• Durable Financial Power of Attorney: this document can vary from 4 pages to 30 pages long or more. Generally, the longer the document the more thorough it is. This gives someone – probably the other parent and then one of the children – the power to manage financial matters for a parent who can’t manage them for himself or herself. The choice of who will have these powers can make the difference between realistic convenience (the more people you name to act together, the harder it is to coordinate efforts) and maintenance of sibling bonds versus a logistical mess between siblings who will never speak to each other again. A good estate planning attorney will offer a family meeting to answer questions and make everyone comfortable with the order of names on the various lists.
• Healthcare Power of Attorney: also called a Healthcare Directive in some states, this document authorizes someone else (again, perhaps a family meeting makes sense) to make healthcare decisions for the person who is unable to make them for themselves.
• HIPAA Release: the Healthcare Information Portability and Accountability Act imposed punitive fines on any healthcare provider who releases any of a patient’s confidential information to some one else. Your parents can make an exception to those penalties for information released to authorized people. Without this document, it’s possible that if your father is admitted to the hospital, no one – including your mother – will be able to find him because hospitals will not release the information of whether or not he has been admitted.

We estate planning attorneys have piles of other documents at our disposal. We can provide the kids with lifelong asset protection. We can avoid or reduce estate taxes. We can help a parent qualify for nursing home benefits. We can get creative and ensure just about any goal your parent imagines is met – or at least encouraged and supported. But the documents above are an absolute minimum that everyone should have. Even you!

Second, you could scope out whether they have thought about how they will get help to manage at home when they need it. A lucky few have long-term-care insurance policies that cover at-home care. If your parents are in that lucky few, make sure everyone in the family has the policy information so it’s not lost when it’s needed. If they don’t, then a sit-down about finances and the cost of at-home help is the only way you can be sure your parents won’t have to move into a nursing home as soon as things get a little tricky for them.

Third, have the conversation with your parents about alternative living arrangements. There are many lovely facilities that provide light assistance (cooking, cleaning) for those who need only that and that offer a nursing home on the same property for people who need more care.

Fourth, consider whether your parents would benefit from assistance with paying bills and managing finances. If they would, work out a solid plan with your siblings and approach your parents with a united offer of help.

Fifth, find out what to do if a health emergency arises. Where do they keep their Healthcare Power of Attorney and HIPAA Releases? Should you keep a copy? (Probably – but make sure it stays up to date.) Where do they keep their medicines? Create a list of their doctors, each one’s specialty and their phone numbers.

“Holidays can be so busy, it may be easier to just overlook any danger signs you see with aging parents. Here’s hoping you won’t overlook anything. Take a deep breath, prepare yourself to face these responsibilities and lead the way. As your parents continue to age, you will feel much greater confidence when you are prepared. And as I tell my husband, the work of being prepared good modeling for our own kids. I want them to have it easy and know just what to do when it’s our turn to be the aging and maybe frail parents. According to our 20-something kids, we’re already the aging parents!”

The list may seem daunting but with the assistance of any siblings and an estate planning or elder law attorney, you can broach these delicate topics from an educated and caring position.

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