Great Lakes Estate Planning announces the Life Estate Trust.

May 30, 2004 -- "The Life Estate Trust is a major development for middle class and wealthier Americans," said Len Ostrowsky, a Certified Estate Planner with Great Lakes Estate Planning. "The Life Estate Trust offers significant features and benefits that go far beyond the capabilities of the highly promoted Living Trust." Here is a brief description of some of the outstanding capabilities of the Life Estate Trust:
o    Protection from financial loss due to major medical costs or nursing home stays
o    Protection of assets from judgments, liens and lawsuits
o    Complete personal and business financial privacy
o    Maintain control over your assets
o    Important tax advantages
o    Superior estate planning and probate avoidance

People need asset protection. While the Life Estate Trust handles the normal estate planning functions that Living Trusts do (such as probate avoidance and transferring the estate to the heirs) a more immediate concern of many Americans are the threats of lawsuits, liens, judgments and financial loss from major medical or nursing home costs. In fact, middle class and wealthier families who haven't yet reached retirement are typically more concerned about legal problems than they are about conventional estate planning.

People wonder, "What could cause a legal action against my property? "
"One of the biggest threats is from driving automobiles or other vehicles. If you or your teenagers have an accident, which is your fault, the liability is almost unlimited and can be far beyond normal insurance limits. Other serious risks come from business activities or ownership. That is, business deals gone bad, debts that cannot be paid, unhappy customers, overzealous regulatory agencies, employee lawsuits, product and professional liability, and malpractice issues, etc. Ownership of rental real estate or construction or industrial equipment where an accident could occur are some other big danger areas. Some are concerned over risks they face from divorce and ex-spouses. All these hazards leave your property at immense risk. A claimant or his family can legally come after your home, business, vehicles, investments, vacation property or anything else of value that you own. The Life Estate Trust is a powerful system that makes it virtually impossible for creditors or claimants to reach your assets by legal actions. The Life Estate Trust has multiple layers of built-in protections to keep your property safe, and to keep litigation costs at a minimum" said Mr. Ostrowsky.

"You can create personal and business financial privacy. In this day of electronic databases, and governmental intrusion and regulation, our most private information often ends up as public and common knowledge. The Life Estate Trust can allow you to slip into the "background", all but unnoticed. This program can make it nearly impossible for snoops to discover what you own and what your personal and business dealings consist of. Such privacy in itself provides an important measure of protection from legal problems".

"Sometimes clients think they will lose control over their assets," said Mr. Ostrowsky. One of the understandable fears that many have concerning trusts is that they will somehow lose control over their property. A Life Estate Trust leaves you with complete control of your property throughout your life. You can continue to use your property and manage your personal affairs the same as before. Rather than take away benefits and control that come with property ownership, the Life Estate Trust enhances control and ownership. The ordinary owner is actually handicapped compared to the Life Estate Trust owner.

The Life Estate Trust has an important, built in provision called a bypass trust. The bypass trust provision is used to preserve the death tax exemption available to the first spouse to die. Without a trust these exemptions are usually lost to the first deceased spouse. Preserving the exemptions requires a very sophisticated bypass trust due to complications from the 2001 Tax Act. These trust provisions and exemptions are crucial to many estates due to the high rates of death taxation at both the federal and state levels. The trust provisions are a standard feature of the Life Estate Trust. "If your estate is or may become much larger than the exempt amounts, a Great Lakes Estate Planner can implement other strategies to eliminate or reduce the extra death tax liability," said Mr. Ostrowsky.

"One of the unfortunate problems of smaller estates is that while an individual is alive his or her estate can be eaten up by a major medical crisis, long term care or nursing home costs. Cancer, stroke, organ replacement can easily destroy an estate in less than one year. If a patient has medical bills or nursing home costs that they can't pay for with income then the assets of the patient will be sold to pay for care before the government will assist. Once the patient is virtually bankrupt the government will take over the costs. With proper planning the Life Estate Trust can allow your assets to escape this forced liquidation. There is a 60-month waiting period after the trust is setup before the patient can be eligible, or even legally apply, for government assistance. So the sooner the program is started the sooner this "period of ineligibility" will end. After that the government assistance will take effect as if the patient owns no assets," said Mr. Ostrowsky.

"Estate planning has made important leaps that most people don't know about," said Len Ostrowsky.




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