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THE SAUGUS ADVOCATE – FriDAy, SEpTEmbEr 6, 2024 Page 11 ASKS | FROM PAGE 10 ting and get their questions answered. I find that every time somebody leaves, they are usually a little bit relieved or feel reassured and are glad that they came. And they realize what they thought was a huge problem isn’t such a huge problem – that it has a somewhat simple solution. Or they might leave thinking this is a bigger problem than what I recognized and I need to talk to somebody who can help me – whether we can solve the problem quickly or whether we recommend to dive a little bit deeper and need to attain an attorney to actually do some work. Either way, we feel like it’s a productive time and at least they get some of their questions answered. Q: Do they make the most of their time? Do you always get four or more people signed up? How many clients do you manage during that time? Spano: This month we tried to keep it to four because if people go over, we don’t want a long line of people waiting. This month in Saugus, they wanted to know if we could have five and possibly six. Sometimes we get seven or eight. We can book out a few months in advance. The Council on Aging Senior Centers actually manage the program, and that also makes the people feel more comfortable because they’re not calling a law firm and they’re not meeting in a law firm. When you go to the doctors, they say you have this artificially inflated blood pressure when you go there because you are nervous about being at the doctor. Well, people are nervous about going to lawyers many times. This time, it’s like us coming to their home. And they’re in control. Not us. Q: What’s the most you’ve had ever? Spano: There were some times that we were backed up and I took 10 or more people. But we try not to do that. Q: It probably went over the two hours on those occasions. Spano: Oh, it took more than that. It took half a day. We could probably open an office in a Senior Center and spend all day, every day for an entire year and just have people coming in. You look at the wonderful work that places like the Northeast Justice Project do, and they can have a multi-year waiting list, because there are people who just can’t afford services, and that’s a factor of the legal environment today, unfortunately. Q: When you look at all of the cases, what’s the subject or topic that sticks out the most? Witt: I’ve got two that stick out. The first one is people who are very scared about home care and how they can protect their assets. And that very often, somebody has put a bug in their ear that transferring the house to their children is going to solve all of their problems. Or drafting an irrevocable trust and putting all their assets into that trust – and that’s going to solve all of their problems. So, that’s something we talk about: the consequences of both of those actions. Those two, I see a lot of. The other thing I see a lot of is probate issues. Somebody has died – a friend, a parent or a child. They know there’s this process they call probate. Maybe an attorney is involved; maybe they’re not yet involved. But people are very confused about how that process works and what their rights are. And that’s when you have the things you see on TV, like people fighting over the vase or the jewelry – and stories like that. Spano: You can’t escape the incessant commercials on the radio, television and on the Internet about “Don’t lose your home if you go in the nursing home.” There’s a real problem with that. The five-year rule. What’s amazing is that most people don’t go into a nursing home and live there for more than 90 days. And it’s probably less than 20 percent of the people. And some statistics show that it’s around five to seven percent. As evidence to that, you have been on the North Shore for a long time; you’ve seen nursing home after nursing home close. Since we’re all aging and the Baby Boomer generation is hitting the bubble, why aren’t they building more nursing homes? That’s because the reality is that people aren’t going to them. So this fear [losing your home to a nursing home] is based on a false premise. But fear motivates people to call you and buy your services. Once they transfer the house to the children, even if the children are the best kids in the world, if that kid has a child going to college and they’re applying for financial aid or they get in a car accident or something and somebody sues them or they get into a divorce, now, part of that house is going to somebody else. And there are cases, and we get them every single week, where somebody wanted to get the house back in their name, sell it and move into assisted living – and the THE LAW FIRM: Attorneys Christine Hurley, Francine Dawicki, Stephen J. Spano and Andrea A.J. Witt are the legal team at Spano Dawicki & Witt, a Saugus-based law office that specializes in elder law. (Courtesy Photo to The Saugus Advocate) son said, “No.” And we see this all of the time. And the consequences are that once you transfer that house into your irrevocable trust or to another person, it’s no longer yours. And the people who are doing this advertising fail to tell people that. And it’s just immoral. It’s wrong. And of all the things that cause pain to people, that seems to be the worst. And the other situation, which I see all of the time, is people saying, “Why do I need a will or a health care proxy or power of attorney for my spouse? I can make their health care decisions. I get everything after they die.” That’s not always the case. Because the law doesn’t – if you don’t have a will – give everything to the surviving spouse. In addition, if I were to have a concussion today, or go into a coma without a health care proxy, my wife cannot make health care decisions for me. She would have to go to court for a very time-consuming, lengthy process called a guardianship. It’s sad. Q: Is the joint tenant thing – I went through it in my own experience. It seems like if you have a close family, it’s a good thing if you have the joint tenancy. So when the transition happens … Spano: Joint tenancy can be an excellent option. But there are downsides to it as well. For example, what if there are three children and you put all three children on the house with you? And one is now going through a divorce. That’s now going to be part of the divorce proceeding, where if you left it to them in the will, and you died many years later and the divorce would be finalized. So the house wouldn’t be subject to those divorce proceedings. And unfortunately, since half of all marriages end in divorce. Witt: I think the problem of multiple children owning a home is that typically everybody is in a different financial situation. So let’s say a new roof has to be put on – if those kids can’t decide to put the roof on. More than nine times out of 10, you run into problems when siblings own a house together. It’s just a difficult thing to maintain for any period of time. Spano: Now if you’re an only child, it’s an entirely different situation. But let’s say you’re one of the children living in the home and you’ve got the parent out of the nursing home. Let’s say the child took care of the parent for 12 years. Yet, the parent had three children and they put all three children on the deed – if the other two children wanted to sell the property. Yet, that child gave up their property and moved in with mom to take care of her. The siblings don’t care that the child gave up their home to take care of mom. That’s a situation we see a lot. Witt: There are all different situations and they don’t apply to everybody. There is no one-size-fits-all plan. You have to look at the totality of the circumstances. What are the dynamics and the family? How many people are in this family? There could be children. There could not be children. Q: What’s the most unusual case that you have fielded from the Senior Center? Witt: I’m dealing with an interesting case right now with a mobile home: a transfer that might not have been done correctly. Somebody signed it over to the next person 30 years ago, but it wasn’t done correctly, and then nothing was done for 30 years. But now, we have quite a mess to unravel. So, that was sort of a different one than I expected and usually see. Spano: I was thinking that time was your enemy. Time is the enemy of most people. They just let things go over and over. The sad cases, they come to us. As far as the cases that stick out, they tend to be the cases that get emotional and are not intellectual. We get spouses coming in who are shaking and they’re telling us their spouse is going into the nursing home and they are going to lose their home. That’s not the case. And we can look up the deed on the iPad as we’re sitting there and we can see that the house is in both names and we tell them that as long as you continue to live in that house, the state is not going to put a lien on it while you are in it. And what happens when your spouse dies – you are going to be the sole owner of the house. The state is not going to put a lien on it. Even if you are not the power of attorney, when your spouse dies, you will be the sole owner of the house and you can sell the house. Q: One last question: Why would you recommend to people out there to come to the Senior Center and take advantage of your program? Spano: There are people who can’t afford it and they have some questions. It doesn’t cause you any harm other than the time you have taken out of your day to go there. On the other hand, if you think you have a complex question, you should hire an ASKS | SEE PAGE 15

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