My husband is POA for his brother who's in a nursing home. Brother is not declared incompetent, but can't handle his finances so my husband has been doing it for him for several years (selling his house to pay for the nursing home, spending down his other assets etc.). They will probably have to do Medicaid application in the next 3-4 months, and my husband would like to set up a funeral trust for his brother before the funds run out and before the Medicaid application; brother appears to be agreeable, and already has a cemetary plot. My husband does not want to be tied to a particular nursing home but would rather set up a trust through a lawyer and have the trust assets held in the brokerage where his brother already has an IRA and other investments. Does anyone have experience in setting up this kind of trust which is not done with a funeral home? Would a lawyer be willing to do this without meeting the trust's beneficiary? It would be virtually impossible to get the brother out to a lawyer, plus he lives in a different city than we do and we don't know lawyers there. I supose the best thing is to just call law firms where we live and ask if they would do it. Our state is pretty generous in the limits for funeral trusts, and we have no idea if the whole amount would have to be spent when the time comes. And does anyone know if any remainder from such a trust would have to be turned over to the state's Medicaid program as part of asset recovery?
wwww.nelf.org is the place to go to find a certified elder law attorney for your brother in laws situation.
https://www.protective.com/learning-center/life-insurance/life-insurance-basics/is-burial-insurance-different-from-preneed-funeral-insurance/