Dellenbush & Ryan Law

Estate Planning & Elder Law Attorneys in Grand Rapids, Michigan

Estate planning can begin with a will or trust, but a family's legal needs often change as parents grow older. Someone who is healthy and independent today may eventually need help managing finances or making healthcare decisions. A medical crisis can suddenly force a family to consider assisted living or nursing-home care. If advance planning was never completed, adult children may find themselves in probate court seeking authority to help a parent. After death, one of those same children may become responsible for administering an estate or trust.

Dellenbusch & Ryan Law, PLC focuses on estate planning, elder law, long-term-care planning, guardianships and conservatorships, and probate and trust administration. Attorney Nicholas J. Ryan practices from the firm's Grand Rapids and Greenville offices and previously worked at the Kalamazoo Probate Court. The practice developed from Caroline Dellenbusch's decades of work with older adults, families and probate matters before her retirement.

The firm's services address many of the legal problems that can emerge as a family moves from planning for the future to actually dealing with aging, incapacity, long-term care and the death of a loved one.

Planning While a Parent Can Still Make the Decisions

There is an important difference between helping a parent plan for possible incapacity and trying to establish legal authority after incapacity has already occurred.

Dellenbusch & Ryan prepares wills, trusts, powers of attorney and patient advocate designations as part of its estate-planning practice.

A financial power of attorney allows someone to designate another person to handle financial matters when necessary. A patient advocate designation addresses healthcare decision-making if the individual becomes unable to make or communicate those decisions personally.

These documents allow people to choose for themselves whom they trust with important responsibilities.

That can become increasingly important as parents age. An adult child may already be helping informally with bills, appointments or other tasks, but informal assistance is not necessarily the same as having legal authority to act when a serious decision has to be made.

Planning before capacity becomes an issue gives the parent an opportunity to participate fully in those choices.

When Mom or Dad Can No Longer Live Independently

One of the more difficult transitions for a family can occur when an older parent is no longer safe or capable of living independently.

The question quickly becomes larger than estate planning.

Can the parent remain at home with assistance? Is assisted living appropriate? Has the person's condition progressed to the point that skilled nursing care is necessary? And once the appropriate level of care has been identified, how will the family pay for it?

Dellenbusch & Ryan's elder-law practice addresses these issues as part of long-term-care planning.

For families, the problem may develop gradually as a parent's abilities decline. In other cases, there is little time to prepare. A medical crisis or progressive diagnosis can suddenly make a higher level of care necessary.

The firm works with families both before long-term care becomes necessary and when the need for care has already arrived.

When Nursing-Home Costs Become a Financial Problem

Long-term care can create serious financial concerns for an older person and the rest of the family.

Dellenbusch & Ryan handles Medicaid planning and Medicaid applications for clients who need assistance paying for long-term care.

The issue can become particularly urgent when a family realizes that a parent or spouse needs nursing-home care but has not previously planned for its cost.

For a married couple, there can be an additional concern: what happens financially to the spouse who remains at home?

The firm's elder-law work includes planning around the financial position of the community spouse while the other spouse requires long-term care.

These situations require families to deal simultaneously with healthcare, housing and finances. A spouse may be worried about obtaining appropriate care for a husband or wife while also trying to understand what that care will mean for the couple's financial future.

Dellenbusch & Ryan assists families with the legal and Medicaid issues that accompany those decisions.

A Spouse Does Not Automatically Have Every Necessary Legal Authority

Families can be surprised to discover that marriage alone does not necessarily give one spouse all the legal authority needed to act for an incapacitated husband or wife.

Dellenbusch & Ryan specifically addresses this issue in its guardianship and conservatorship practice.

Advance powers of attorney and healthcare planning can establish authority while an individual still has capacity. When those arrangements do not exist and someone can no longer make necessary decisions, a family may need to seek authority through the court.

This is one reason incapacity planning can matter even for married couples who assume a spouse will simply be able to handle everything.

Making the necessary designations beforehand can allow the individual to select who should act rather than leaving the family to seek a legal solution after incapacity has occurred.

When a Guardianship or Conservatorship Becomes Necessary

When advance planning is unavailable or insufficient, Dellenbusch & Ryan handles guardianship and conservatorship proceedings.

These cases can involve older adults as well as other individuals who are unable to manage important aspects of their own affairs.

A guardianship generally concerns decisions affecting the person's care and personal welfare. A conservatorship concerns financial matters and property.

For a family, pursuing either can be emotionally difficult. The issue is not simply whether someone needs assistance. It can involve determining whether that person's ability to make decisions should be legally restricted and whether court-appointed authority is actually necessary.

Dellenbusch & Ryan addresses the importance of balancing an individual's dignity and independence against the need to protect someone who can no longer safely manage certain decisions.

The firm handles both contested and uncontested proceedings and represents people seeking guardianships as well as individuals opposing them.

When a Family Member Has a Developmental Disability

Dellenbusch & Ryan also handles guardianships involving people with developmental disabilities.

For parents caring for a son or daughter with a developmental disability, legal planning can become particularly important as the child approaches adulthood or as the parents themselves grow older.

The firm's work includes developmentally disabled guardianships as well as Special Needs Trusts.

A Special Needs Trust can provide a structure for property intended to benefit a person with special needs rather than simply leaving that person an outright inheritance.

These families often have to think much further into the future. Parents who have provided care and assistance for years may need to consider who will provide support and manage resources when they are no longer able to do so themselves.

Estate Plans Should Change When Families Change

An estate plan reflects a person's circumstances at the time it is created. Those circumstances may look very different years later.

Dellenbusch & Ryan's educational material addresses changes such as marriage and divorce, outdated beneficiary choices and healthcare arrangements that may no longer reflect what someone wants.

Beneficiary designations deserve attention as well because some assets pass according to their beneficiary arrangements rather than simply according to instructions in a will.

The people selected for important responsibilities can also change. Someone originally chosen to handle financial or healthcare decisions may no longer be available or may no longer be the person the client would select today.

Reviewing an estate plan after major changes can help ensure that old decisions have not remained in place simply because no one thought to revisit them.

When Someone Dies and You Become Responsible for the Estate

After a death, estate planning gives way to administration.

Dellenbusch & Ryan assists personal representatives with probate and estate administration.

The work can begin with very practical matters. Families may need death certificates and funeral arrangements. Property must be identified. Probate may need to be opened. Creditors and debts have to be addressed. Tax matters may require attention, and ultimately the remaining property must be distributed.

Deadlines can apply throughout the process.

For someone who has just lost a parent or spouse, suddenly becoming responsible for all of this can be overwhelming. The personal representative may have no previous experience with probate and may not know which responsibilities need immediate attention and which can wait.

Legal guidance can provide structure to a process that otherwise arrives as a collection of unfamiliar tasks during an already difficult period.

A Trust Does Not Finish Its Own Work After a Death

A trust may change how assets are handled after death, but someone still has to administer it.

Dellenbusch & Ryan handles trust administration in addition to probate estates.

A successor trustee may need to determine what property is held in the trust, understand the instructions contained in the trust documents, address financial and administrative matters, and ultimately carry out distributions.

Being selected as trustee does not mean the individual already knows how to perform those responsibilities.

Often, a parent chooses a child or another trusted relative because of that person's judgment and relationship with the family—not because the person has previous experience administering trusts.

Once the parent dies, that theoretical future responsibility becomes an actual job.

From an Aging Parent's First Plan Through Estate Administration

Dellenbusch & Ryan's combination of estate planning and elder law allows the firm to assist families through circumstances that can develop over many years.

A parent may initially need a straightforward estate plan establishing a will or trust and identifying people to handle financial and healthcare decisions.

Later, declining health may make long-term-care planning more urgent. The family may need to evaluate care arrangements and determine how nursing-home costs will be handled. Medicaid planning or an application for benefits may become necessary.

If incapacity occurs without adequate advance authority, guardianship or conservatorship proceedings may be required.

Eventually, after the parent's death, a family member may become responsible for administering the estate or trust.

These are separate legal matters, but for families they can be chapters of the same experience.

Estate Planning and Elder Law in Grand Rapids

Dellenbusch & Ryan Law maintains its primary office on Fuller Avenue NE in Grand Rapids, with an additional office in Greenville.

Nicholas J. Ryan's practice encompasses estate planning, elder law, guardianships and conservatorships, Medicaid and long-term-care matters, and probate and trust administration. His previous experience working at the Kalamazoo Probate Court adds a probate background to a practice focused heavily on the legal issues families encounter with aging and incapacity.

The value of planning can become clearest when circumstances begin to change. A power of attorney that once seemed like a precaution can become essential after an illness. Long-term-care planning can become immediate when a parent can no longer remain at home. A carefully chosen successor trustee can become the person responsible for settling years of family financial affairs.

For families, addressing those possibilities before every decision becomes urgent can provide more options—and allow the people most affected to participate in deciding what should happen.

Practice Areas

• Estate Planning

• Wills

• Trusts

• Revocable Living Trusts

• Special Needs Trusts

• Powers of Attorney

• Patient Advocate Designations

• Incapacity Planning

• Elder Law

• Long-Term-Care Planning

• Medicaid Planning

• Medicaid Applications

• Guardianships

• Conservatorships

• Developmentally Disabled Guardianships

• Probate

• Estate Administration

• Trust Administration