Boston Estate Planning and Probate Lawyer & Attorney : Gosselin & Associates Law Firm : Serving Boston, Winchester, Hingham, Wellesley, Manchester

They say that cannibalism isn't so bad once you get past the idea that you are eating your fellow man.

As the participants in the real estate services industry (and there are millions, including Realtors (r), Banks, Mortgage Companies, Title Companies, Appraisers, Lawyers, Developers, Builders, et al.) slowly drift off to sleep as our collective life boat drifts aimless at sea, the opportunists among us see meals in the weak and powerless. 

Once inconsequential community lenders look like dynamos as they cruise tortoise-like by the flaming wrecks of the high flying national lenders.  The full time professional loan officers who were in the mortgage business, say, before 1995, are still making a living, a basic, fair living.  Meanwhile, their Johnny come lately stall mates at many a Massachusetts Mortgage Company are hurriedly looking for ways to unload expensive homes, boats and spouses - all the trappings of the greed-fed frenzy that has been the real estate market of the past 10+ years.  This repeats itself in the real estate brokerages, those now echo-chamber like cube farms - no longer filled with divorcees, moonlightling firemen and under-employed second cousins.

From those of us that were in the real estate business the last time it was this bad to those that will tell this story to the next generation - it can only get better.  I hope.

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Reverse mortgages are not just for poor people anymore. I am tired of hearing about reverse mortgages - in the past six months it's as if someone flipped a switch to turn up the noise, not necessarily the quality, of the messaging to elders about reverse mortgages.  

In my practice as an estate planner in Massachusetts I am often called upon to "get creative" on behalf of clients. As one of only a few true legal experts in the reverse mortgage industry, my creativity often opens the discussion with clients about complex uses of reverse mortgages in estate planning.

 I have developed several methods to leverage the equity value of a client's house to enhance either the economic benefit or overall personal security of clients. To explain the concepts in shorthand, Gosselin Law claims a servicemark on the shorthand names of many of our approaches. Here are examples of somewhat magical things that can be done with reverse mortgages as an estate planning tool.

GOLDEN TRIANGLE(sm). The Golden Triangle demonstrates to elders looking to plan for long term care how to use the reverse mortgage as a tool for closing the five year gap provided under the new Medicaid laws. It is a triangle as there is an estate plan, a long term care plan and a reverse mortgage plan coming together to provide for both current and future long term care needs. Here's how it works:

Mary, a 77 year old widow in Boston, has lived in her own home for over 40 years. This is the house that sheltered her family, where her dear husband passed and where she intends to stay until the very end. Although Mary has a good pension from the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, Social Security and adequate short term savings,  Mary is concerned that if she needed long term medical care that she could not afford to remain in her home or pay for a nursing home. Mary also wants to provide as much for her family upon her death as possible; after all she and her husband both worked hard to be able to leave something for their three children.

Mary's good health and family history of longevity helps indicate that Mary will likely grow to be very old. Her home is valued at $450,000 in today's real estate market. Based on her age, current interest rates and the property's values, Mary's HECM line of credit will be about $280,000 at closing. Mary qualifies for long term care insurance, but she feels that the $5,000 annual premium, although vitally important to her ability to remain in her home, is too much to pay on her fixed income. As many elder law lawyer advised her to  transfer the house to avoid exposure to a Medicaid lien - but every technique available requires a 5 year waiting period before she would be elegible for Medicaid.  At 77, Mary could live 15, 20 years or even longer - so even with her fixed income and ongoing inflation, she will no longer be able to afford to stay in her home in the not so distant future.

By securing a HECM reverse mortgage line of credit or similar reverse mortgage product, Mary will enable herself to have access to both a current and ready pool of cash, but also an appreciating line of credit that will be available to her for the rest of her life. Using a $5,000 per year draw, Mary will be able to buy the "Cadillac" of long term care insurance (including extensive home care benefits and high benefit limits) which will also serve to exempt her house from Medicaid liens immediately, without waiting for five years. At the same time, Mary's estate planning will have time to season. After five years, Mary will have had the peace of mind in the form of long term care insurance, lifetime financial security, and in her ever increasing available HECM cash and a now permanent estate plan to carry out her wishes. A Golden Triangle, indeed.

An interesting variation on the reverse mortgage that could work well in the Golden Triangle is the "Retirement Mortgage" from Virgin Money. Essentially a child acts as the reverse mortgage lender, documents the transaction as a loan to ensure that he or she is repaid before any other siblings at the time of the elder's death. I am a big proponent of Virgin Money (full disclosure is that I am working with Virgin Money in developing new and exciting products for the US market), on the principle that families should be helping each other first before turning to often high cost products from the financial services community. 

SNOWBIRD(sm). In the Snowbird(sm) we show reverse mortgage companies how to prospect with sunbelt real estate agents to facilitate the purchase of properties with reverse mortgages, primary residences can be obtained with a reverse mortgage purchase money mortgage, and secondary residence by using a reverse mortgage leveraged primary residence in Massachusetts as collateral for the real estate purchase. Similarly, we show elder homeowners how to conserve cash by using reverse mortgages as purchase money mortgages. Here's an example:

Bob and Cathy, 70 and 68 respectively, haved lived in their lovely 4 bedroom home in Newton for over 30 years. Now retired, Bob and Cathy enjoy playing golf, sailing and visiting with their two children and their families (who both live in the Greater Boston area). As much as they enjoy the New England seasons, they enjoy spending the Winter and long weekends in Florida. They have made many new friends and enjoy the Florida lifestyle, especially in the Clearwater Beach area.

Financially, Bob and Cathy have not fared too well. Bob worked for Polaroid for over 30 years, but because of its collapse, his pension benefits and stock savings (all in Polaroid stock) are meager at best. Bob continues to work part time at The Country Club in Brookline, which also gets him some free time on the greens. Cathy never worked outside the home, but has been doing quite well organizing Ebay sales for her friends and neighbors looking to downsize their homes. The thought of doing this at this point in her life brings Cathy to tears, but she and Bob agree that they would enjoy having a place in Florida during their healthy retirement years.

Based on Bob and Cathy's ages, current interest rates and the $800,000 value of their Newton home, they could borrow approximately $425,000 in reverse mortgage cash. They could draw it all at the closing or take some in a lump sum and leave rest to be available for future withdrawals. Bob and Cathy would very much like to purchase a $200,000 condominium in Clearwater Beach condominiums, not far from their favorite public golf course.

By taking out a reverse mortgage as above, Bob and Cathy will have the best of all worlds. They will have the cash they need to buy the Florida condominium outright (and enjoy its appreciation throughout their retirement), a financial cushion in the form of the remaining credit line on their Newton home, and most importantly, will be able to keep and enjoy their home. Of course, interest will acrrue on their borrowings, but between the expected appreciation of the Florida property and the value they place on the two-home lifestyle, Bob and Cathy will have it all in retirement thanks to the Snowbird.

ROBINHOOD(sm). The Robinhood(sm) guides more sophisticated and larger property value elders on the use of asset leverage by using other financial products, especially second to die life insurance. In simple terms, the reverse mortgage is used to pay premiums and the actuarial analysis results in a positive arbitrage for the reverse mortgage borrower. Here's a simple example to ilustrate the idea:

Mike and Sheila enjoy financial security by anyone's measure. Mike, recently turned 65, and Sheila, 66, just sold their successful software company to a larger competitor - realizing over $10 million in restricted stock in the buyer from the sale. Adding that to their $2 million primary residence in Brookline, $3 million Nantucket home and $5 million in other savings, mainly in qualified retirement plans, Mike and Sheila will pass a large estate on to their five children. Or, will they only fill the coffers of the US Treasury? Based on a $20 million estate, Mike and Sheila's estate planning attorney showed them a potential estate tax of over $6 million if they were to die this year.

If we were their attorneys, we would suggest setting up an irrevocable life insurance trust (ILIT) to hold a survivorship (second to die) life insurance policy. As wealthy as they may seem, Mike and Sheila lack sufficient liquidity to commit to a relatively large insurance premium, although the arbitrage on the numbers clearly show the economic benefit of establishing such an estate plan while they are young and healthy. The solution? A reverse mortgage, either on a line of credit basis where premiums are paid annually or a lump sum cash account where Mike and Sheila can purchase their life insurance (through the ILIT) with a single premium.

By using the reverse mortgage to pay the life insurance premium, Mike and Sheila will get the liquidity they need without running afoul of income tax rules or using restricted or otherwise inaccessible assets to pay for the needed life insurance. Upon the second of Mike and Sheila's death, the overall estate will be liquidated and the reverse mortgage paid in full with part of the cash proceeds of the life insurance policy, the balance to be used for paying estate taxes or direct bequests to their family. Based on a sophisticated side-by-side analysis of their reverse mortgage projections and life insurance guarantees, Mike and Sheila can make an educated arbitrage decision without significant risk of economic loss.

We are not licensed to provide insurance or loan products and any decision to proceed with any of these advanced reverse mortgage plans requires you to work with your trusted advisors. But, Gosselin Law can help our clients evaluate various complex uses of insurance and mortgage tools, as well as suggest reliable sales organizations

Gosselin Law is one of the only elder law firms in the country with a reverse mortgage specialty practice. We can assist homeowners in the states where we are licensed or associated with local counsel with the planning of reverse mortgages, coordination of federal benefits with reverse mortgage loan proceeds and gerneral asset protection and estate planning.

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Whenever I meet with a new estate planning client I like to take the time to know what brought them to finally sit down and plan the disposition of their assets at death (what many people call 'getting my affairs in order' or 'getting my will done'). Some decide to get their will done because of some event in their lives, a new baby, a new marriage, a new divorce, a recent death, an inheritance; while others have much more unexpected reasons for finally getting it all in writing.

For example, I met a client once who had an overwhelming fear that her grandmother's china collection would be separated at her death that she made elaborate provisions for it in a trust (I don't think she ever actually ate on it!). Another client came to me because they intentionally wanted to make the probate process miserable for their heirs, looking to me to make the most complex and inefficient plan possible so her estranged family would have great difficulty in getting at her property through the Probate Court (needless to say we sent her elsewhere for her tormenting plan). Yet other clients are motivated, even upon their deaths, by nothing more than saving money on taxes - what I call making Uncle Sam a lesser heir to your estate. I guess it is good to do what's legal to reduce your estate taxes, but some folks are more worried about the savings in tax than protecting spendthrift kids from them summarily blowing their increased inheritances. We are seeing more and more people getting their estate planning done, not to avoid probate or reduce estate taxes, but to protect their pets. I guess pets are people, too.

Whatever the reason to getting an estate plan done, it's truly the action of taking the steps necessary to complete a plan that matter, as without proper planning,  incapacity or death can have many unintended consequences. GosselinLaw.com >

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A few months back my barber became seriously ill. Since I get my haircut about once every 6 weeks or so, I happened to come to the barber shop at the beginning of the "bad news cycle" that the other barbers in the shop had started. These old Italian men quite emotionally described how their brother barber had fallen ill, the grave prognosis, his family's sorrows, the distress on his friends, etc. It was quite a natural outpouring of woe about everyone's mutual friend.

Because of a probate court date I needed a trim about a month later, I was met once again with the news of the barber's illness, he'll be out until March, his wife has taken time from work, etc... It was quite matter of fact really, but they needed to tell me as I had asked "how's he doing?" This got me thinking about how there is a whole exercise around communicating about grief. How we become accustomed to repeating dreadful things. "Yes, he went quickly, the bus driver was cited for speeding." "Mother fought cancer for years, it's a blessing she's gone." "I just woke up and there he was, he never woke up."

Anyone that has stood in the receiving line at a wake has taken part in the modern grief dance. The mourner says "I'm so sorry for your loss"; the family member says "thank you for coming, it would have meant a lot to old Ed." Rinse, wash, repeat. I'm not a psychologist, but I think there's some harm in wakes. Originally wakes were apparently held to ward off evil spirits (by staying awake with the body) until you got the body in the ground. Wakes then evolved to be a form of confirmation of death and social event. Until fairly recently in human history wakes were always held in the family's home. Either dead people started having more friends or someone saw a business opportunity in using their living room for wakes and the "funeral parlor" was born.

Me, I'd be perfectly happy to be waked in my front hall. The wake is an event for the living, not the dead. It's a time to bring families together to mourn, grieve and share stories of the dear departed. But wouldn't it be nice for a widow not to have to explain how her husband got stuck in the snowblower last Thursday 400 times? I propose a new model for wakes. First, let's do them in happy places, like Cheesecake Factory or the Museum of Fine Arts (another business opportunity for AARP?). Seriously, the body will be happy whereever it's placed and frankly it's only our more recent generations where all things humans are pasteurized and sterilized. In many countries bodies are buried quickly after death (mainly for the practical purpose of avoiding the consequences of hot weather), but also to dispatch the corpse so that there can be a celebration of the person's life through various forms of mourning. Heck, maybe the Probate Court could be a positive place for families to come together? I've always wanted to officiate a reading of the will like you see in movies, maybe it could be a new tradition to have a will read at a social event for the recently departed? As outlandish as these ideas may seem, our customs change over time - influenced by the tastes and preferences of people. Americans like convenience and America, Inc. likes to sell at every turn - watch out for commercialism of this most sacred time, too.

I think having a positive venue for a wake and funeral sends the message that the family continues to live. I think obituaries could be a bit more truthful as well to avoid the inevitable "how did she die?" question. How hard would it be to add a short line that says "Mary was walking along Main Street last Tuesday when a tiger that had recently escaped from the zoo caused her untimely death." I will say I like what the Boston Globe has done with their obituary section recently. The Boston Globe has added the option (for a price) of adding a photograph of the decedent. I am always drawn to these people's pictures. Today, sadly, there was a two month old baby's picture. The other day there was a Marine in his dress blues that is not coming home from far off lands. It's good to see that the dead are like us, not only old, but all ages. Death is a great equalizer - it doesn't know class, race or creed. It is one of life's certainties, and I believe the more we embrace proper estate planning, communication between family members about last wishes and the inevitability of death, the less stressful our deaths will be for the loved ones that we leave behind. Those who know me know that I love to boat and fish in Boston Harbor. A funeral director friend of mine has a boat berthed near mine, her name is "No Wake Today."

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The son of philanthropist Brooke Astor was accused in an indictment unsealed Tuesday of plundering his mother's $198 million estate and conspiring to have the Alzheimer's-stricken socialite sign a new will leaving her fortune to him.

I guess this shows us that the rich are just like everyone else. Greed is no more a condition of poverty than hunger is a condition of obesity. Humans with a nature to cause harm to their families for their own profit come in all shapes and sizes. Brooke Astor is no more immune to her family's greed than any other elderly woman suffering from the ravages of dementia. Probate, estate taxes and trust issues for the rich are the same as for everyone else - just magnified by the scale of wealth.

A big part of our estate planning process is developing strategies to prevent abuse of the elderly. Using co-fiduciaries, professional trust services and checks and balances built into our documents, we are able to give our clients strong lines of defense. Brooke Astor may have had access to the best lawyers in the United States because of her wealth, but without an understanding of elder law and the dangers of elder abuse, even the best lawyer in Boston cannot imagine the opportunity for fraud within a parent-child relationship. Our experience tells us that the "big firm" lawyers are ill equipped to deal with what is often more social work than legal work.

Our practice is to approach mental health issues in our elderly clients as a multi-disciplinary issue. Working closely with medical providers, financial planners and social workers we craft bespoke plans that respect each individual client's unique personal situation. House, hospital or nursing home calls are commonplace in what we do, how else could we know how our clients live? Ask your downtown Boston lawyer to visit the nursing home on a Saturday morning.

In her day Brooke Astor, was a great philanthropist. In a great twist she will continue to be philanthropic through her own son's misdeeds by giving America an example of greed to the umpteenth degree. For elder law lawyers, Santa Claus could not have brought a more perfect Christmas present for elder parents than the example of the consequences of poor planning. Do your grandparents, parents and self a favor and give the affordable Christmas gift of good estate planning. And, yes, I would be happy to sell you a gift certificate for estate planning!

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My law firm handles a large number of mortgage closings, estate plans and probate administrations. Honestly, it is quite monotonous, dull work. We input information into the computer and the computer spits out all the magic documents. Then we do it again, and again, and again. As dull as it may be I make a point of instilling in my staff the mission of the law firm.

Our mission, simply, is Clients First. A necessary evil, sure, but we try hard to put a human side to each mortgage closing we push out the door. Each probate involves the death of a loved one, the tension of families revealing their greed to each other, the grieving that makes it ever so hard to hold that green certificate of death in your hands. We see each probate file as something that needs to be handled with great care and respect. Whenever I first meet with a family after a death, the first words from my lips after extending my sympathy is that we are here just to talk about the process and your feelings in divvying up your loved one's affairs. I'm often surprised just how many clients take me up on my free ear and shoulder.

I have been looking around for other monotonous jobs and tried to look a little deeper at what defines excellent service in the face of boredom. It all comes down to people, people make life interesting. My favorite librarian that keeps those books in perfect order is just waiting for a patron to ask her about a good book about Antarctic exploration. My accountant can discuss boats with me until the cows come home, even manages a smile when he tells me that I owe money (I swear the IRS gives him a commission), probably because he is thinking of buying another boat. The firefighters (whose jobs are 95% boredom and 5% adrenaline) I know enjoy sharing current events, recipes and get-rich-quick ideas. What do these boring jobs have in common? People. Good people caring about helping others, but focused on the people they serve. Otherwise they would be easily replaced by machines.

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A few months back my barber became seriously ill. Since I get my haircut about once every 6 weeks or so, I happened to come to the barber shop at the beginning of the "bad news cycle" that the other barbers in the shop had started. These old Italian men quite emotionally described how their brother barber had fallen ill, the grave prognosis, his family's sorrows, the distress on his friends, etc. It was quite a natural outpouring of woe about everyone's mutual friend.

Because of a probate court date I needed a trim about a month later, I was met once again with the news of the barber's illness, he'll be out until March, his wife has taken time from work, etc... It was quite matter of fact really, but they needed to tell me as I had asked "how's he doing?" This got me thinking about how there is a whole exercise around communicating about grief. How we become accustomed to repeating dreadful things. "Yes, he went quickly, the bus driver was cited for speeding." "Mother fought cancer for years, it's a blessing she's gone." "I just woke up and there he was, he never woke up."

Anyone that has stood in the receiving line at a wake has taken part in the modern grief dance. The mourner says "I'm so sorry for your loss"; the family member says "thank you for coming, it would have meant a lot to old Ed." Rinse, wash, repeat. I'm not a psychologist, but I think there's some harm in wakes. Originally wakes were apparently held to ward off evil spirits (by staying awake with the body) until you got the body in the ground. Wakes then evolved to be a form of confirmation of death and social event. Until fairly recently in human history wakes were always held in the family's home. Either dead people started having more friends or someone saw a business opportunity in using their living room for wakes and the "funeral parlor" was born.

Me, I'd be perfectly happy to be waked in my front hall. The wake is an event for the living, not the dead. It's a time to bring families together to mourn, grieve and share stories of the dear departed. But wouldn't it be nice for a widow not to have to explain how her husband got stuck in the snowblower last Thursday 400 times? I propose a new model for wakes. First, let's do them in happy places, like Cheesecake Factory or the Museum of Fine Arts (another business opportunity for AARP?). Seriously, the body will be happy whereever it's placed and frankly it's only our more recent generations where all things humans are pasteurized and sterilized. In many countries bodies are buried quickly after death (mainly for the practical purpose of avoiding the consequences of hot weather), but also to dispatch the corpse so that there can be a celebration of the person's life through various forms of mourning. Heck, maybe the Probate Court could be a positive place for families to come together? I've always wanted to officiate a reading of the will like you see in movies, maybe it could be a new tradition to have a will read at a social event for the recently departed? As outlandish as these ideas may seem, our customs change over time - influenced by the tastes and preferences of people. Americans like convenience and America, Inc. likes to sell at every turn - watch out for commercialism of this most sacred time, too.

I think having a positive venue for a wake and funeral sends the message that the family continues to live. I think obituaries could be a bit more truthful as well to avoid the inevitable "how did she die?" question. How hard would it be to add a short line that says "Mary was walking along Main Street last Tuesday when a tiger that had recently escaped from the zoo caused her untimely death." I will say I like what the Boston Globe has done with their obituary section recently. The Boston Globe has added the option (for a price) of adding a photograph of the decedent. I am always drawn to these people's pictures. Today, sadly, there was a two month old baby's picture. The other day there was a Marine in his dress blues that is not coming home from far off lands. It's good to see that the dead are like us, not only old, but all ages. Death is a great equalizer - it doesn't know class, race or creed. It is one of life's certainties, and I believe the more we embrace proper estate planning, communication between family members about last wishes and the inevitability of death, the less stressful our deaths will be for the loved ones that we leave behind. Those who know me know that I love to boat and fish in Boston Harbor. A funeral director friend of mine has a boat berthed near mine, her name is "No Wake Today."

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How did wealthy Aunt Sally's bequest of $500,000 a year to help stray cats end up going to The Foundation for the Preservation of Home Brewers after she was gone? She had both a will and a trust explicitly spelling out her wishes that were supposed to be followed in perpetuity.

Stewardship is a lost art. As an estate planning attorney I am charged with preserving my clients' intents through various documents, such as wills, trusts and charitable foundations. I guide clients on selecting experienced, competent and reliable fiduciaries. I follow through to know that my clients' estate planning trusts are funded before death to avoid unnecessary probate administration.

A recent New York Times piece reminds me how important it is for me, an estate planning attorney, to see that my clients' wishes are preserved, not perverted by the corporate greed that pervades the corporate estate and trust administration industry.

The Times article shows how many irrevocable trusts, charitable trusts and private foundations are administered by stingy corporate trust giants more interested in collecting fees than serving the wishes of those no longer here. Why give the money to charities? It will only reduce trust fees.

But that is not even the worst part. According to the Times, the wishes of clients are often changed to reflect the wishes of the administrators. The charities specified in the trusts are replaced by charities chosen by administrators as more appropriate. Generous gifts become less so, or even disappear. Why?

Why indeed. The trust industry in the United States got its big start in Boston over 200 years ago with the First National Bank of Boston in 1784. The bank was chartered to serve the banking needs of ship captains, mainly whalers and Far East Traders.

Often the ships would be gone for over a year at a time while the captains' families stayed behind in Massachusetts. As a result, Boston trust lawyers and trust companies were charged with preserving and protecting the wealth of the merchant fleet. Massachusetts developed a great body of trust law, that to this day is unrivaled in any other state.

Silent among those laws is a clear definition as to what a reasonable action would be by a trustee. Certainly the trustees must act reasonably. But because most estate planning attorneys draft trusts with the broadest of fiduciary powers, theses same discretionary powers are often the tool of self serving corporate trustees. The cure? For one, clear language is a good start. I am a strong advocate among the Massachusetts Bar for clear language in all estate planning documents.

Our law firm is partial to English, as opposed to legaldygook, for all our estate planning documents. If you cannot understand the plain meaning of a document after carefully reading it once, it is not clearly written. Secondly, we are proponents of using co-trustees or trust protectors on all trusts and foundations. In this way, there are checks against outrageous unrestrained abuse of power by trustees as outlined in the Times article.

Last, and most important, we provide for removal of the trustee in all of our trust planning, should that trustee fail to perform fiduciary duties. Provisions are made that such a trustee can be replaced by one willing and able to do the job consistent with the language of the trust and the wishes of the client. 

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Practicing in the area of probate law in Massachusetts exposes me to so many good people. Well, most all of my clients and their families are good. It's their relatives that cause all the problems. Over several years of practice I have developed a set of baseline rules for dealing with people in probate cases; I like to call it the Gosselin Theory of Relativity. It boils down to this "friends for pleasure, strangers for business and relatives for no good reason at all." Let me share with you some true to life stories (with the names changed to protect the innocent).

Many years back I had written the estate plan (will and trust) of a then elderly woman of substantial means in the area North of Boston. "Mrs. Jones" had two children. "Elsa" was a loving daughter. She visited Mrs. Jones often and was her confidante and companion as Mrs. Jones' health declined. Elsa was more or less the model daughter. "Aurelius" was a greedy, lying, conniving germ of a man that was born to Mrs. Jones but took a wrong turn on the way out of the nursery. Mrs. Jones only saw him when he was on the lam or looking for a "loan." She never turned him away, but had a plan for him at her death. You see, her estate planning made provisions for Elsa, Elsa's children, even Aurelius' children - but it left nothing to Aurelius. Mrs. Jones, as is common, asked me to keep her papers for safekeeping, only telling Elsa and Aurelius that should something happen to her that they should contact me. Aurelius lived in a Mid-Atlantic state and drove through the night to reach my office at 8:30am.

He was waiting with his car idling for me to come in to work. "Are you Mrs. Jones' lawyer? She died yesterday. She was my mother. I want to know what I'm getting in the will." I knew this day was coming. My instructions were clear from Mrs. Jones that I was to give Aurelius any and all notices required under the probate law of Massachusetts, but nothing more. "You must be Aurelius," I said like any good lawyer who only asks questions fully knowing the answer before they are spoken. "I am so sorry to hear about your mother, she was a kind and thoughtful woman. Your mother's property was held entirely in a trust, her will is of no consequence, the trust is a private document and if there is any reason to contact you in the due course of its administration I will contact you, won't you confirm your address?" I succinctly responded.

After a variety of profanity, Aurelius stomped away. Wouldn't you know that when I called Elsa to inform her that I had met Aurelius her response to me was "Mr. Gosselin, why are you sorry about mother? She is right here with me." I'll be coming back to the theme of greed over the coming weeks, it is an unfortunate necessity of being a probate lawyer. [Housekeeping: I just want to let all of you know that this blogging thing is more time consuming than I ever imagined. So, please excuse short posts or gaps of time, it's my goal to produce a new blog every 3 days or less. Also, my webmaster tells me to make sure I use "magic" words in my blog, like probate, real estate, lawyer, elder law, Massachusetts, Boston, etc.", but I promise to use these terms in their proper context and from time to time to create blogs with no words like probate, elder law, Medicaid, estate planning, Massachusetts, real estate. :)]

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