A fellow author recently sent me one of the kindest emails I have ever received about my new book, which just came out in June 2026, called Protecting Your Assets from Probate and Long-Term Care (Second Edition): Don’t Let the System Bankrupt You and Your Loved Ones.
He had just finished reading it, and what struck me most was not simply that he liked the book. What struck me was that he understood the core message.
This book is not really about legal documents. It is not merely about trusts. It is not merely about probate. It is not merely about Medicaid. It is about protection and peace of mind.
It is about protecting your home, your savings, your family, your independence, your dignity, and your legacy from systems that most people do not understand until they are already in crisis.
The author who wrote to me is not an Estate Planning attorney. He is not a Medicaid Planning attorney. He is a former Marine, a former stockbroker, a former Fortune 100 IT executive, and now an author who writes about money and investing.
His point was simple: in the financial world, and in the Estate Planning world, people often follow popular advice without realizing that the most popular advice may not actually protect them.
That is exactly why I wrote this book.
The Most Common Estate Planning Mistake: Thinking a Revocable Living Trust Protects Assets
Revocable living trusts are widely recommended by Estate Planning attorneys throughout the country. They can be useful. They can avoid probate when properly funded. They can help organize assets and provide for easier management during incapacity. Our firm does thousands of revocable living trusts each year, as they are a good tool for many people doing Estate Planning.
But there are several major blind spots missed by most Estate Planning attorneys.
A standard revocable living trust does not protect your assets from your own creditors. It does not protect your assets from lawsuits. And most importantly for most people, it does not protect your assets from the catastrophic costs of nursing home care or other long-term care expenses. It does not create Medicaid asset protection.
These blind spots are one of the most dangerous misunderstandings in Estate Planning.
Many people erroneously believe that because they have a living trust, their assets are “protected.” But a revocable living trust offers no protection for you, the client, while you’re alive; it only offers protection from probate after your death.
Your family typically won’t discover this problem until a health crisis, incapacity crisis, lawsuit, nursing home admission, or probate dispute exposes the weakness in the plan.
That is not a small technical defect. That is the difference between a plan that merely organizes assets and a plan that actually protects them.
Why This Book Matters Now
Long-term care costs are one of the biggest financial threats facing aging Americans and their families. Nursing homes, assisted living facilities, memory care, and home care can drain a lifetime of savings with alarming speed.
Most people do not plan for this risk correctly. Many assume Medicare will pay for long-term custodial care. It does not.
Many assume their Estate Plan with a revocable living trust already protects them. It does not.
Many assume Medicaid Planning is only for people who are already broke. That is also wrong.
I wrote the second edition of Protecting Your Assets from Probate and Long-Term Care to explain these issues in plain English, without legal jargon and without pretending that a basic Estate Plan solves every problem.
The book explains why proper planning must look at not just probate avoidance but protection from probate PLUS lawsuits PLUS the catastrophic expenses of long-term care:
• Probate avoidance, so your family can avoid unnecessary court involvement, delays, expenses, and public administration of your estate
• Lawsuit protection, so your family doesn’t have to worry that you’re risking your life savings every time you get behind the wheel of your car, especially as you age and your hearing and vision may worsen and your reaction time may slow down
• Long-term care asset protection, so your family is not forced to spend down everything you worked a lifetime to build because the wrong type of trust was used or no meaningful planning was done
These are related issues, but they are not the same issue. Avoiding probate is not the same as protecting assets from lawsuits and long-term care expenses.
The Living Trust Plus® Asset Protection Trust
One of the key planning tools discussed in the book is the Living Trust Plus Medicaid Asset Protection Trust. This an irrevocable asset protection trust that protects your assets from probate PLUS lawsuits PLUS the long-term care expenses associated with the nursing home level of care, whether at home or in a nursing home.
Note that irrevocable does NOT mean unchangeable. This is another huge blind spot held by many Estate Planning attorneys who think irrevocable does mean unchangeable because they, like most non-attorneys, have never bothered to understand that irrevocable just means that you, as the creator of the trust, can’t revoke it.
The Living Trust Plus® is designed for people who want far more than a basic revocable living trust. It is designed for people who want to avoid probate while also pursuing asset protection planning for future lawsuit protection and long-term care risks.
The concept matters because many families are told, explicitly or implicitly, that they must choose between control and protection. That is an oversimplification. With the right type of planning, you can retain important rights and practical control while also providing asset protection. There’s a difference between control and ownership.
With the Living Trust Plus Medicaid Asset Protection Trust, you typically retain the rights to:
- Be the trustee, thus controlling how the trust assets are invested, if the house is sold, of a new house is purchased, etc.
- Change trustees at any time
- Change the beneficiaries at any time, during your life and/or after your death
The details matter. The trust must be drafted correctly. It must be funded correctly. The family must understand what the trust does and does not do. The plan must be coordinated with real estate, retirement accounts, beneficiary designations, tax issues, long-term care planning, and Medicaid rules.
That is why do-it-yourself planning, generic online trusts, and ordinary revocable living trust planning can be so dangerous. The documents may look official. The terminology may sound familiar. But the legal consequences may be entirely different from what the family believes they are getting.
Reviews of the Book
My first edition was published several years ago by Allworth Press, a division of New York publishing house Skyhorse Publishing, and was one of their best-selling books, which is why they reached out for me to write a second edition. The book right now has a 4.4 star rating from 82 reviews on Amazon. Most of the lower star reviews are from people complaining that the first edition seemed like somewhat of a sales pitch trying for my particular brand of asset protection trust, but I’ve made clear in the second edition that there’s that there’s nothing magical about the name “Living Trust Plus” or the concept behind it.
In fact, you can find many other experienced Estate Planning and Elder Law attorneys preparing similar trusts under different names, some using proprietary names of their own and some just generically calling them “Medicaid asset protection trusts” or “veterans asset protection trusts,” usually without explaining that they also protect assets from lawsuits and not just from Medicaid or veterans pension benefits. This is why the LivingTrust Plus name is more accurate, in my opinion, as these types of trusts are not only for Medicaid asset protection or veterans asset protection, but also for lawsuit protection.
What the Second Edition Covers
This second edition updates and expands the original book with new material addressing several major planning issues that families now face more often.
The book covers core topics such as:
• Why ordinary revocable living trusts often fail to protect assets from lawsuits and long-term care expenses
• How probate works and why many families should plan to avoid it
• Why joint ownership can create serious legal, tax, creditor, and family problems
• How Medicaid Planning works and why ethical Medicaid Planning is not the same as hiding assets
• Common Medicaid myths that cause families to delay planning until it is much harder to protect assets
• How Special Needs Planning can protect loved ones with disabilities without destroying public benefits
• How to evaluate whether an attorney truly understands elder law, Medicaid asset protection, and long-term care planning
• How rental property owners may use LLCs and asset protection trusts as part of a broader protection plan
• Planning considerations for high-net-worth individuals and couples
• How veterans may qualify for Aid and Attendance benefits
These are not theoretical concerns. These are the problems families deal with every day when a spouse, parent, or loved one needs care.
The Gap Between What People Believe and What Is True
The fellow author who wrote to me said something that captured the heart of the book. He recognized that many people are exposed to substantial financial risk not because they refused to plan but because they relied on planning that did not do what they thought it did.
And he’s exactly right.
The problem is not always neglect. Sometimes the problem is false confidence.
A person may have a will, but the will does nothing to avoid probate.
A person may have a revocable living trust, but the revocable living trust does nothing to protect assets from nursing home expenses.
A person may have beneficiary designations, but those designations may accidentally disinherit a loved one, expose assets to creditors, give assets to minor beneficiaries and wind up in probate for decades, or destroy benefits for a person with special needs. Start here to read my 3-part series about all the potential problems with beneficiary designations.
A married couple may have jointly owned accounts, but that only helps avoid probate when one spouse dies.
A person may have jointly owned accounts with a child or children, but those accounts may create tax problems, creditor exposure, family conflict, and Medicaid issues.
A plan can look complete on paper and still fail when tested by incapacity, long-term care, family conflict, or death.
That is why this book focuses on practical consequences. The question is not simply, “Do you have documents?” The question is, “Will your plan actually work when your family needs it?”
Why Plain English Matters
Estate Planning and Elder Law are full of technical rules. Medicaid Planning is especially complex. But families should not have to become lawyers to understand the basic risks they face.
One of the things I appreciate most about the emails I receive about my book and the over 50 5-star reviews is the recognition that I wrote the book for real people in plain English.
That was intentional.
If people cannot understand the plan, they cannot use it. If they cannot use it, they cannot protect themselves. If they do not know the difference between a probate-avoidance trust and an asset-protection trust, they may sign documents that do not accomplish their real goals.
The purpose of this book is to make the issues understandable before a crisis occurs.
Who Should Read This Book?
This book is for anyone who owns a home, has savings, has a spouse, has children, has a loved one with special needs, owns rental property, has aging parents, is worried about nursing home costs, or wants to leave a legacy instead of a legal and financial mess.
It is especially relevant for families in Virginia, Maryland, and the District of Columbia who are thinking about:
• Estate Planning
• Probate avoidance
• Long-term care planning
• Medicaid asset protection
• Special Needs Planning;
• Veterans benefits planning
• Asset protection for real estate
• Planning for a spouse with declining health
• Protecting children from future conflict
• Avoiding the consequences of the wrong kind of living trust
No book can replace individualized legal advice. But a good book can help you ask better questions, avoid common mistakes, and recognize whether your existing plan is dangerously incomplete.
Get the New Second Edition
The second edition of Protecting Your Assets from Probate and Long-Term Care is now available.
You can also visit our Books by Evan Farr page to learn more about my books and other resources.
The message of this book is direct: planning ahead is not just paperwork. It is protection.
It is protection from probate. Protection from unnecessary legal expense. Protection from long-term care costs. Protection from common myths. Protection from bad advice. Protection from leaving your family to clean up a mess that could have been prevented.
If you are not sure whether your current Estate Plan protects you from the risks discussed in this article, it probably needs to be reviewed. If your plan consists only of a will or a standard revocable living trust, it may be missing the most important protections your family will need.