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As individuals get older, they often need more and more help with their personal and financial needs.\u00a0 It becomes harder to do a whole host of things ranging from paying bills and balancing a checkbook to keeping track of medications, transportation to medical appointments, and bathing.\u00a0 While that help may be delivered by a home care agency, it is also quite common for adult children or other relatives to provide that critical assistance to the loved one who needs it.\u00a0 Clearly a home care agency would need to be paid for the care services being provided.\u00a0 But what you may not know is that it is also possible for family members to be paid for delivering care services.\u00a0 However, it is crucial for an intra-family care arrangement to be set up the right way.\u00a0 In this article we will give a brief overview of care contracts, and then in our next article we will take a look at a particular court case addressing a major problem that can arise when a care arrangement is not properly documented.<\/em><\/p>\n A care contract is simply a written legal document that describes the services the care provider will be delivering to the care recipient and the compensation the care recipient will be paying for those services.\u00a0 Although the parties to the agreement may be close family members it is nonetheless important that the document be drafted with the same levels of formality as you might see in a contract with a third party service provider from outside the family.<\/p>\n What sorts of service might be included in a care contract?\u00a0 It varies widely.\u00a0 When the care recipient is fairly healthy and mostly independent, the services might be as little as bill paying and limited assistance with transportation and grocery shopping.\u00a0 In contrast, when the care recipient is in poorer health, the services would likely be more extensive and entail hands-on assistance with activities of daily living such as ambulation, meal preparation, shaving, and dressing.\u00a0 The applicable services would also necessarily vary depending on whether or not the care recipient lives in their own home, in the home of the care provider, or in a separate independent living or assisted living facility.<\/p>\n Are there limitations on the use of such care agreements?\u00a0 One issue is that spouses have a legal obligation to care for each other.\u00a0 That means a spouse cannot be paid to serve as a caregiver.\u00a0 However, children have no such legal obligation, nor do siblings or cousins.\u00a0 So those other non-spouse relatives each could potentially be paid as a caregiver.<\/p>\n Another potential concern is the amount of compensation being paid to the care provider.\u00a0 Care providers are entitled to reasonable compensation.\u00a0 There is no set definition of what is reasonable.\u00a0 The scope of services being provided, the number of days or hours a week involved, and whether or not the care provider happens to have specific expertise such as a nursing degree, all have a bearing on what would be reasonable compensation.\u00a0 Paying too high an amount to the care provider could lead to problems for the care recipient if they later need to apply for Medicaid.<\/p>\n A third concern is that the parties involved must respect the formalized nature of the agreement.\u00a0 That means in part that both the care recipient and the care provider have responsibilities accounting-wise.\u00a0 Both must properly document the payments made or payments due to be paid and there may need to be tax withholding and adherence to Department of Labor requirements.\u00a0 To make such a family care arrangement work both parties need to be mindful of the employer \/ employee arrangement between the two.<\/p>\n Please call us at 860-769-6938 if you have any questions about caring for a loved one or to discuss any other planning issues with us.<\/p>\n https:\/\/weatherby-associates.com\/care-contract-one<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" As individuals get older, they often need more and more help with their personal and financial needs.\u00a0 It becomes harder to do a whole host of things ranging from paying […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2733","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"yoast_head":"\nElder Care Contracts in Connecticut<\/h1>\n