A new U.S. government report warns that a number of “continuing care retirement communities” are facing financial problems, while regulation of these facilities is spotty. Continuing-care communities offer an entire continuum of care – from independent housing to assisted living to round-the-clock nursing services – in a single facility, with the goal of allowing residents to age in place.

Moving can be stressful for anyone, but it’s particularly stressful for seniors. On top of hiring movers, packing, and setting up a new home, there is the emotional toll of leaving a house the senior may have lived in for decades. If a move seems overwhelming, a “senior move manager” may be able to help.

Have you considered your pets when planning your estate? If not, you should, according to the Humane Society of the United States, the nation’s largest animal protection organization. “Since pets have shorter life spans, people don’t think to include them in their estate plans,” says Anne Culver, Director of Disaster Services for the Society. “But animals left homeless when an owner has failed to make adequate provisions for their care are distressingly common in animal shelters

Even if you have paid off your mortgage, you still have to keep on top of property taxes. Most people who have a mortgage don’t pay their property taxes directly. Instead, a little of each mortgage payment is put into an escrow account, and the lender pays the taxes from the funds in the account. Thus, when many older people pay off a mortgage, and begin having to pay property taxes directly, they aren’t used to

If you intend to leave your children equal shares of your estate, don’t forget to consider any money or property held jointly with a child. If you have recently added a child to a bank account, own property jointly with one of your children, or have set up a payable-on-death account with a child as the beneficiary, you might want to revise your will.

Taking care of an aging parent can be a full-time job. Adult children may have to give up paying jobs in order to provide care. Even if they don’t, they may still devote hundreds of hours of their time and make sacrifices in many other ways. Often, aging parents want to find ways to compensate their caregiver children. Unfortunately, this is more complicated than it seems, because many techniques have tax or other consequences that aren’t