Compensation for Caregivers in Illinois

Margot Gordon (Attorney, Chicago, IL) recently published her article entitled Custodial Claims:  Compensation for Family Caregivers, 98 Ill. Bar J. 256 (May 2010). 

An excerpt from the beginning of the article is below:

Many families with disabled parents, siblings, or children face a difficult situation: while the disabled person may have some money, he or she doesn’t have enough for caretaking without the help of family members, who in turn may have to forgo their own opportunities to earn income.

In an effort to remedy this inequity, section 18-1.1 of the Illinois Probate Act was enacted in 1988. It significantly changed probate law by allowing specified family members who lived with and provided direct care to a “disabled person” to file a claim in probate court for those services, after the disabled individual’s death. The statute overrides the common-law presumption that services rendered by family members are gratuitous.