What Should I Do With My Living Will After I’ve Signed It?
The Health Care Power of Attorney and the Advance Medical Directive are critically important estate planning documents. The Advance Medical Directive (often called a “Living Will”) allows you to make your wishes known about whether to withhold life support in certain contexts. The Health Care Power of Attorney allows you to name someone (usually called an “agent” or an “attorney-in-fact”) to make healthcare decisions for you, in the event you are incapable of doing so yourself.
Powers Of Attorney: If You Need Them And Don’t Have Them, It’s Too Late
“Larry, my Mom had a stroke a few days ago. She’s in a care facility now and isn’t able to make decisions. The doctors and administrators are asking me to sign papers and make decisions for her. What do I do?”
Who Should Be In Charge If You Can’t Be?
Choosing the people to whom you want to assign responsibility in case the worst happens is a stumbling block that keeps many of us from creating estate planning documents, such as wills, trusts, and powers of attorney. Who should my executor be? Who could manage money for kids who will be my heirs? Who would I trust to make medical or financial decisions for me in an emergency? Who would be willing to raise my kids if neither of us was around?
Who actually owns your home? Check that deed!
Far too often, couples who live in homes together—married or unmarried—don’t understand how the ownership of their homes is actually structured. In the hundreds of times that I’ve sat down with couples to review their estates, we’ve uncovered ownership issues as often as not. Many of those less than ideal situations can be updated or repaired easily enough. But I have also seen too many cases in which one half of the couple becomes homeless after a break-up or the death of a partner or spouse.