If you have children or have reached your 30’s or 40’s, you have probably heard a million times that you need three important legal documents:  A will (and maybe a trust), a healthcare directive, and power of attorney. Yet, most people do not have these documents for reasons as different as people are. But the number ONE reason for having these documents is this:  YOU choose who controls you and your money when you are sick or dead. Otherwise a court may have to choose after an expensive court process?

In your will, YOU choose the Executor to manage your finances, business, and the distribution of your assets in accordance with your wishes.  You also appoint the Guardian of your children and the Trustee of the assets you leave your underage children. If you decide to put your assets in a Trust, you will still need a Will to make most of these appointments.

In your healthcare directive, You appoint your Healthcare Representative.  This is the person who makes healthcare decisions for you when you cannot make them for yourself – such as when you are unconscious, in a coma, or mentally incompetent.  Anyone who has been with a parent or sibling during those last months of fighting off cancer or trying to recover from a stroke or heart attack knows how important it is for the doctors and hospital staff to know with whom they should speak and who makes the decisions when you cannot.

In your power of attorney, You appoint your Attorney-in-Fact, the person who makes decisions about your finances before your die and in the areas your specifically set forth in the document.  You have probably granted people power of attorney already without paying much attention to it because the powers you granted were very limited, such as permitting a bank to take money from your account when a check you’ve written is presented for payment to another person.  For a client’s estate plan, we would prepare a “springing” power of attorney by which the Attorney-in-Fact’s powers “spring” into being only upon your ill health or mental incompetence.  Again, YOU make this choice rather than a court after an expensive legal process.

In most cases, Your appointee in all of these documents will be your spouse.  And that is why you also make alternate appointments in the event your spouse dies before your do or is injured in the same accident you were. 

We are here to help you navigate the estate planning process, ensuring protection for you and your family, and making sure your personal goals are fulfilled.