As your parents enter their later years, securing their comfort and tranquility—as well as your own—becomes increasingly important. To guarantee your parents have access to the support they require, it's critical they have these three essential documents prepared and accessible. Discover more…
Read MoreMaking important decisions for aging parents can be a challenging task, but power of attorney (POA) can provide peace of mind and clarity in times of need. POA enables individuals to make crucial decisions on behalf of their parents, such as managing their finances or making medical decisions when they are unable to do so themselves due to age or illness.
While it may be difficult to approach this topic with your parents, having these discussions early on can help ensure that you follow their wishes if their health changes over time. Starting the conversation with empathy and understanding can make all the difference.
In this article, we'll explore how to obtain power of attorney for elderly parents and provide helpful tips on how to approach these discussions with warmth and care. After all, our ultimate goal is to ensure that your aging parents receive the best possible care and support.
Read MoreAs a parent, you are quite accustomed to managing your children's legal and medical affairs as circumstances require. If your child requires urgent medical attention while away from you, a simple phone call authorizing care can do the trick. But what happens when those “children” turn 18, now adults in the eyes of the law, and need urgent medical attention far from home?
The simple fact is that the day your child turns 18, he or she becomes an adult and has the legal rights of an adult. This means that you lose your prior held rights to make medical and financial decisions for your child unless your child executes legal documents giving you those rights back. Without the proper legal documents, accessing medical information and even being informed about your adult child’s medical condition can be difficult and, in some cases, impossible.
Read MoreActress Anne Heche died this August following a tragic car accident, leaving behind two young sons: Homer Heche Laffoon, age 20, and Atlas Heche Tupper, age 13.
Last week, in part one, we covered the way uncertainty around Heche’s estate plan is creating conflict among her loved ones and resulting in her estate going through the lengthy, expensive, and public court process called probate. In part two, we’ll discuss two additional issues related to Heche’s death and the results of her failure to work with a lawyer on her planning.
Read MoreEven if the process is amicable, divorce can be one of life's most stressful events. With so many major changes taking place, it’s easy to forget to update your estate plan—or simply put it off until it's too late. After all, dealing with yet another lawyer is probably the last thing you want to do.
However, neglecting to update your estate plan for divorce can have potentially tragic consequences. And you shouldn’t wait until the divorce is final to rework your plan—you should update it as soon as you realize the split is inevitable.
Here’s why: Your marriage is legally still in full effect until your divorce is final, so if you die or become incapacitated while your divorce is ongoing and haven’t changed your estate plan, your soon-to-be ex-spouse could wind up with complete control over your life and assets. Unless you want your ex to have that kind of power, you need to take action as soon as possible.
Read MoreThis kind of thinking is exactly what DIY and online estate planning services would like you to believe, but it’s far from true. In fact, relying on DIY or online estate planning documents can be one of the costliest mistakes you can make for your loved ones. Keep in mind, just because you created “legal” estate planning documents that doesn’t mean they will actually work when you—or most importantly, the people you love—need them.
Without a thorough understanding of your family dynamics, the nature of your assets, and how the legal process works upon your death or incapacity, you are likely to make serious mistakes when creating a DIY estate plan. Even worse, these mistakes won’t be discovered until it’s too late—and the loved ones you were trying to protect will be the very ones forced to clean up your mess or get stuck in a costly and traumatic court process that can drag out for months or even years.
Last week, in part one of this series, we covered the first two ways DIY estate plans can fail, and here, we’ll cover the remaining three.
Read MoreDo a Google search for “digital wills” or “online estate planning,” and you’ll find dozens of different websites offering low-cost, do-it-yourself (DIY) and sometimes even free estate planning documents, such as wills, trusts, powers of attorney, and healthcare directives.
From LegalZoom® and Rocket Lawyer® to TrustandWill.com and FreeWill.com, these DIY legal documents may seem like a cheap and easy way to finally cross estate planning off your to-do list—and do so without having to pay a lawyer big bucks to assist you. After all, you’ve been able to prepare and file your taxes online for years, is estate planning really that much different? And aren’t lawyers using the very same forms you find on these DIY document websites?
Read MoreLast week in part one of this series, we offered a brief synopsis of the movie, which revolves around Marla Grayson, a crooked professional guardian who makes her living by preying on vulnerable seniors, and we then outlined the true events that inspired the fictional account. The film’s writer and director, J. Blakeson, came up with the idea after reading news stories of a similar scam involving a corrupt professional guardianship agency in Las Vegas.
Read MoreWatching your kids leave home to attend college or start their career can be an emotional time for you as a parent. On one hand, moving out on their own is a major accomplishment that should make you proud. On the other hand, having your kids leave the nest and face the world can also induce anxiety and fear.
Regardless of your feelings, once they reach age 18, your kids become legal adults, and many areas of their lives that were once under your control will be solely their responsibility. And one of the very first items on their to-do list as new adults should be estate planning.
Read MorePower of attorney (POA) is a document that grants a specific person, called an agent, the authority to make important decisions on behalf of another person, called the principal.
There are many different kinds of power of attorney. The scope of the authority the principal grants to the agent can be very broad or quite specific. The power of attorney document specifies exactly what that authority looks like.
Read MoreMost often associate “estate planning” with death. Specifically, what happens to assets after death. However, there are a few documents that are effective while you are living. In fact, they are only effective while you are living so that as soon as you die, they do too. These documents are used when you are physically incapable or unavailable to make decisions on your own. Since statistically speaking, you have more of a chance of becoming incapacitated than dying, these life planning tools are essential for everyone to have.
Read MoreSummer can be a busy time for the family preparing to send their child off to college. While shopping, packing and handling roommate issues may keep you preoccupied, it is important to discuss a few legal matters before your young adult flies the coop. That’s right. Legal matters.
Read MoreDespite tons of information available, there are still so many misconceptions about Estate Planning. What does this have to do with fat? Read on to find out.
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