Proactive Planning: Legal planning and paperwork (2/11)

Have your done your legal planning and paperwork? The first step, for yourself, or if you’re helping your parents, is the estate planning documents. Usually, estate planning is a package of documents. 

Most people are most familiar with the will, but when we're talking about long-term care planning, the most important documents are the powers of attorney documents.  

A comprehensive estate plan typically includes these essential documents: 

• financial power of attorney
• health care power of attorney
• advance care directive
• a living trust
• last will and testament

If you have done these documents already, but haven't looked at them in a few years, it’s a good idea to review and possible update them. As Lisa shares: “I'm giving you a homework assignment of finding the papers, remembering where you put them, maybe dusting them off, and then being able to answer these questions that I'm going to ask you now.”  

If you're helping your parents, you'll want to ask them:

• Have they done their legal paperwork? 
• Who did they name (or who did you name) as your powers of attorney (POA)? 
• Who did you name as the backup persons?
• Are the documents written to be effective immediately? Or are they written to become effective upon incapacity, and what triggers that?
• Do the people who are assigned as POAs know they are the POAs? Do they know where the documents are? Are they willing to serve in that role? Do they have the capacity to serve in that role? Do they have an interest? 

If you're a solo ager: it's even more important to to do this planning and think about who would fill these roles for you -- who will navigate your health and finances if you don’t have a partner or adult children?

Looking for an attorney specializing in elder law or estate planning? Uncertain about the cost of long-term care? Not sure what you want and how to engage your family? We can help! Click here to schedule a get-acquainted call with a Certified Care Manager to head in the right direction.

Additional Resources

·      Estate Planning Guide and Checklist for 2024 (National Council on Aging)

·      Wholistic Estate Planning (Aging Wisdom blog article)

·      What is “elder law”? (Aging Wisdom blog article)

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