Living Will and Power of Attorney

In last few articles on this series, we have covered major aspects of Will, Trust and probate with the following topics.

• Introduction
• Probate and Non-Probate Assets
• Revocable Living Trust
• Revocable Living Trust with Pour-Over Will

This week we will conclude this series with discussion on two supplemental forms that serves specific purpose and then a brief conclusion.

Living Will

Notice the difference in wording of Last will vs Living will. While we used the word Last will in pretty much all previous articles in this series, we haven't talked about Living Will. A Living Will, also known as an advance directive, is a legal document that specifies an individual's preferences regarding medical treatments and life-sustaining measures in the event they are unable to communicate their wishes due to a terminal illness or incapacitation. This document can include instructions on the use of mechanical ventilation, tube feeding, and other medical interventions to prolong life. The primary purpose of a Living Will is to ensure that an individual's healthcare preferences are known and respected at a time when they cannot express them due to their medical condition.

Power of Attorney (POA)

Power of Attorney document is used to appoint someone to take decisions for a person when that person is incapacitated. There are broadly two types of POA.

Medical power of attorney

While Living Will takes care of end-of-life decisions, there can be other treatment decisions that might not be related to end of life. You need someone to take those medical decisions on your behalf when you are not in a good position to take those decisions. So, you can appoint someone else to do that on your behalf using medical power of attorney.

Financial power of attorney

This is to appoint someone to take your financial decisions when you are incapacitated. These financial decisions include real estate transaction, stocks, insurance and annuity transactions, government benefits, retirement plan transactions.

Though you can have single document to cover both medical power of attorney and financial power of attorney, it's a good idea to separate them. You might want to give authority to different people for medical and financial.

Conclusion

Everyone living in the USA need to a have a will & trust with Living Will and POA. Funding the trust is a bit of work. Once you have a trust with pour-over will, you can keep funding the trust with your existing assets gradually. For new assets you can directly title them under the trust. The pour-over will anyway acts as catch-all. I suggest using NetLaw to create your will and trust. This has one time subscription fee for life instead of many other platforms where the charges are yearly. As of writing this article, the regular price of a will and trust package on NetLaw is $600. If you have some vouchers, you can get discounted price. So, you can finish your will and trust for a price range of $300 to $600. This is one time payment for life and not yearly. You can modify the will, trust any number of times, and re-generate the documents. The re-generated documents need to be notarized. Also, you need to send the updated notarized copies to your trustees, executors so they are aware of the changes.

That a wrap this week. Happy learning!

Contact me if you need any guidance in completing your will and trust.