Health Care Directives-What's the Difference?
An Advance Health Care Directive (AHCD) is always part of the estate plans I create for clients, regardless of the individual's age or health status. An AHCD lets you name another person (a health care agent) to make health care decisions for you if you are unable to make them for yourself. It also allows you to give specific instructions regarding your health care and end of life decisions, specify organ donation wishes and provide burial instructions.
A Living Will (not to be confused with a regular will or a living trust, which serve completely different purposes) is a type of health care directive. It is a legal document that allows you to indicate which treatments you do or do not want in the event that you are suffering from a terminal illness or are in a permanent vegetative state. This type of health care directive does not include naming an agent to make health care decisions for you.
Next week I'll discuss Physicians Orders for Life Sustaining Treatments (POLST) and Do Not Resuscitate Orders (DNR).
Tell a parent or friend you care, you are here to help, and want to be a part of an ongoing dialogue about their changing needs. Acknowledge past help they've given you and express a desire to return the favor. Find a way to frame the issue that is positive, focused on strengths rather than deficits, prevention rather than accusations of decline.
Ask for professional help from doctors, lawyers or financial professionals who work closely with your parent. Reach out to your parent's network. Identify people they trust who are willing to meet with your family to help introduce topics appropriate to the skills of that particular professional. A trust attorney, for example, can meet to explain how the estate plan works, and who will provide what type of support if the need arose. Some professionals talk with clients about issue spotting, transitions in needs, connecting with community resources and many other important points on a regular basis. Others are uncomfortable with these topics, so scout out resources with a brief phone call ahead of time.
There are many signs that a parent needs help. Financial indicators include overdue utility bills or disruption in utility services. Bounced checks or undeposited income checks laying around the house also show a lack of financial engagement that may indicate financial danger. Engagement in scams or lack of awareness around charitable giving can both show a decline in capacity and may mean your parent has already becomes a target of financial elder abuse.
Personal care indicators are most significantly marked by falls or other critical health events, but there are often earlier, more subtle signs that help with personal care i needed. A lack of unexpired, edible food in the refrigerator and cabinets will prevent proper nutrition, which leads to physical decline. While elders often eat less as they age, excuses such as I'm not hungry, I really only want canned food, etc. often indicate that food preparation is an issue. Hygiene changes may indicate unaddressed incontinence or difficulty bathing, laundering clothes and toileting.
The decision to keep assets separate may be guided by a number of personal values. Common reasons to maintain separate property include a desire to protect assets from possible loss in divorce, maintain financial independence from a spouse, control the flow of inheritance, or to have general autonomy in relation to assets that belonged to one spouse prior to marriage or were inherited or gifted family assets.
If those considerations are not important to you, the single biggest advantage of "commingling" or turning assets into community property is the double step up in basis for capital gains purposes. Assets are commingled by putting both names on the title to the asset, and/or merging bank or brokerage accounts into joint community property accounts.
These community property assets will receive a full step up in basis at the death of the first spouse. This allows the surviving spouse to liquidate real estate or securities following the death of the spouse without paying capital gains.
Property that is kept separate, but is inherited by the surviving spouse through a trust or pay on death designation will also receive a step up in basis. However, those assets held as the separate property of the surviving spouse maintain their cost basis without any adjustment due to the death of the deceased spouse. Gains tax will be owed if an appreciated asset is sold by the surviving spouse from his or her separate property.
I'm all for a good do it yourself project. I recently refinished a coffee table and attempted to make a slipcover for the chair my cat destroyed. But I wouldn't recommend doing your estate plan yourself.
I might be a tad biased considering I am an estate planning attorney, but the chances of making a mistake are high and the consequences of those mistakes could be huge. Most DIY estate planning resources are one-size-fits-all, and you may recall me saying, estate plans are not.
When it comes to estate planning, details matter. If you make a drafting error or if your will is not witnessed properly, your documents could be invalid. If you have drafted a trust but the trust has not been funded, it will not work the way it was designed to work.
Add to that, common complications associated with a second marriage or a child with special needs, and the possibilities for error increase. The decisions you make in an estate plan can have unforeseen and unintended consequences. An experienced estate planning attorney can help avoid those pitfalls and achieve your goals in thoughtful manner.
In many cases, the more information a trustee provides the better. A trustee is likely to encounter problems with beneficiaries who feel like they are being kept in the dark. The best way to avoid that is to be as open and forthcoming with information as possible. Even where the Probate Code does not require it, the beneficiaries will likely appreciate being informed of any significant actions the trustee plans to take, such as selling or distributing any trust property of significant monetary or sentimental value. On the other hand, it may be more efficient for a trustee to inform the beneficiaries of more routine actions through periodic updates, rather than individual notifications of each and every action taken. The important thing for a trustee to remember is that the beneficiaries have a right to request "information"; therefore, answering questions from beneficiaries is an important trustee responsibility under current California law.
Why Does Someone Need a Conservatorship Attorney?
Conservatorships involve a number of steps that can be difficult to manage without experience. There are many different forms that must be completed and filed with the Court to request appointment of a conservator, as well as deadlines that must be met and procedural steps to follow. There are state laws that apply in conservatorship proceedings, contained in the California Probate Code, and there are also local rules which vary from county to county. Many local rules dictate the procedural steps and timeline that must be followed. A conservatorship attorney will be able to help you navigate the process and people involved, such as the Court Investigations Unit, Probate Examiner and ultimately the Superior Court Judge who hears your case. It is his or her job to make sure that you do everything in the correct manner to achieve the best possible outcome.
If you are seeking to have yourself appointed as the conservator, the conservatorship attorney will also help you understand the responsibilities that you will have as a conservator and the rules that you will be required to follow once appointed. Conservators have ongoing requirements to provide information to the Court and to certain individuals. A conservatorship attorney is in the best position to help you keep track of and fulfill these requirements.
The conservatorship attorney can also help you address any concerns of family members, friends or others who might disagree with your decisions or actions. Sometimes the role of conservator can feel like it has a public relations aspect. When communication is planned thoughtfully with the help of your attorney, it can go a long way to keeping all family members, case coordinators, Court Investigators and other interested parties happy with your efforts.
It's true that not everyone will benefit from a trust as part of their estate plan, but most people will benefit from a will. If you have a will you have a way to make very important decisions that could have a huge impact on your family after you're gone.
Without a will you are letting the government make those decisions for you. Here are some of the decisions the state gets to make if you die without a will (also known as dying intestate).
The state gets to decide who will be the executor of your estate.
If you have minor children, the state gets to decide who will become their guardians and manage their estate.
Your estate will pay the government to make these decisions for you.
Most of us don't want to think about our death, so we put off making important decisions, but it's important to realize that if you don't decide, the government will do it for you.
We all understand that "we can't take it with us" but determining the best way to leave our things behind can be confusing.
Both a will and a trust allow you to choose who receives your assets after you die. A will also allows you to nominate a guardian for your minor children. For most of us, the main benefit of a revocable living trust is that it avoids the expensive and time consuming process called probate (I'll talk more about probate in my next post). For the very wealthy a trust can also avoid or minimize estate taxes. A trust also allows you to plan for your incapacity and to provide for a child with special needs after you are gone. A will can be used as a stand alone document without a trust. However, a trust is used in combination with a will. In this situation the will is sometimes referred to as a pour over will and it serves as a back up plan in the event that some or all of your assets have not been placed in your trust.
If your estate is small (under $150,000) you might not benefit form a trust, because small estates are exempt from probate, but money isn't the only consideration that's why it's so important to consult with an estate planning attorney to determine which type of plan is best for you.
Conservatorship is a Court-supervised process through which an individual obtains the authority to manage the personal care and/or finances of another individual who lacks capacity to handle those matters for himself or herself. The conservator is appointed by the Court, and is required to periodically account for the use of conservatorship funds. The conservator must also obtain Court authorization before taking certain actions.
General probate conservatorship is commonly used in the cases of individuals who have suffered a head injury or stroke, or who have dementia. In addition to general probate conservatorship, there are two special types of conservatorship: limited conservatorship and LPS conservatorship.
Limited conservatorship works similarly to general probate conservatorship, but is used specifically in the case of an individual with developmental disabilities. The authority of the limited conservator is specifically tailored to minimize the restrictions placed on the limited conservatee, recognizing that the developmentally disabled individual may have greater capacity than an individual who would require a general probate conservatorship.
LPS conservatorship is used specifically in the case of individuals who lack capacity due to mental health issues, to the point of posing a danger to himself or herself, or others. This type of conservatorship can allow the conservator to have the mentally ill conservatee committed to a mental health facility, or to force them to take psychiatric medication.
All types of conservatorship are Court supervised, and the conservator can be a family member or friend of the conservatee, or a private professional fiduciary. In cases where there is no family member able or willing to act as conservator, and insufficient funds to a pay a private professional fiduciary, a county official called the Public Guardian can be appointed.