Insights & Resources

In honor of National Estate Planning Awareness Month, Garfunkel Wild, P.C. wants to remind you of the importance of creating and maintaining an estate plan for your overall financial wellbeing.  This alert discusses Advance Directives, including the Durable Power of Attorney, Health Care Designation, and Living Will, which are essential components of every estate plan.
 

• A Durable Power of Attorney allows you to designate an Agent to handle your legal and financial affairs.  The Durable Power of Attorney often becomes essential when you become incapacitated or unable to handle your own financial affairs.  Creating a Durable Power of Attorney ensures that your chosen Agent (sometimes referred to as an “Attorney-in-Fact”) can handle your affairs for you, which can be very important in the event of your incapacity.  Powers granted may include the authority to pay bills, engage in financial or legal transactions, manage investments, sell or buy real estate, designate beneficiaries on accounts, , and engage in further estate planning for you,  if necessary.  An agent has broad-reaching powers over all your financial affairs (i.e., your Agent has all the powers you have as owner), but has a responsibility to act in your best interests and in accordance with your wishes.  If you become unable to handle your own affairs and do not have a Durable Power of Attorney, a costly and emotionally charged guardianship or conservatorship court proceeding may become necessary. 

 

• Appoint a Health Care Representative to make health care decisions for you if you cannot make them yourself.   A health care designation form (sometimes referred to as a Health Care Proxy, Designation of Health Care Representative, or Medical Power of Attorney, depending on your state) is a legal document in which you designate a health care representative to make health care decisions on your behalf if you are unable to make them yourself.  If you become unable to make your own health care decisions, your physicians will look to your health care representative to decide upon your treatment (or withdrawal of treatment, including life-sustaining measures).    It is important to know that a person you trust and who understands your wishes will make your health care decisions for you in the event it becomes necessary.

 

• A Living Will allows you to state your preferences for life-sustaining treatment.  A Living Will (referred to as a Living Will, Medical Directive, or Instruction Directive, depending on your state) is a document in which you provide specific guidance and instructions to your health care representative regarding your health care decisions, including, but not limited to, your specific wishes about whether you want life sustaining treatment in certain specific situations.  A Living Will can state whether you want mechanical respiration, CPR, and continued nutrition and hydration under different end-of-life circumstances.  Without a Living Will (or providing other verbal or written instructions to your health care agent), your wishes may not be known or followed. 

To discuss your estate plan or any questions you have concerning the above, please contact the authors listed above, the Garfunkel Wild attorney with whom you regularly work, or info@garfunkelwild.com.