King & Wood, P.A.

Is a Living Will the Same as an Advance Directive?

“Most people think of wills as written instructions for use after death. In contrast, living wills provide your instructions for continuing or halting life-sustaining healthcare while you’re alive.”

A comprehensive estate plan contains far more than a last will and testament. It also contains a number of documents to communicate wishes for decisions to be made during life. These include a living will, an advance directive and a healthcare power of attorney, as explained in the article “What Is a Living Will and Do I Need One?” from healthline.

What is a living will? A living will is a document providing instructions for medical care, or in some circumstances, for the termination of medical support. They indicate wishes for the use or discontinuation of life-sustaining medical treatments. The living will is used if the individual becomes incapacitated and cannot communicate normally. Incapacitation is determined and certified by a medical professional. Living wills address such treatments as resuscitation, hydration, a feeding tube and pain management.

Each state has its own rules for creating a legally valid living will. The information required in most states is:

• Legal name and any aliases or nicknames.
• The current day, month and year.
• A statement attesting to being of sound mind and body.
• Healthcare instructions for events with no reasonable expectation for recovery or quality of life, which may include CPR, DNR (do not resuscitate) and do not intubate (DNI).
• The name of your healthcare proxy, the person who you want to communicate and state your wishes and the name of an alternate healthcare proxy, if you have one.
• Witness statements indicating you willingly and rationally signed this document (the number of witnesses varies by state).
• Your legal signature.

An advance directive is not the same thing but can include a living will. The advance directive has two parts: the living will and the healthcare power of attorney. These documents don’t address finances, property distribution, guardianship of children or any non-medical matters. For those, you need a last will and testament.

The healthcare power of attorney is a document identifying the person named to make healthcare decisions for you. It’s sometimes called a durable medical power of attorney. The person you name to make decisions is called your healthcare proxy, healthcare agent, or healthcare surrogate. This document does not address end-of-life care, but instead grants legal permission to the person to make decisions for you.

The living will, advance directive and healthcare power of attorney work together to allow someone else to represent you during a medical crisis. These documents should be created by an experienced estate planning attorney and shared with the people you choose, so they may act on your behalf. Unfortunately, we never know when a medical crisis or accident will occur, so these documents are needed at any age and stage of life.

Reference: healthline (Sep. 1, 2022) “What Is a Living Will and Do I Need One?”

Wealthy Women Face Challenges in Estate and Tax Planning

“Given the expectation the Biden administration will roll back some of Trump’s favorable policies of the past four years, tax consultants and accountants are already hard at work. But for HNW women, dealing with election fallout is minor, compared to the bigger fish they have been frying in the tax pan for decades.”

Election cycles often mean changes to estate and tax planning strategies around estate planning, charitable donations and capital gains, but that’s not the only challenge facing wealthy women now, says a recent article “For Wealthy Women, Tax and Estate Planning is Weak Link” from Think Advisor. Preparing for big changes, from presidential elections to death or divorce, is all too often a surprise, even for accomplished and financially successful women.

Statistically, women do outlive men, so there needs to be a plan for the unexpected. As attitudes shift and more women build their own wealth, they are less likely to stay in unsatisfying marriages. Although the overall rate of divorce in America is declining, the number of “gray” divorces is increasing.

One essential step in planning for high net worth women is to consider what assets they will need to continue their current lifestyles, and what assets would be at risk, in case of death or divorce.

Some assets are not available to singles, like the Spousal Lifetime Access Trust, an irrevocable trust available to couples but not to singles. For those considering divorce who have a SLAT agreement, speak with your estate planning attorney, as the SLAT may include a provision that terminates spousal trust rights upon divorce. Women should not assume that these or other assets will be available to them in case of a divorce.

There are also future costs associated with losing a spouse. If women do not have long-term care insurance, it should be purchased, if she still qualifies. These policies become more expensive as time goes by, so the 40s and 50s are the ideal time to invest in them.

Timing and tax policy changes from a new administration make this a good time to begin planning for any changes that may come in the next year. Women with substantial net worth should be making plans for gifting and trusts now. The gift tax lifetime exemption remains at $11.7 million, but even if there is no legislative action, on January 1, 2026, this will return to $5 million.

Dramatic changes in asset valuation resulting from the pandemic may make this a good time to transfer shares to children and grandchildren, including real estate holdings and closely held family businesses.

The effects of COVID-19 have provided a global lesson in preparing for the unexpected. Among many other issues has been a huge backlog in most surrogate courts. Even families who had an estate plan in place, found their estate planning hampered by waiting for courts to appoint executors.

In many cases, surviving spouses (mostly women) found themselves unable to move an estate plan forward, gain access to assets, even to pay household bills. Families who have been lucky enough to escape the impact of COVID-19 so far, should take the opportunity to plan for the unexpected, including the creation of a revocable trust, so the trustee can swiftly access assets and start managing right away, rather than waiting for courts to clear.

Reference: Think Advisor (Jan. 6, 2021) “For Wealthy Women, Tax and Estate Planning is Weak Link”

What Is an Advance Directive, and Why You Need This Document?

“To put it bluntly, what if you were in a serious accident or were suddenly rushed to the hospital with COVID-19 symptoms or another life-threatening illness, and you were unable to make health care decisions for yourself?”

The coronavirus pandemic has had an impact on the entire world. No wonder—it’s a frightening disease that experts are just beginning to understand. Many of us are asking ourselves: Am I ready for a worst-case scenario? Anyone who does not have the health care portion of their estate plan in order, needs to address it now, says the timely article “COVID-19 crisis highlights the importance of completing advance directives” from Cincinnati.com.

The topic of an advance directive used to be introduced with a question about what would happen if a person were in a car accident, rushed to the hospital and unable to convey their wishes for care.  The question has now become, what if a sudden onset of COVID-19 occurred, and you were unable to speak on your own behalf? Would your loved ones know what you would want, or would they have to guess?

All adults—that is, anyone over the age of 18—should have an advance directive. The process of creating this and other health care-related estate planning documents will provide the answers to your loved ones, while helping you work through your wishes. Here’s how to start:

What matters to you? Give this considerable thought. What is important to you, who best knows and understands you and who would you trust to make critical decisions on your behalf, in the event of a medical emergency? What medical treatment would you want—or not want—and who can you count on to carry out your wishes?

Get documents in order, so your wishes are carried out. Your estate planning attorney can help you draft and execute the documents you need, so you can be confident that they will be treated as legitimate by health care providers. The estate planning lawyer will know how to execute the documents, so they are in compliance with your state’s laws. Here’s what you’ll want:

• A living will, which records your wishes for medical treatment, if you cannot speak on your own behalf.
• Medical power of attorney, to designate a person to make health care decisions, when you are not able to do so. The person is referred to as an agent, surrogate or proxy.
• A HIPAA release form, so the person you designate may speak with your medical care providers.

Note that none of these documents concerns distribution of your personal property and assets. For that, you’ll want a will or revocable living trust, which your estate planning attorney can prepare for you.

Talk to loved ones now. Consider this conversation a gift to them. This alleviates them from a lifetime of wondering if they did the right thing for you. Have a forthright conversation with them, let them know about the documents you have had prepared and what your wishes are.

Reference: Cincinnati.com (April 27, 2020) “COVID-19 crisis highlights the importance of completing advance directives”

 

Estate Plan Updates in the Age of Coronavirus

“Financial advisors and estate attorneys say they are seeing a flurry of inquiries from people seeking to update or draft wills and take other estate-planning measures amid the coronavirus crisis.”

With the ever-increasing number of deaths in Europe and the U.S., many people are now doing what estate planning attorneys have advised them to do for years—get their estate plans in order. Many are having phone meetings or videoconferences with estate planning attorneys, says Barron’s in the article “The Coronavirus Has Americans Scrambling to Set Their Estate Plans. Here Are Some Key Things to Know.” People are worried, and they are in a hurry too.

However, estate planning can be complex, even when there is plenty of time to prepare. Here are a few tips:

Everyone should have three basic documents: a last will and testament, a durable power of attorney and an advance health care directive. These documents will allow assets to be distributed, give another person the ability to make financial decisions, if you are too sick to do so and also allow another person to talk to medical professionals on your behalf on treatment and care. These same documents are also a good idea for any young adults in the family, anyone older than 18 in most states.

With the proper documents prepared in accordance with the laws of your state, you may be able to avoid having a court appoint a guardian for minor children or having a probate court determine asset distribution.

However, there’s more. In addition to these basic documents, everyone needs to review their beneficiary designations on assets that include bank accounts, IRAs, annuities, insurance policies and any other assets. If family situations have changed, these may be out of date.

It’s also a good idea to have an attorney create a medical power of attorney for a minor child, in case another family member needs to take a child to the doctor, discuss their care and make decisions.

While young adults may be more worried about the financial impact of the pandemic, seniors and the elderly are concerned about having documents in order. Wealthy people are concerned about the impact that the pandemic may have on estate planning law, and some are engaged in planning to make substantial gifts, in case the current estate and give tax exemptions are lowered.

Other issues to be discussed with an estate planning attorney:

• Irrevocable living trusts, which provide an opportunity to direct how assets in a trust will be held, invested and distributed before and after death.
• Durable powers of attorney, which appoint an agent to make financial decisions.
• Health-care surrogates, which let people designate a surrogate to make health decisions on their behalf and receive health care information from physicians.
• Living wills, which allow people to designate whether to provide life-prolonging treatment, if in a terminal state.

Reference: Barron’s (March 22, 2020) “The Coronavirus Has Americans Scrambling to Set Their Estate Plans. Here Are Some Key Things to Know”

 

What is the Difference between Guardianship and Power of Attorney?

“With all the media buzz about guardians stealing money from those whom they are meant to protect and overall financial abuse issues involving seniors, it’s a good moment to revisit how surrogate decision-making works.”
Protecting yourself or a loved one can take many different forms, since aging takes a toll on the ability to handle financial and medical decisions. In most situations, guardianship or a power of attorney does the trick, says the article “Guardianships vs. Powers of Attorney” from the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette. How to know which is the best one to use?
A guardianship is a court-authorized assignment of surrogate decision-making power for the benefit of a person who has lost the ability to make informed decisions on their own, often described as a person who has become incapacitated. The decisions that another person can make on their behalf can be very broad, or they can be very specific.
If a person becomes incapacitated, either through a slowly progressing illness like dementia or quickly, as the result of an accident, a judge will appoint a person or sometimes an organization to handle health care and financial decisions. The court-appointed guardian or organization could be a person or agency you have never heard of and would not know your family or anything about you.
Yes, that is scary. However, guardianship takes place when families do not plan in advance to appoint a surrogate decision maker, also known as an “agent.”
Here’s even more scary news: once the court has appointed a guardian, that relationship may continue for the rest of the incapacitated person’s life. That means annual accountings and involvement with the court, legal fees and other professional fees the guardian or court deems necessary.
There are some guardians who have made headlines for stealing money and making care decisions that the individual and their families did not want.
Meeting with an estate planning attorney to prepare for incapacity as part of an overall estate plan is a far better way. Why don’t more people do it?
· They aren’t aware of the importance of power of attorney.
· They don’t want to spend the money.
· They don’t know who to choose as their power of attorney
· They don’t want to think about incapacity or death.
In contrast to a court-supervised lifetime guardianship, a properly drafted power of attorney can provide for an agent to make a variety of financial and medical decisions. The person named as a power of attorney (the agent) can serve for the person’s lifetime, just like a guardian.
This is the most fundamental estate planning document, after the last will and testament. Once it’s prepared, you can always change your mind and you or your agent never need to go to court.
Reference: Pittsburgh Post-Gazette (Feb. 24, 2020) “Guardianships vs. Powers of Attorney”