Video Summary
Who executes my estate plan? Well, you must execute all the documents to your estate plan since those are all personal decisions that you must make as far as that’s concerned, and you cannot delegate that to someone else. However, if you do have a particular power of attorney that allows them to make some modifications to your estate plan as far as accounts are concerned, well that is an exception to that. But usually your estate plan or simple estate plan consists of a Will where you designate to whom you want your assets to be distributed to secondly, what they call a living Will or a dying declaration that says that you don’t want to be kept on life support under three conditions. And another document is called a healthcare surrogate, which is really, I think, very important. This is where you are signing a document that is a HIPAA waiver that allows the hospital or doctors to release your medical information to a designated person, which is called your healthcare surrogate. And then also, I recommend that you execute a durable power of attorney to someone that you trust explicitly that can act as your agent, particularly in the event you become disabled. It is effective immediately, and some clients are reluctant to have it signed, particularly if they’re in good health as far as that’s concerned, and that they’ve seen the abuses of powers of attorney. I’ve found that they’re very useful in many circumstances whenever it’s an elderly person and they need to be able to pay their bills or transact business for them. So if you have any questions about estate planning ,give me a call at (727) 847-2288.