The Dangers of Document Assistants

The use of online estate planning documents (i.e. LegalZoom.com) have become widely popular over the last decade. These documents are designed to make estate planning cheaper, faster, and easier. However, if you rely on online documents to plan your estate, you are faced with severe risks that could ultimately make your estate more expensive, more time consuming, and much more difficult for your family. Your family could end up paying more in estate taxes than it would have cost to hire an attorney in the first place, or certain intended beneficiaries of your estate might not take anything.

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A health care power of attorney is a document that gives specific privileges to an agent for the purpose of making health care decisions for you in the event you become incapacitated or unconscious and are unable to make your own health care decisions. Who you appoint to be that agent, however, can be a difficult choice. Your agent should ideally be someone who knows you well, has an ability to make sound judgments, and knows what decisions you would want to be made in certain situations.

But which agents should you avoid? And what about alternate agents?
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If you are in a same-sex marriage, you may have disregarded any Social Security or other federal benefits from your estate plan. That’s because the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA) made sure that neither spouse in a same-sex marriage got a penny of the other’s federal benefits if the other died first, regardless that you and your loved one contributed the same amount to the programs as every other taxpayer.

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Don’t forget to make the necessary revisions to your estate plan

Getting a divorce can be a complicated and emotionally draining process, involving many changes to your life and to the plans you’ve made for the future. Your Last Will and Testament and other estate planning documents may not be on your mind during this difficult time, but you cannot afford to neglect them. As you get through the divorce process, it’s important that you make the appropriate modifications to your will, trust, and other estate planning documents.

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A Power of Attorney (POA) is a useful and necessary document for handling financial matters for someone else. When circumstances dictate that you are physically or mentally unable or incapable of handling your own financial and legal affairs, it’s a good idea to have a Power of Attorney in place. A POA appoints someone you trust to act as your attorney-in-fact, sometimes referred to as your ‘agent,’ in your stead.

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If you’ve been admitted to a hospital or seen your doctor recently, chances are you were asked if you have a living will. Living wills can also be called Advance Directives or Medical Directives, depending on what state you are in. A living will is a document that details your desire to have life-sustaining treatment withheld if you are ill and there is no hope for recovery. If you want doctors to do everything they can to keep you alive, there is no need for any action on your part, as this is standard medical practice.

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A fundamental right that we have is the ability to make decisions regarding our own bodies, particularly when it applies to medical treatment. But who will make decisions regarding your medical treatment if you are unconscious or incompetent? How do you ensure that your health care wishes will be honored?

A health care power of attorney can provide you with the peace of mind that you will be taken care of in the way you desire.A health care power of attorney is a document that designates a specific person to speak for you, should you be unable to communicate on your own.
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A trust is created when the person creating the trust (grantor/settlor) assigns control of property to another person (trustee) to manage for the benefit of other people or entities (beneficiaries). A trustee is a person chosen to be legally responsible for managing, investing and distributing trust assets in accordance with the wishes of the person who created the trust (settlor). Many people who have been assigned the duties of a trustee seek professional trustee assistance to help understand trusts and manage trust assets.

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