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Evil SpongeBob posted:Oh yeah, my lawyer also said that my kid should sign a health care directive when she turns 18. That way the hospital will share info with us and we can make decisions without having to go a legal route. I revile my parents' involvement in my life as much as the next goon, but I can imagine a family where the child would want this. Like a reverse Terri Schiavo, maybe the parents are the ones who will carry out her interests. And at least in this case the child can say no, lots of this stuff is out of their hands.
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Nov 27, 2023 21:33
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I work in medicine, and the more I think about this arrangement, the more I realize I've never actually seen this done, except when children have severe debilitating chronic illnesses diagnosed as a peds patient (< 18), like lupus or cancer and need their parents to monitor or act on their behalf if they're too sick to communicate to the doctor. That might be the case here.
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Nov 28, 2023 17:33
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I’m just starting to contact lawyers for my 85 year old dad. We want to protect his finances from the lookback period or anything else we need to worry about. He has a house and some savings, pension, etc. He’s been good about making a will and having a living will, also giving me medical power of attorney, but after reading this thread I think we need to make sure it’ll all hold up. The family is just us, and my sister who lives in Europe so most of this is falling on me to handle now. Besides a trust I’m not sure what we’d need, I guess I should ask about power of attorney? I don’t know if it should be me or the lawyer. Someone earlier in the thread said “After you draft my estate plan, what are you going to do to make sure I have funded my trust correctly?"” And that sounds smart. Is there anything else I’m missing just going in for the first meeting?
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Dec 4, 2023 20:55
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If you're concerned about lookback then you're looking for a medicaid spend down/general elder law attorney which is related to but distinct from estate planning
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Dec 5, 2023 03:01
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Nonexistence posted:If you're concerned about lookback then you're looking for a medicaid spend down/general elder law attorney which is related to but distinct from estate planning Ah ok thanks, good point. We’ll try to do both at the same time I think, if possible. gently caress I obviously have more to learn
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Dec 5, 2023 03:07
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Quick rough for Canada  goons (ontario specifically, but pretty similar). Talk to an attorney.You need 3 documents:
And multiple signed copies of each POA since evidently every organization (hospital/bank/etc) want an original when the poo poo flies. All (financial) institutions upon finding out someone is dead will lock the accounts until the courts say otherwise. I'd advise to do the same thing - someone draining an account between death and notice can be treated like criminal theft. If you've got a kid, you'll need to figure out who gets to take care of your kid and put that in the will, otherwise it becomes ugly - roughly the government starts asking relatives is from close (siblings) to further away (3rd cousin) with the mandate to attempt to keep the family together. We don't have probate, but we've got "final taxes" which is basically/roughly everything you own (ok, your estate now) gets tallied up and treated like you made that much money that final year and you owe taxes on that. Whatever is left over is handed out as per the will. If you have no will that means it's the formula: spouse 33%, remaining 66% divided among your kids. No kids = spouse gets 100%. If no agreement is made on physical assets (eg: property), then it's liquidated and the cash is distributed. The above has interesting consequences if you own a second+ property for a long time (think of parents with a cottage). If you bought for $100k decades ago and it's $1mil now, that final taxes is computed on the earning of $900k - so a tax bill of $300-400k is due. Unless the estate has that kind of cash in addition to the property, the cottage goes up for sale - this is one reason many cottage owners have life insurance policies. All of the above has many loopholes (and many that have been closed in the past decade+), but the above is rough starting point.
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Dec 22, 2023 21:35
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unknown posted:If you have no will that means it's the formula: spouse 33%, remaining 66% divided among your kids. 
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Dec 22, 2023 23:13
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That's close to the rule in Virginia for blended families. Always a fun call when a stepparent who treated their stepchild like crap suddenly finds stepchild owning 2/3 of their house.
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Dec 22, 2023 23:37
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I live in a community property state, 100% of someone's stuff is their spouse's stuff so like, it's weird to think of someone seeing two thirds of their wealth going to their children when their spouse dies. As if it wasn't all theirs. How do you even determine what stuff belonged to the deceased vs. their surviving spouse?
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Dec 23, 2023 01:13
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Leperflesh posted:How do you even determine what stuff belonged to the deceased vs. their surviving spouse? Lots of leeway in that determination by the executor (first, and if contested then the courts make the decision).
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Dec 23, 2023 01:43
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Leperflesh posted:I live in a community property state, 100% of someone's stuff is their spouse's stuff 50%. You can bequeath 50% of your community property and the other 50% is your spouse’s.
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Dec 23, 2023 01:58
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Is there a good site that will create a power of attorney for me to print and bring into the notary?
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Dec 30, 2023 17:20
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You really don't want to do that. It's worth doing it at an attorney's office for credibility on the principal actually wanting this and having capacity to sign. If the principal has anyone in their family who would challenge the validity of the POA if it meant they would make a lot of money, you've most of the way guaranteed they would win that fight because you have no credible witnesses to the contrary. That means when the principal dies or has a guardian appointed, said family member can undo any estate planning, beneficiary designations, and joint account ownership you did with the POA, and get a money judgment against you for every transaction you did with the POA you can't prove was for the principal's benefit, and you have to reimburse their attorney's fees. If you're a presumptive heir of this person, the #1 place for them to collect against you is your inheritance. This is true in every jurisdiction where I practice, and I've never seen anywhere that substantially differs. Estate litigators are happy to take these on contingency because they're so easy and so lucrative. A couple hundred bucks on an unimpeachable POA now may save you tens of thousands to millions later depending on what you're using this for. Don't be pennywise and pound foolish.
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Dec 30, 2023 20:11
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It's for me and my wife, and I was planning on getting it notarized. Does this change any of the above advice?
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Dec 30, 2023 21:12
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I am currently life-partnered to someone who has a very good chance of requiring very expensive end-of-life care (strong family history of Alzheimer's). We are starting to sniff around the house-buying process - nothing imminent, but we'd like to be able to do it within the next several years, if possible. Neither of us have any particular inclination either way about getting legally married; we'll do it if it makes practical sense. We would like to start talking to professionals now about the best legal structures for managing and protecting our finances and life going forward, given that we want to own a home together, we're open to either getting married or not, and she might spend the last decades of her life as an incapable money pit. But I don't even know which professionals to look for! I'm assuming some kind of attorney followed by some kind of financial planner (or maybe the opposite order)? But I don't know which flavor of attorney I want.
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Feb 2, 2024 15:41
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An estate planner should have referrals to associated professionals who render related services. You just need an entry point to getting this all worked out. Congratulations on exercising the foresight to get this handled!
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Feb 2, 2024 17:34
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raminasi posted:I am currently life-partnered to someone who has a very good chance of requiring very expensive end-of-life care (strong family history of Alzheimer's). We are starting to sniff around the house-buying process - nothing imminent, but we'd like to be able to do it within the next several years, if possible. Neither of us have any particular inclination either way about getting legally married; we'll do it if it makes practical sense. I would start with an estate planner. We ended up with a non married cohabitation agreement. Lays out ownership and what happens if we split or die.
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Feb 2, 2024 18:37
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Harriet Carker posted:Is there a good site that will create a power of attorney for me to print and bring into the notary? Just get the lawyer to do it (they'll also handle the notary part) since it's a fairly standard type of document (but slightly different for each area), so it's cheap to do. As Nonexistence said, this is one of the few documents that you want to be right. (Also, the lawyer has a lot more insurance if they screwed up)
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Feb 8, 2024 22:34
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Related to this thread, is there USA-wide good applicable advice for things that should be done within 48h of someone passing? Let's assume the person has done some estate planning as in this thread and has a Will, maybe also a trust. House/car/brokerage accounts. What do relatives need to do immediately, while they're probably still too torn up to spend time googling stuff or making a lot of calls to find out what to do? And what are the (most commonly) first steps an executor needs to take?
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May 25, 2024 19:15
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The biggest thing I see is access to cash. Ensuring the widow has a way to continue to pay bills is paramount.
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May 25, 2024 19:34
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The most important immediate things are to stay in touch with the hospital and funeral home. Those places will handle pretty much everything that's immediate and give people a chance to process. I have a 5 page PDF from Hospice I could send to the OP if he wants, but this is a retyping of the first two pages with the details stripped out (except the data to collect). The pet one is pretty important. I can't get the copy/paste to format better, sorry quote:To Do Minutes to Hours After Death trevorreznik fucked around with this message at 19:50 on May 25, 2024 |
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May 25, 2024 19:47
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In my experience don't notify banks (or really anyone actually) until you absolutely have to/are ready to deal with it. Having the old account gives good flexibility to be able to pay bills and whatnot without having to jump through the hoops of getting an "estate of" account. Good to be able to dodge having to deal with probate if you don't have to. Getting any mail forwarded is definitely a huge thing, gotta be sure you aren't missing any business. Stopping payments on subscriptions and whatnot is good as soon as you can get to it. Sorting out the insurance. The government was insanely fast on being on top of a death btw, almost to the point of rudeness. Wouldn't want any extra social security checks going out. And the form I sent that said "I think you owe us a few more weeks" apparently went straight into a garbage can in atlanta.
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May 25, 2024 19:58
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It might be worth mentioning explicitly that, actually, just because someone's dead does not mean all their debts are now discharged. Almost always, the person's estate needs to pay their debts from any assets of the estate. https://www.consumerfinance.gov/ask-cfpb/does-a-persons-debt-go-away-when-they-die-en-1463/ That said, you should also not just start dissolving assets and paying off debts willy-nilly. A full accounting of assets and debts will be needed; the executor will probably be involved in that. In the meantime to avoid accumulating penalties it's probably a good idea to make minimum payments on things like credit cards. If the deceased was destitute, maybe not even that. If you are handling an estate of someone who you suspect might have more debts than assets, you'll need an estate lawyer asap and probably should not make any payments whatsoever. You don't need to lie to creditors; tell them the person has died, their estate will be going into probate, and no payments will be available until that is resolved. Unless it's your spouse in a community property state or you co-signed on loans, you are probably not personally responsible for these debts, no matter what a creditor tells you. Every bank, credit card company, etc. has handled the death of a debtor thousands and thousands of times. They have specific procedures and standards. Once you're armed with a death certificate, you can send any of these entities proof and that should be sufficient to stave off demands until you have time to get the estate settlement process in gear. I am being very vague not only because I don't know the details but also because these laws all vary from state to state.
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May 25, 2024 20:15
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Might have read it in this thread but do not give up the deceased's cell phone right away since it will likely be needed for MFA access to accounts.
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May 25, 2024 20:19
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Baddog posted:In my experience don't notify banks (or really anyone actually) until you absolutely have to/are ready to deal with it. Having the old account gives good flexibility to be able to pay bills and whatnot without having to jump through the hoops of getting an "estate of" account. Good to be able to dodge having to deal with probate if you don't have to. FWIW this is fraud and identity theft and can come back to bite you
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May 25, 2024 21:25
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Nonexistence posted:FWIW this is fraud and identity theft and can come back to bite you Standard caveats about not committing actual fraud by using your access to accounts to drain them for your own gain ahead of legitimate creditors :p
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May 25, 2024 22:39
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