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News Updated Date : |
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November 27th, 2009 01:08am |
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Advance Health Care Directive Law Services
in CA
You can help determine what will happen by making
your own arrangements in advance. Through estate
planning, you can choose those who will care for you and your
estate if you ever become unable to do so for yourself. Just make
sure that your choices are documented in writing.
If you set up a living trust, for example, the trustee will
provide the necessary management of those assets held in trust. You
should also consider setting up a durable
power of attorney for property management to handle limited
financial transactions and to deal with assets that may not have
been transferred to your living trust. By doing this, you
designate an agent or attorney-in-fact to make financial decisions
and manage your assets on your behalf if you become unable to do
so.
And by setting up an advance health care directive/durable
power of attorney for health care, you can also designate an
attorney-in-fact to make health care decisions for you if you ever
become unable to make such decisions.
In addition, this legal document can contain your wishes
concerning such matters as life-sustaining treatment and other
health care issues and instructions concerning organ donation,
disposition of remains and your funeral.
Both of these attorneys-in-fact lose the authority to make
decisions on your behalf when you die.
If you have not made any such arrangements in advance and you
become unable to make sound decisions or care for yourself, a court
could appoint a court-supervised conservator to manage your affairs
and be responsible for your care.
The court’s supervision of the conservator may provide
you with some added safeguards.
However, conservatorships can also be more cumbersome,
expensive and time-consuming than the appointment of
attorneys-in-fact under powers of
attorney.
In any event, even if you appoint attorneys-in-fact who could
manage your assets and make future health care decisions for you,
you should still document your choice of conservators in case a
conservatorship is ever necessary.
California State Bar
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