Estate planning lawyer
Estate Planning

Top 5 Questions To Consider Before Hiring A Lawyer For Your Estate Planning Needs

I know discussing topics like death, incapacity, and other potentially frightening life events, with someone like me, an estate planning lawyer, may feel intimidating or even morbid. Take a deep breath and relax… it doesn’t have to and shouldn’t be that way.

Hiring a lawyer to help you make wise decisions for life and death can be the most empowering choice you ever make for yourself and your loved ones. The way I explain it to my friends and family is, “estate planning isnt about planning for your death, it’s about planning for your life.” So, with that frame in mind, let’s talk about how to choose an estate planning attorney, because we aren’t all cut from the same cloth.

The right lawyer will be there for your family when you can’t be, so you want to understand who the lawyer is as a person, not just an attorney. Of course, you’ll also want to discover the services your lawyer offers and how they run their business.

Here are five questions to ensure you don’t end up paying for legal services you don’t need, expect, or want. Once you know exactly what you should be looking for when choosing an estate planning lawyer, you’ll be much better positioned to hire an attorney that will provide the kind of love, attention, care, and trust your family deserves.

1. How Do They Bill For Their Services?

Your first question to a lawyer may be, “how much does it cost?” But that’s typically only because you aren’t clear on what else to ask. So we’re going to give you an upgrade here.

The first question to ask isn’t “how much does it cost,” but rather, “how do you bill for your services and how do you determine what to bill for your services?”

The right lawyer for you will have a clear answer that helps you understand how they determine how much to charge you and how you’ll be charged. They’ll set clear boundaries and expectations around fees - so there are no surprises.

When working with an estate planning lawyer, find a lawyer. who bills for all their services on a flat fee, no surprises, basis —and never hourly—unless a court requires it for limited “court-related” services.

Your lawyer should determine the fees they charge you only after guiding you through a process of discovery in which they learn about your family dynamics and your assets and educate you about what would happen for your family and assets if and when something happens to you. Through that process, they will help you choose the right plan that meets your budget and desired outcomes.

At my firm, all of our fees are a flat fee, agreed to in advance, and you choose your fee through our Family Wealth Planning Session™ process, during which we educate you about the law, and you educate us about your family dynamics and assets. Then, you choose the right plan, at the right price, for the people you love.

2. How Will Your Lawyer Respond To Your Needs On An Ongoing Basis?

One of people's biggest complaints about working with lawyers is a lack of responsiveness. We’ve even heard of situations in which clients went weeks without getting a call back from their lawyer. It’s unfortunate, and yet it makes sense when a lawyer doesn’t have systems in place to ensure they can serve their existing clients and respond to the needs of past clients.

So, to ensure your lawyer can be responsive to your needs, ask them how quickly calls are typically returned in their office and if someone will be on-hand to answer quick questions when and as needed.

Ideally, all calls to your lawyer should be pre-scheduled with a clear agenda, so you both can be ready to focus on your specific needs.

3. How Will Your Lawyer Proactively Communicate With You On An Ongoing Basis?

Sadly, most lawyers fail to communicate regularly with their clients. As a result, if you’ve created an estate plan in the past, you may have had a “checked off the list and done” kind of experience and not even realized that estate planning means a lifetime of wise legal and financial decisions, not a one-and-done kind of thing.

Unfortunately, most lawyers don’t have their business systems set up for ongoing, proactive communication. They don’t have the time to get to know you or your family and then keep your plan up to date throughout your life.

Work with a lawyer who has systems to keep your plan updated to ensure your assets are protected (throughout your life) and who will communicate with you regularly.

Additionally, ask them how they will proactively support you in keeping your plan up to date on an ongoing basis and be there for your loved one’s when you can’t be.

Think of it this way: Your estate plan includes a set of documents, but your plan is far more than those documents. Your plan is an inventory of your assets, which changes throughout your life. It’s a structure and container for who and what your family will turn to when something happens to you.

You want to work with a lawyer with systems to keep your documents up to date and ensure your assets are owned correctly throughout your lifetime. Ideally, the lawyer should get to know you and your family over time so that when something happens, your lawyer can be there for the people you love. There will already be an underlying relationship and trust.

4. Can You Call About Any Legal Problem Or Just About Matters Within Their Specialty?

Given the complexity of today’s legal world, lawyers must have specialized training in one or more specific practice areas, such as divorce, bankruptcy, Wills and Trusts, personal injury, business, criminal matters, or employment law. You do NOT want to work with a “door law” attorney - a lawyer who professes to be an expert in whatever random legal issue walks through the door.

That said, you do want your personal lawyer to have broad enough expertise to consult with him or her about all sorts of legal and financial issues that may come up in your life—and trust he or she will be able to offer you sound guidance about whether you have a legal issue, or not. And while your lawyer will not be able to advise you on all legal matters, he or she should be able to refer you to other trusted professionals who can help you.

Trust me, you wouldn’t want the lawyer who designed your estate plan also to handle your personal injury claim, settle a dispute with your landlord, and advise you on your divorce. But you do want him or her to be there to hear your story, refer you to a highly qualified lawyer who specializes in that area, and overall, serve as your go-to legal consultant.

In this capacity, you can consult your personal lawyer before you sign any legal documents, any time you have a legal or financial issue arise, or whenever anything that might adversely affect your family or business comes up, and know that you’ll get excellent guidance.

5. What Happens When They Die Or Retire?

We all die, including your lawyer. And they may retire before they die. So be sure to ask what the plan is for your plan and your family when they do.

This is a critically important—and often overlooked—question to ask your lawyer and any service professional before beginning a relationship. Sure, it may be uncomfortable to ask. A client-centered professional will have a succession plan to ensure their clients are cared for no matter what happens to the lawyer managing your plan.

Look for a lawyer with a detailed plan that will ensure that someone warm and caring will take over your planning without any interruption of service.

Here at our law firm, we work with a community of lawyers just like us who serve clients as a Personal Family Lawyer® with Life & Legacy Planning. We have a network of successor attorneys who practice with the same morals and model as we do, so if anything happens to us you will be treated with the same level of care and relationship that we provide.

A Lasting Relationship

Although hiring the right estate planning lawyer may not seem that important, it’s one of the most critical choices you can make for yourself and your family. After all, this is the individual you trust to serve on your behalf to protect and provide for your loved ones during one of life’s most emotionally challenging experiences.

Should you choose the wrong person for the job, your family could face unnecessary conflicts, expenses, and legal entanglements when they are most vulnerable. Ultimately, estate planning is far more than having a lawyer create a set of documents for you and then never seeing you again or only seeing you when something goes wrong.

With us as your Personal Family Lawyer®, we develop a relationship with you and your family that lasts a lifetime. Our unique, family-centered legal services are specifically tailored to provide our clients with the kind of love, attention, and trust we’d want for our loved ones. To learn more about our one-of-a-kind systems and services, schedule a Family Wealth Planning Session™ today.

This article is a service of a Personal Family Lawyer®. We do not just draft documents; we ensure you make informed and empowered decisions about life and death, for yourself and the people you love. That's why we offer a Family Wealth Planning Session™, during which you will get more financially organized than you’ve ever been before and make all the best choices for the people you love.

The content is sourced from Personal Family Lawyer® for use by Personal Family Lawyer® firms, a source believed to be providing accurate information. This material was created for educational and informational purposes only and is not intended as ERISA, tax, legal, or investment advice. If you are seeking legal advice specific to your needs, such advice services must be obtained on your own separate from this educational material.

Proper estate planning can keep your family out of conflict, out of court, and out of the public eye. If you’re ready to create a comprehensive estate plan, contact us to schedule your Family Wealth Planning Session. Even if you already have a plan in place, we will review it and help you bring it up to date to avoid heartache for your family. Schedule online today.

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How to flourish in a crisis
Estate Planning

Learning to Flourish, Even in a Financial Crisis

Maybe you, like many of us, have been raised to think that the safest way to live in the working world is to have a good career and a steady paycheck. This financial crisis is challenging that framework for many people. Even if you had a steady job, and even if you still have one, by now you’ve learned how easy it is for that security to disappear overnight. 

A recession can reveal all of our negative thoughts and internal monologues about money. A sad, yet common, attitude is for us to see money as a scarce resource, and income as something that’s outside of our control. Thinking or talking about money can trigger feelings of guilt and shame in many people. 

It doesn’t have to be that way. The truth is, money is a tool that you can access and multiply, independent of anyone else’s permission. And even if you do have anxieties that keep you from seeing how money can be a positive part of your life, that can change.

Other people may react to this period of uncertainty with the same, old-fashioned advice: live within your means and keep 3–6 months’ worth of income in an emergency fund. If you have a secure job that pays you well, and that you enjoy, this is great advice. But, if that’s not what is true for you, you may be looking at this time as a great opportunity to make a shift and create your own financial security. 

Consider this: what if you weren't relying on a check from your boss (or the unemployment office, as the case may be)? 

What if a shift in mindset could change your relationship with money, and set you on track to secure you against economic highs and lows in a way you never even dreamed possible? Or, maybe you have been dreaming about it, but don’t know how or where to start to move it all forward.

A financial crisis doesn’t have to be a crisis for you or your family. In fact, this could be the perfect time to access the wealth of resources currently available to fund your next level of growth. It’s a time to invest in yourself, and to learn to use your gifts, skills, and talents to serve others in a big way. That way, you won’t have to depend on anyone else, including your job, corporations, or the government, to sustain you. 

Whether or not you have a day job, see this moment as a wake-up call. It’s time for you to take stock of your greatest resource—yourself. What can you do that other people can’t? What can you give that other people need? Start exploring the resources within you, and you’ll realize that you’ve found your way of contributing value to the world.

Everyone has something to offer, and that offering goes far beyond just the products or services you give your potential clients. If you use your talents to become a higher earner, you can establish yourself as a leader in your community, and affect change in areas that you care about. You can contribute to the growth of your local economy by employing people, and be part of what helps pull the larger economy out of the rut that it may be in.

Even in the lowest of times, even in recessions, there have been many, many people who were able to forge their own paths and grow their wealth through entrepreneurship. You can be one of them.

Things have been tough for our lives and livelihoods, it's true, but we shouldn’t let this moment go by without considering what we can learn from it. I hope that you are learning about how to be prepared for an emergency when it comes to your savings, investments, and income, but not necessarily in the way we've been taught in the past.

As we go into this brave new world, the most important thing you can have is a high-value skill that is needed and wanted, no matter what. The next step is to create the systems and structures to offer that skill in a way that you can rely upon, no matter the ups and downs of the economy. This is a lesson that will benefit you, and that you can encourage in your family and friends, and serve as an example for your children—raising a new generation of economic and community leaders.

We are in a time when your best investment is in your resourcefulness, and your creativity, and your community. Bring these together, and your family can rely on you and what you've created, and you can trust that your children will be great, no matter what.

If you need help figuring out your next step, please call us, and we can help.

Proper estate planning can keep your family out of conflict, out of court, and out of the public eye. If you’re ready to create a comprehensive estate plan, contact us to schedule your Family Wealth Planning Session. Even if you already have a plan in place, we will review it and help you bring it up to date to avoid heartache for your family. Schedule online today.

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Parental Guilt
Estate Planning

3 Unique Ways to Handle the Guilt Inherent to Being a Parent

If you’re a parent, you may feel even more guilty than usual.  If so, you are definitely not alone. Currently, the burden is on you to both carry on with your work and manage your child’s full-time care and education. Two full-time jobs that you’re trying to do by yourself, likely without teachers or care providers to help you. 

If you are like most parents, you were probably struggling with guilt even before the virus. You simply can’t make it to every award ceremony or recital, and you might not have as much time to play with your kids or help them with their homework as you’d like. Those feelings of guilt may now be compounded by all the additional responsibilities you’ve had to take on in a short space of time. 

Take a deep breath, and let me let you off the hook here for a minute. I have no doubt you are doing the best you can, and your kids see it, and know it too, even when they are being ungrateful pains in the rear. 

I’ve got a few ideas about how to shift the guilt. They're a little unconventional, but I invite you to give them a try and then message me to let me know how they went. We love hearing from you. 

Let’s start with one thing that is fully within your control, can help to alleviate feelings that you are not doing enough, and that you can get handled easily, for free, right now--- name legal guardians for your kids, so the people you want will take care of them, if anything happens to you. 

Name Legal Guardians

If you have not already legally documented who you would want to raise your children, if you could not finish doing it yourself for any reason, find our Kids Protection Plan on our website. It’s free. It’s easy. And the site guides you through who to choose and creates a legal document for you.

Legally documenting your choices for who you want to take care of your kids if you can’t is a great first step to getting legal planning in place for the people you love. (Yes, I said “choices” because you want to name at least one person with two alternates.) And, doing so can provide you with a lot of relief, if you have not taken care of this yet for your kids.

After you are done, contact us for a no-charge review of the documents, and we’ll guide you to the next step in ensuring the well-being and care of your kids (and your assets), if something happens to you.

If the parents get sick with COVID-19, this is one of the most important things you can do for your kids right now, and we’re making it as easy as possible for you to get started with it.

So that’s one way we can support you to remove some of that mom or pop guilt you may have. And, here’s another...

Quality Time Doing...Nothing

While you’re probably already spending a significant amount of time with your kids, it may not be very high quality. 

But you may be too tired or overwhelmed to plan big activities, or the things you used to do for “quality time” may not be available.

So, what’s a parent to do?

Nothing.

Yes, you read that right, nothing.

If you can take 15 minutes or so out of your day and do nothing with your child, it could be the best 15 minutes you spend with them, and with yourself, all day. Maybe you’ll even be able to stretch it to 30, 45 or 60 minutes of nothing.

It’s truly one of the best gifts you can give to your kids, and the best part is you don’t have to do anything. 

We hope this idea provides some relief from the guilt. You don’t have to DO as much as you think. Mostly, your kids really just want to know you are there, and will give them your full attention, without screens, even if they aren’t paying attention to you.

Talk About It

If you’re on an emotional roller-coaster right now, your kids are probably having some similar struggles. This is an opportunity to connect with them, and a good time to show them a little vulnerability of your own. Remember how important sharing words of love and comfort can be, both to them and to you.

A friend of mine has three kids ranging from eight to fourteen, and she recently told me a story about a very special conversation with one of her children. 

After my friend had spent a few weeks juggling school, work responsibilities, and a million other household duties, she was feeling worn out and discouraged.

Then she took a quiet moment to just sit around and talk with her tween daughter and share some of what was going on for her, that it was hard, and how she was making it through. Out of the blue, to my friend’s surprise and gratitude, her child gave her a big hug and said, “You do so much to take care of us all the time. That must be so hard. Thank you.”

This special moment filled my friend's heart, and it has gotten her through some tough days. And it never would have happened if she hadn’t taken a little time out to just talk with her kid, without a particular agenda.

Reach Out For Support

If you have been feeling really alone and need support, reach out for help. Sometimes venting to your friends is enough, and chances are they’ll be able to relate! But if you are not getting the support you need, there are professionals who will communicate via phone and even text message. You can find local therapists and phone, video, and online therapists through Psychology Today’s directory

Or, if family dynamics are rearing their head during these stressful times, and you want to keep your family out of court and conflict, give us a call to see how we can help.

Proper estate planning can keep your family out of conflict, out of court, and out of the public eye. If you’re ready to create a comprehensive estate plan, contact us to schedule your Family Wealth Planning Session. Even if you already have a plan in place, we will review it and help you bring it up to date to avoid heartache for your family. Schedule online today.

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Do I need disability insurance?
Business Planning

The Basics of Disability Insurance and How It Can Help During COVID

With the risks still posed by COVID-19, we all need to face the possibility that we could get sick, even if we take great care of ourselves through good nutrition, sleep, and exercise. And even if you don’t need to be hospitalized, if you do experience symptoms and test positive, you might have to stay quarantined for enough time that you’d lose income. These risks highlight the need for everyone, regardless of their age or current state of health, to have some form of disability insurance coverage.

You might think you don’t need disability insurance, especially if you’re young and in good health. Hopefully, you’re right. Unfortunately, though, becoming disabled can happen to anyone at any time. This isn’t specific to coronavirus either; it has always been true. 

The Americans with Disabilities Act has detailed specifics on what a disability is, but the most basic definition is that an individual has “A physical or mental impairment that substantially limits one or more major life activities of such individual.” That can apply to a car-accident or other injury, or a debilitating illness documented by a doctor, including mental illness. 

The sad fact is that, according to the US government’s statistics, one in four 20-year-olds become disabled before reaching retirement age. That makes it all the more important that you consider how to protect yourself with insurance.

And this is very important: you must get the actual insurance before something happens. If you’re already sick, you can’t buy disability insurance to make up for lost income.

So now is the time to make a plan. Here’s some information to get you started.

What Qualifies You for Benefits (And What Doesn't)

Let’s get clear on one thing that applies to the coronavirus pandemic: only medical quarantine qualifies you for disability benefits. That means only medical self-quarantine related to COVID-19, which is verified by a doctor, will qualify you. Socially quarantining to decrease your chance of contracting the virus in the first place won’t qualify you for your disability insurance benefits. Disability insurance also won’t cover you if you lose income or health insurance because your employer has closed or laid you off.

Also, disability insurance is not the same as health insurance. Though your failed health is the reason you’d get access to your disability insurance in the first place, disability insurance will not cover your medical bills. Disability benefits are basically to help you pay housing and food costs. But in a time when you’re dealing with disability, it’s good to have those bills covered while you are focused on healing and self-care.

There are two different types of disability insurance, and knowing the difference will help you save a lot of time.

Short-Term Disability Insurance

Short-term disability insurance normally lasts around 3–6 months, sometimes up to a year or two years. It covers about 60–70% of whatever your salary is. The premiums you pay are often higher than long term coverage, ranging from 1–3% of your annual income. So for someone making $50k a year, it would range between $60 to $125 every month. The percentage depends on what kind of health risks the insurance company determines you have. If you smoke, for instance, the premium will probably be higher, just like with many health insurance policies. If you have a risky job, such as dealing with heavy machinery, premiums will likely be higher as well. A major upside, though, is that payouts usually happen within two weeks, which can be a huge relief in an emergency.

Financial expert Dave Ramsey points out that, because of the higher premiums and shorter span of coverage time, you might want to consider building up a solid emergency fund with 3–6 months of expenses instead. You can consider that personal short-term disability coverage that you don’t have to pay premiums on. But if you’re living paycheck-to-paycheck and can’t foresee saving that much (like 80% of American workers, according to CNBC), and your employer doesn’t offer short-term disability insurance, it is something you may want to consider buying yourself.

Long-Term Disability Insurance

This is the type of insurance that is most important to get, no matter what. This is the type that will last through a long recovery or treatment period. Look for a “non-cancellable insurance policy”, which will keep the insurance company from being able to cancel your policy if you have any health changes. 

Long-term disability insurance may pay you benefits for a few years or until your disability ends. Most policies cover 40–60% of your salary, but ones that pay up to 70% do exist, and you should try to find one. These policies also cost 1–3% of your yearly income, but they tend to be on the lower side than short-term. A major difference between the two forms of insurance is that it can take up to 6 months to see a payout. This means that it’s not the best option for covering costs if you have to go into medical quarantine for COVID-19. 

We recommend that, even if you decide to pass on short-term disability in favor of emergency fund savings (or if your employee already covers it), you should definitely consider a long-term policy to protect your earnings. Remember, though, it will only pay a percentage of the income you’d be taking in otherwise. Make sure you also have health insurance and as much savings as you can get to protect yourself as well.

If you need help weighing your options, give us a call and we’ll be happy to help.

Proper estate planning can keep your family out of conflict, out of court, and out of the public eye. If you’re ready to create a comprehensive estate plan, contact us to schedule your Family Wealth Planning Session. Even if you already have a plan in place, we will review it and help you bring it up to date to avoid heartache for your family. Schedule online today.

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Who takes care of your kids if you have COVID
Estate Planning

Who Would Care For Your Children If You Got Sick With COVID-19?

The pandemic is causing us to consider a lot of things that we may not have before, even if maybe we should have.

It brings to mind something a colleague of mine shared recently. One unremarkable weekend, she left her small children with a babysitter and headed out to enjoy dinner at a restaurant with her husband. But as she sat there, a thought crept into her head that she couldn’t let go.

What would happen to her kids, she thought, if she and her husband got into a car accident on the way home?

And even though my colleague is an estate planning lawyer herself, and she had a will at home naming guardians for her kids, she didn’t have a definite and clear answer that provided the comfort she wanted. Her will was in a vault, and her named legal guardians lived thousands of miles away.  It was that thought that spurred her to take action, not only for her own family, but to create tools and resources for others as well. 

If you’d like to read the book she wrote as a result of her own discoveries, it’s called “Wear Clean Underwear: A Fast, Fun, Friendly—and Essential—Guide to Legal Planning for Busy Parents” and it’s the best-selling book on legal planning for families. We’d love to send it to you as our gift. Simply CLICK HERE TO GET THE BOOK.

One thing you’ll discover in the book is that even naming a legal guardian in your will is often not enough to keep your kids out of the care of strangers, or someone you wouldn’t want, if something happens to you.

Chances of COVID-19 Infection in the Family

If you are young and healthy, it might be hard to imagine that you won’t be there to care for your kids. But if the COVID-19 pandemic is showing us anything, it’s that even a healthy person can contract a serious illness that leaves them incapacitated and unable to care for their children. 

If there is more than one adult in the house, that may alleviate  some of your worry. While naming  legal guardians for your kids may feel especially urgent for a single parent, parents with partners aren’t off the hook. You should take precautions though, especially since there are high infection rates among people who live in the same household. 

A professor at the University of Florida has found a more than 19% chance that someone else in the household of a person infected with COVID-19 will also contract the disease. Researchers estimate the average incubation time is about four days and could be infectious for up to two weeks. That means it’s not outside the realm of possibility that you and your partner could both contract the illness, possibly at the same time.

An Easy Way to Find Guardians for Your Children

Even if you never contract COVID-19, you are of course still human, and vulnerable to accidents and other dangers that could separate you from your kids—either temporarily or permanently.

Last week we referred to one way to handle parental guilt: naming temporary and permanent legal guardians for your children. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not trying to give you a guilt trip right now! But I am encouraging you to take action if you haven’t already, and I’m going to show you a very easy (and free!) tool to use to get you started.

Go to this website right now and name guardians for your children in a legal document, and then have it reviewed by us. When we review your legal document (or, your will if you already have one), we can discuss who would care for your children in the immediate term if something happens to you, even on a short-term basis.  

And, if you are having a difficult time deciding who to name as legal guardians for your children, we can even help you make the right decisions. 

Officially answering the question of who will care for your kids if you can’t—even for a short time—is one of the best things you can do right now. It is a real, concrete way you can protect your kids during this scary period of time. We’ve made it as easy as possible for you to get it done quickly, so you can have peace of mind that your kids’ future is secure no matter what happens.

If you need help with the process, please do give us a call and we’ll be glad to walk you through it.

Proper estate planning can keep your family out of conflict, out of court, and out of the public eye. If you’re ready to create a comprehensive estate plan, contact us to schedule your Family Wealth Planning Session. Even if you already have a plan in place, we will review it and help you bring it up to date to avoid heartache for your family. Schedule online today.

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Video

Difference Between A Life Partner And A Spouse

What's the difference between a life partner and a spouse?

Some people don’t think there’s a difference between a life partner and a spouse, but I’m here to tell you, today, that there is.

All right. So, imagine you’ve been with the same partner for the past 20 years versus being married to someone for 20 years. No difference, right? Same amount of time, same partner, right?

Unfortunately, no. The law sees it totally differently.

Here, in California, there’s a huge, huge difference between being married to someone versus just being partnered with someone. And the changes, the differences between them are pretty huge

Community Property

So, when you are married, your spouse has a lot of legal rights and a lot of legal protections, and they’re basically considered within everything. Think about our state as a community property state. When you’re married with someone and you build with someone there’s a presumption that everything you have is community property between you two, even if one person is the one who’s working and earning, and the other person, let’s say, is staying at home.

But you don’t have the same type of presumption when you got a life partner.

Health Decisions

Okay so, we’re thinking property, not a big deal, right? Well, what happens if you end up in the hospital? If you end up in a hospital, your spouse is going to be your presumed healthcare agent, even if you don’t have another advanced healthcare directive, or other people named hospital’s, usually, going to talk to your spouse.

Are they going to talk to your life partner? No. Unless they are specifically documented, and unless you have specifically said that it is okay for a hospital to speak to your life partner, or for your life partner to make those decisions for you hospital’s not going to talk to them.

Hospital’s not going to allow them to make decisions for you. Banks are not going to let them pay your bills and keep the lights on until you come out of that hospital.

And heaven forbid, if you die the law’s going to make no provisions for your life partner at all.

What are your Options?

You can get married, definitely an option. A good option for lots of people. But let’s say you don’t want to get married for whatever reason, it’s still important to make sure that they are provided for and taken care of. And the best way you can do that is by being proactive, and by completing your estate plan, if you start doing that, you can name them in your advanced healthcare directives, and your powers of attorney.

You can provide for them in a will.

You can also make sure that if you have more assets and you need a trust in place that they’re going to be provided for in that trust as well. You guys have been together for so long, you guys wouldn’t have been, if you weren’t important to each other, so make sure to take that final step to make sure that they really are protected and taken care of if, heaven forbid, anything happens to you.

This is Pantea Fozouni with Palm Desert Law Group, and more than happy to talk to you, and help you out. And make sure that your life partner’s taken care of and protected within your plan. 

This article is a service of Pantea I. Fozouni, Family Business Lawyer®. We don’t just draft documents; we ensure you make informed and empowered decisions about life and death, for yourself and the people you love. That’s why we offer a Family Wealth Planning Session™, during which you will get more financially organized than you’ve ever been before and make all the best choices for the people you love. Go online today to schedule a Family Wealth Planning Session and find out how to get this $750 session at no charge.

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