Proper legal representation is essential in guardianship. However, adults with disabilities often do not have the legal counsel to help advocate for the least restrictive options to protecting individuals’ rights and autonomy.
Unmarried couples lack automatic legal protections in estate matters, making planning essential. Tools like wills, trusts and healthcare proxies ensure that partners inherit assets, make medical decisions and handle finances.
Good communication together with strategies like no-contest clauses and competency verification can help you avoid a will contest.
It gets a lot more complicated if you can’t count on a child to be a caregiver, or to make major decisions.
In an elder abuse horror story, a young woman spends $71,000 belonging to her uncle with dementia. Proper estate planning can safeguard your assets in the face of cognitive decline.
If these things get overlooked, you risk leaving your loved ones with extra challenges during what’s already a tough time.
The shift to a digital world has made life easier in many ways, allowing people to eschew physical photo albums, file cabinets, taking checks to the bank and waiting for the mail carrier.
Trusts should be in your estate plan if privacy is important to you. Most people don’t know their wills become public documents as part of probate.
It’s easy to put off doing many of these things. However, get them done, and your heirs will be thankful you did.
Eventually, most older couples will face health crises and the need for caregiving. If they haven’t vowed their mutual marital commitment ‘til death us do part,’ their roles and responsibilities can be murky.
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