INCAPACITATED ADULTS & ESTATE PLANNING

Should you, your spouse or parents become incapacitated, it is important that you have the legal paperwork in place to manage their future in accordance with their wishes (when they were legally capable of effecting such directions). The process is far more difficult, and costly, when the legal work hasn't been completed prior to their sliding into incapacity/ senility, and needing to get the courts involved in the process.

As such, it is important that you take early action to insure that you or your family member is able to decide what they wish done with their financial estate and how they wish to have their medical decisions determined and by whom. It is their life and as such it should be their choice. They key than is to take action early on, when the individual-in-question has the capacity to make their own decisions, failing which alternative action should be promptly undertaken so as to institute measures that will allow for their care and well-being (as opposed to be hamstrung when a serious situation arises with no one having legal authority to act or make decisions on their behalf).