Hi, I’m here to talk about a topic that’s incredibly important for long-term planning—protecting your estate in case of dementia. Dementia is something no one wants to face, but with the right estate protection in place, you can safeguard your assets and ensure your wishes are followed, no matter what the future holds.
Transcript:
” For most of my clients who are younger and have not become incapacitated or been diagnosed with Alzheimer’s or dementia, we will create a power of attorney, a financial power of attorney for them called a springing power of attorney that only comes into effect upon their incapacity, say they are in a coma or they acquire Alzheimer’s and get to the point to where they are incapacitated. Similarly, we’ll typically name what we call successor trustees for their trust so that that trustee only steps into the office of trustee upon the person’s death or, again, their incapacity.
As someone gets older, they may decide even before they’ve been diagnosed with dementia or Alzheimer’s that they want their children or somebody else to assist them with managing their financial affairs. What we can do in those cases is have that person execute what’s called an immediately effective power of attorney whereby the person holding that power of attorney can help them pay bills and do other financial transactions immediately without the client needing to have been diagnosed with dementia or become medically incapacitated. Similarly, within their trust, we can name somebody as a co-trustee to assist them to manage the trust assets.
Put all those things together and somebody who’s aging can transition into having somebody manage their financial affairs for them in case they become diagnosed with dementia or incapacitated without needing to upend their lives too much as they drift into incapacity like a lot of people unfortunately do these days with the prevalence of Alzheimer’s in our population. With some careful planning and making sure that we have somebody that they trust to assist them, we can really ease a lot of people’s financial burden as they get older or as they are becoming slowly incapacitated.”
Thanks for watching! Taking steps now can make all the difference in securing your legacy and protecting your loved ones. If you’re interested in learning more about trust structures and estate protection, reach out to us at the Law Office of Andrew Fesler. We’re here to help you plan confidently for the future.
