Here's something nobody else seems to have offered: First, nobody moves into your home without having completed/updated their legal and financial documents. This means wills (or trusts), financial PoA, and durable healthcare PoA, INCLUDING the POLST form done separately, printed in multiple copies in the advised bright (ultrabrite, actually, but regular bright will do) pink color. If they live in your house you should be primary agent for healthcare decisions. Period. One of your sibs should be secondary agent. Do not do the usual "everybody shares responsibility" as co-agents. Blood does not mean everybody will agree in an emergency, do-we-pull-the-plug situation. This means you, too, need your legal and financial house in order. All you need is for everybody to be in the car together and one dumb DUI driver runs a red light on you....imagine the worst. Then plan for it. OK, now the legal/financial stuff is done. And you've all talked about what they want, should the worst happen. You know what their wishes are, and so do your sibs. Write it up, email it so it's in writing and clear. Ten years from now, you may need that, so keep it handy with the legal/financial docs which YOU are keeping track of, on their behalf (just in case). Yes, they should know where you're keeping them, as should your sibs. You might want to set up the checking acct as a POD (Payable On Death) account, or at least have co-title on it. Remember that upon death, the last Soc Sec check is usually refunded back to the government, so there'll be less available cash than there looks to be at first. Liquidity is very important in dealing with any sudden disability or death. Otherwise, you'll need the reserves to cover emergency expenses on your own to be repaid later (with receipts), which can be a strain if you're not expecting it. If they are 70, then save as much of their funds as possible to deal with extreme old age when they start to need help. Do NOT automatically open your wallet. Life gets more expensive as seniors age and become frail, so keep your reserves as deep as possible. The rule is usually, they need to use up their $$$ first, then look for city/county/federal aid, then family pitches in their $$$. Figure out what's fair. My MIL had more $$$ liquidity than we did, so she was fine with sharing 1/3 the expenses.

I created a posting in the Caregivers Forum (linked below) on the new POLST form, "Physician Orders for Life Sustaining Treatment", which is a recommended addition to an Advanced Health Directive. It deals specifically and only with palliative care issues. It can only be completed by your doctor, with your input. This is a general blank form which is accepted by all doctors and HMOs. I found out about it in the Open Enrollment booklet from our current HMO. This form is very recent. Our AHD, for example, does not include palliative care language although it was done only 2 yrs ago, in 2007. So I thought that especially for those who have been assiduous in getting all their legal affairs in order, along with their financial affairs, it would be helpful to have this new info. Here is a link that might be useful: posting on Caregivers: POLST form

>>(from luvstocraft) So am I understanding correctly that the Living Trust can help protect some of our assets--but just a Will will not do that? >> I'm sorry that I didn't pay more careful attention to some of these questions, and hope it's not too late to get these answers to luv since like her, we live in CA. First off, Living Wills are not legal in CA. The document needed is called the Durable Healthcare power of attorney. All forms since 2009 should include the POLST questions (Physician's Order for Life Sustaining Treatment). Anyone with a DHPoA prior to 2009 should Google and download this 1-page form, fill it out and give a signed copy to your doctor or HMO, ASAP. Second, as pointed out, you need to be careful about which type of Financial Power of Attorney you want. Be especially thoughtful about who is the successor agent should you **and** your spouse become mentally incapable. Make sure that all your financial records are filed properly and are easy to access in an emergency. Now, to wills vs trusts: A will MUST go through probate. This has certain advantages: a will is public record, meaning it's a lot harder (although not impossible) to commit fraud. If you don't have a large estate, there is nothing wrong with using a will. There are two kinds of personal trusts (well, there's many different kinds, but you generally need to have substantial assets to make use of them): Revocable and Irrevocable. In a revocable living trust (RLT), you or whoever is named trustee/co-trustee, own those assets and manage the trust. You can change the terms however and whenever you please. An Irrevocable trust is just that - once set up and funded with assets, it cannot be changed. The trustee is just a manager of the assets. It can't be canceled if you change your mind or your situation changes. You no longer own any of the assets in the trust. It is a permanent legal entity unto itself, until all assets are exhausted. Any trust must be funded; e.g., you must take legal steps to transfer assets to the trust. Just setting up a trust does not mean anything is inside the trust. Trusts do not go through probate. They are a method of passing assets to heirs without the costs of probate. OTOH, speaking as one who served as Executor of a simple estate, I can tell you that even a simple estate or trust takes hours and hours to settle. It is neither easy, nor simple, and when a person is grieving it is extremely exhausting. An Executor of a will gets paid a fee (and in CA, believe me that fee is earned) - but a Trustee NEVER gets paid unless payment, hourly or flat fee or percentage, is specified in the Trust....even though a Trustee can spend just as much personal time, if not more, than any Executor does, on settling an estate. Revocable Living Trusts will NOT save on taxes. They are a conveyance, a means of passing assets more efficiently in certain situations. They do not “protect” anything because that is not their intent. The only thing it will save is the court costs of filing for probate, and the mandated fees to Executor and Attorney from the assessed value of the estate. For example, my MIL has an RLT. Realistically, there was never any need for she and her (now deceased) husband to have one. They have only one son, had only one house, and modest financial assets. It made the transfer of assets to her as the surviving Trustee simpler, but then we had to have a lawyer draw up yet another trust, this time with her and her son (DH) as co-trustees. Had they had a good will drawn up instead, we could have continued with that and spent less half the amount of money it cost, by having her update a will instead of creating a new trust. In comparison, DH and I have a trust. We have no children, and our estate falls under whatever the federal estate tax limit is or is going to be. But because we have no children, our heirs are not directly related to us - and both heirs have siblings who by law would have just as much right to any inheritance. Therefore, we had our trust drawn up with specific language that excludes anyone not named in the trust. We also arranged for the Trustee to be paid on an hourly basis for work done for the estate, because we believe that's fair. I did a little research on the so-called "Medicaid trusts". These are apparently encouraged by certain lawyers who claim they will protect assets from being seized by Medicaid. There is a debate about this subject, and some lawyers say there is no current legal decision that fully supports any trust as being 'untouchable' by Medicaid. Whether this is true or not, I have no idea. A Medicaid trust is Irrevocable - once set up, you have lost all assets you transfer over. It is NOT excused from the Medicaid 5-yr look-back on asset transfers. If Medicaid does decide your trust is a fraud designed to hide assets from them, you would need a lawyer to file suit. And of course, no one should ever set up any trust, Revocable or Irrevocable, without the advice of a lawyer. Even using good forms, such as those available from Nolo Press/Berkeley, can produce a document that does not address all the issues your estate may face...if only because there are things you don't know which may be issues in the future, that the questions of a professional might have avoided. If you use a good estate attorney, they often charge a flat fee for drawing up the RLT, both PoAs, a pour-over will (VERY important) and even transferring the title to your home into the trust. Our attorney spent hours with MIL and with us, both together and separately, to ensure she had a clear picture of what we wanted. Then it was her job to create documents which would enable our wishes to be carried out, when we're no longer able to be there. I apologize for going OT. But these are critical issues that all too many Boomers have left undone for too long. HTH!

Everybody is confused about these directives. House staff, the people signing the documents, and their families. Living will is written for a very narrow circumstance, and the language in it is very clear (I think) but people tend to think that it applies to many other situations. Something that I see is that a seriously ill person has designated a medical power of attorney, but he is at that point still competent to make his decisions (ie does he want surgery); but the medical team asks the POA instead of the patient. Kind of an assumption that the patient has deferred to the POA to make the decision, even if he is not sedated, or delirious -- and actually, legally, the POA is not in effect when the patient is competent. Also, some hospital personnel tend to assume that "do not resuscitate" should mean "no treatment" beyond comfort care. But, treating an infection or setting a fracture can be perfectly appropriate, depending on the actual situation and condition of the patient. Likewise, life support can be inappropriate for a person -- because it is futile, and will not lead to recovery -- but the decision maker doesn't understand or fears making the choice to let go. All this argues that people need to learn about modern life sustaining measures, think about what they want, and discuss it with their family.