Power of attorney, living will and medical directive

0:01- What I wanna talk about in this video is the tools that we have at our disposal in order to have other people or other things act on our behalf when either we don't want to or we're not in a position to act on our behalf. So the first is regarding legal things.

0:16So you might say, why would I want someone else to act on my behalf? Well, it could be very complicated. Maybe I'm a child and I'm not in a position to understand all of the intricacies. Maybe, for example, someone's grandparents have left property for 10 grandchildren, and the only way you can divide it 10 ways is to sell the property.

0:37Well, who's going to be talking to the realtors and deciding on a price? And it's very hard to coordinate 10 people. So that's a situation where those 10 people might wanna delegate to one of them or to another party that they trust. And so this type of delegation of legal authority generally is called a power of attorney.

0:55Now, you have to be very careful with power of attorneys. You can imagine that the person who you're giving the power of attorney to has a lot of power, and so it needs to be someone that you generally trust to do what you think is the right thing. Now, there's several types of power of attorney.

1:11There's general power of attorney. This is where you're allowing them to do a broad set of tasks, especially legal tasks on your behalf. So this might be necessary for certain things, but you have to be very careful, once again, someone you really trust. The next is limited power of attorney.

1:24This is giving power of attorney for specific, a narrower set. Hey, maybe to negotiate this inheritance and to sell the property, but not for anything. They can't, you know, do other things with that power of attorney. Now, generally speaking, limited and general power of attorney, this is when you could have done it yourself, but you're just delegating it for simplicity or because that other person has more expertise or more time to do it.

1:45Now, there are situations where you aren't capable, and this is a durable power of attorney, where even if you get sick and you can't communicate, this person who you're giving the durable power of attorney to can still act on your behalf. Now, it's kind of morbid talk.

1:59None of us likes to think about how sick we might get or our friends and family might get, or we're all gonna die one day, and there's also tools there to give your instructions. A lot of you have heard of a will. A will is after you pass away, what are your instructions?

2:14A lot of folks associate it your instructions regarding your property, who you want to give it to, but it could be other things, like what kind of a funeral you want, et cetera. But you also probably wanna give instructions, and none of us like to think about this, I don't like to think about it at all, what if you get incapacitated in some way that you can't speak, you're in a coma?

2:32How does the hospital know what to do? For example, do you want to be given feeding tubes? Do you wanna be on life support, or do you wanna just be let go? And so this is something where a living will plays into effect. While it's still, you're not dead yet, so the will isn't to effect.

2:48You're living, but you can't communicate yourself. So this is a document that you have helped write ahead of time to say what would you want while you're still alive? And maybe you're going to pass away soon. Can your organs be used in a certain way? Do you want them to, you know, keep you on life support, et cetera, et cetera.

3:08Now, oftentimes you wanna do a combination of that and appoint someone who you trust to have your best interest in mind. And that's where a medical directive or an advanced directive is good. It's kind of a combination of of a living will and also giving someone some power.

3:25There might be some edge cases that you didn't think of in a living will, and you're like, "Okay, I trust this person. This person knows what I want. And if I'm not in a position, and it's so morbid, they can speak on my behalf." So how do you do all of this? Well, there are actually some websites that will help you do this quite easily and relatively inexpensive.

3:42There's some state-specific forms you can use. And then if you have a little bit more complicated, a lot of assets, a lawyer is always an option. That tends to be the more expensive option. But that's how you would go about creating these types of documents. And none of us like to think about them, but it is a good idea to plan ahead.

4:00It makes everyone's life easier if and when, heaven forbid, these situations arise.