Basics of Durable Power of Attorney

Nobody can predict the future. Your doctor cannot promise that you are in perfect health with no accidents on the horizon or have an undetected illness. You cannot declare that there will be no debt or financial obligations that you cannot ever handle yourself. Life happens and sometimes in ways we least expect. If you have a living will, your wishes are protected only as far as life sustaining efforts are concerned. There is no power for any surgeries or care decisions that may be required. No provisions for your financial obligations, your real estate, your taxes.

A power of attorney is a type of legal document in which you declare that you are assigning another person (a close relative or a trusted friend) the authority to make certain decisions on your behalf while you are temporarily unable. The person to whom you give these rights to is called an "agent". You, as the designator, are called the "principal." The agent is a "fiduciary", which means that he or she must perform any decisions with your best interests in mind and completely in good faith. Good faith simply means that something is being done without the intent to deceive.

For a regular document, a "limited" agreement, the agent can only perform tasks that the principal could perform themselves if they were able. The inability to perform the tasks could be a temporary absence or hospital stay. In order for the agent to be able to perform these tasks in the event of a disability such as a coma or mental incapacitation, legal verbiage must be incorporated into the document to make it a "durable power of attorney". This document goes into effect immediately upon signing. What this means is that even if you are capable of performing these tasks and making these decisions, your agent can make decisions independently of you. This is why it is of utmost importance to have an agent that is trustworthy.

For health care issues, an agent cannot commit the principal to a mental institution, agree to convulsive treatment, sign off on psychosurgery, agree to to abort a pregnancy of the principal, and agree to neglect of comfort care (withhold water and artificially supplied nutrition if it deemed in the the best interest of the principal).

For financial issues, an agent cannot convey your real estate, pay themselves out of your money, make gifts or loans with your money to a third party, make gifts or loans with your money to themselves or the power to appoint another person as an alternate or successor agent.

Without any provisions made by you, health care decisions would be made by your physicians or medical care team. Financial decisions would be left to the laws of your state or a conservator would be appointed after court proceedings. In order for sound health care and financial decisions to be made, should you ever be unable to perform these tasks yourself, a durable power of attorney could be a very wise decision for you. The power can be revoked at any time by you, should you feel that would be in your best interest.

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Preparing and Writing Your Own Living Will

The living will is an important document that you can use most especially when you want to plan ahead the method of how you will be treated when you are in the state of not being able to make your decisions when it comes to health care. Aside from that, it is also important when you want other people to own the assets that you currently have when you die.

This gives the family and friends that you left an idea as to what kind of life support you would like when you are in a vegetative state and conflicts will be resolved when it comes to where your property will proceed on who will be the one to manage it. Since death is inevitable, preparing a last will is significant. Here are easy steps on how you will do it.

When it comes to your health care, you might want to go to your family doctor. He or she will be the person that will explain to you the medical support that you will want when you are in a very serious state in your health. You can choose to decide for a DNR or Do Not Resuscitate orders where you will not be receiving any medical support.

You have to talk to your physician and get a printed form that will serve as your living will. You can even get it from your state government. But there is software on the internet wherein you can just make your own living will. Today, you can purchase and get anything on the internet. You can even choose to buy stun gun online. There is a preset template which you can fill in.

Make sure that you know to whom you will distribute the copies of your last will. You must give to your private lawyer, your physician or your personal health care provider and to your trusted family or friend some copies. You can keep the original copy for yourself on a safe place. It will only be taken once it is needed at very unpredictable situations one of these days.

Moreover, you have to meet up with your attorney because he will sign the document and get two witnesses to completely make it legal. When the will is legalized, it will be followed by any health care provider. It is a legitimate document that you have prepared which will be the guide for other people to follow when the time comes that you will not be able to decide for yourself.

If you want to do some changes, you can just consult your personal lawyer and follow the necessary requirements when it comes to making a new one. The most recent is the one which will be considered as legal. Policies must be followed to regulate things. Even with the use of tazer guns, the owner must be legally compliant. This is just like how you do it with your will.

This is how you will prepare a living will. Since it is a very important document, you must follow all the requirements and rules so that all will be legal and you will be able to use it without any trouble when the time comes.

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