Why Plan? During our lives there are several events that are usually meticulously planned often many months ahead, such as births, birthdays, engagements, anniversaries and marriages. Yet there is one event in life, which many not only do not plan, but actively avoid considering at all, let alone discuss with family and friends. |
More often than not, broaching the subject of our passing or potentially becoming mentally incapacitated is a discussion many family members are not open to engaging in.
Yet dying is an event that is inevitable for each and every one of us – we are all going to die at some time in our life and as difficult or sensitive as it may be, it is our responsibility to have such discussions with family and close friends and to ensure that our final wishes concerning the distribution of our assets and our personal and medical care are understood and honoured by those close to us. The most appropriate time to document this is while we are still fit and healthy.
Some people find that the act of considering in detail how they wish to be cared for if they are no longer able to care for themselves, and how they wish to distribute their assets when they die, helps them to bring greater care and clarity to how they currently live day to day. If we reach the conclusion that we want our final days to be dignified and caring, it begs the question, do we offer that to ourselves each day?
It is our responsibility to ensure that we have the necessary legal documents in place so that we are cared for, as we would wish, should we not be able to make decisions about our health care, and so that our assets are used in precisely the way we want them to be.
How our assets are used after we are gone is a decision that deserves our full consideration, as it will have on-going effects for both the deceased and those whom they leave behind.
Your rights and wishes cannot be known and respected if they are not properly documented. Thus it is important to have documents in place to provide for your future legal, health and financial decisions, and to ensure that these are respected by family, attending medical professionals and carers.
If you do not have such documents prepared when they are required, a court or tribunal may need to make decisions for you. Hence, decisions may be made on your behalf that could be against your wishes if you have not planned ahead.
More than ever before, there is a growing awareness in the community of the important need to prepare for a time when we may be unable to make our own decisions. Many people are familiar with a Will as a means of forward planning and for some time in the UK and many other places around the world it has been possible to plan ahead and appoint a person as an attorney, to make decisions for you, including when you are no longer have capacity to make them for yourself. It is possible to appoint an attorney to do things on your behalf more generally, but here we focus more on Lasting Powers of Attorney, which have effect if someone has lost mental capacity to make decisions for themselves.
You can appoint an Attorney to manage your financial affairs and make decisions about your money and property, and separately to make decisions about your health, welfare and how you live.
In the UK (the position in other places around the world will vary), there are currently five main documents for planning ahead. These are:
Storage of your planning ahead documents
Once you have completed your documents it is important to:
NOTE: Unless otherwise stated, the information in this document is based on the laws of England. People living in other places are invited to make their own inquiries. This document is for general information purposes only and does not constitute, and is in no way an alternative to obtaining professional legal advice.
Yet dying is an event that is inevitable for each and every one of us – we are all going to die at some time in our life and as difficult or sensitive as it may be, it is our responsibility to have such discussions with family and close friends and to ensure that our final wishes concerning the distribution of our assets and our personal and medical care are understood and honoured by those close to us. The most appropriate time to document this is while we are still fit and healthy.
Some people find that the act of considering in detail how they wish to be cared for if they are no longer able to care for themselves, and how they wish to distribute their assets when they die, helps them to bring greater care and clarity to how they currently live day to day. If we reach the conclusion that we want our final days to be dignified and caring, it begs the question, do we offer that to ourselves each day?
It is our responsibility to ensure that we have the necessary legal documents in place so that we are cared for, as we would wish, should we not be able to make decisions about our health care, and so that our assets are used in precisely the way we want them to be.
How our assets are used after we are gone is a decision that deserves our full consideration, as it will have on-going effects for both the deceased and those whom they leave behind.
Your rights and wishes cannot be known and respected if they are not properly documented. Thus it is important to have documents in place to provide for your future legal, health and financial decisions, and to ensure that these are respected by family, attending medical professionals and carers.
If you do not have such documents prepared when they are required, a court or tribunal may need to make decisions for you. Hence, decisions may be made on your behalf that could be against your wishes if you have not planned ahead.
More than ever before, there is a growing awareness in the community of the important need to prepare for a time when we may be unable to make our own decisions. Many people are familiar with a Will as a means of forward planning and for some time in the UK and many other places around the world it has been possible to plan ahead and appoint a person as an attorney, to make decisions for you, including when you are no longer have capacity to make them for yourself. It is possible to appoint an attorney to do things on your behalf more generally, but here we focus more on Lasting Powers of Attorney, which have effect if someone has lost mental capacity to make decisions for themselves.
You can appoint an Attorney to manage your financial affairs and make decisions about your money and property, and separately to make decisions about your health, welfare and how you live.
In the UK (the position in other places around the world will vary), there are currently five main documents for planning ahead. These are:
- A Will is a legal document that clearly sets out your wishes for the distribution of your assets after your death. Having a clear, legally valid and up-to-date Will is the best way to help ensure that your assets are protected and distributed according to your wishes. Should you die without a Will your estate may be divided according to rules that are found in legislation – rules that may not reflect your wishes and which may cause undue hardship, cost and delay for those to whom you wish to leave your assets. It is also important for parents of young children to consider how they would like the children cared for and by whom, should the parents die while the children are still young, and this too can generally be accomplished in a will.
- A Property and Financial Affairs Lasting Power of Attorney is a legal document that allows you to appoint one or more persons (referred to as attorneys) to act on your behalf. It gives the person acting as attorney the authority to manage your legal and financial affairs, including buying and selling property, shares and other assets, paying your bills, collecting your pension or benefits, operating your bank accounts and spending money on your behalf. You can specify whether you want the appointment of your attorney(s) to take effect immediately, or only when and if you stop being able to make decisions for yourself.
- A Health and Welfare Lasting Power of Attorney is also a legal document that allows you to appoint one or more persons as attorney to make decisions on your behalf, in this case about how you live your life when you are no longer capable of making these decisions for yourself. This would include decisions about your daily routine, what you eat, what services are provided to you at home, moving into a care home, your medical treatment, and if you elect, whether or not you receive life sustaining medical treatment. An attorney cannot make a will for you and they cannot change a will that you have made.
- An Advance Decision to Refuse Treatment is sometimes referred to as a ‘living will’, although it is totally unrelated to an actual will. It is a document by which you can state in advance that you wish to refuse specified medical treatment in specified circumstances. This direction will be binding even if the circumstances arise after you have lost mental capacity. Whilst it is possible to make an advance decision about treatment that you do not want to receive, you cannot make legally enforceable advance decisions about what treatment you would want to receive, i.e. doctors may decide not to carry out the treatment that you have requested if they consider it medically inappropriate.
- An Advance Statement is a record of how you wish to be cared for, and of your values and beliefs that relate to your care. Expressing your wishes about your care is likely to help those who may ultimately need to make decisions for you in your best interests, be that your attorney appointed under a Lasting Power of Attorney, family or medical professionals. If they know what your preferences are, and about your values they can make better decisions about your care.
Storage of your planning ahead documents
Once you have completed your documents it is important to:
- Store them in a secure place such as in a safe or with your solicitor and
- Advise the people you have appointed in your documents and key family members where your documents are stored.
NOTE: Unless otherwise stated, the information in this document is based on the laws of England. People living in other places are invited to make their own inquiries. This document is for general information purposes only and does not constitute, and is in no way an alternative to obtaining professional legal advice.