Posts Tagged ‘Children’

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What’s Your Legacy?

Sunday, August 22nd, 2010

The word legacy means different things to different people.  Oftentimes, clients talk about a legacy in a financial sense.  In fact, legacy is a synonym for inheritance.  How about other forms of legacy?   

Legacy could include an opportunity to pass on your spiritual and ethical values and beliefs to your family and friends.  I experienced this type of legacy in a very powerful sense this week when I attended a funeral for a client’s father.  The stories told about this man were quite remarkable, as he understood that his mission in life included teaching his children about his faith, as well as, witnessing to others about his beliefs.  During his funeral, no less than ten people spoke about the profound impact he made on their lives.  What a wonderful way to be remembered!

The second type of legacy that comes to mind involves clients who tell me that their parents and grandparents are still living, many of whom are in their 80s, 90s and older.  This generation is often thought of as the greatest generation, having lived through the Great Depression and protecting our freedom in at least one World War.  One of my clients told me about her grandmother, who was in her 90s.  I had asked her how she thought the greatest generation, in particular women of that generation, expressed themselves and their love for their families.  She instantly agreed with me that it was through their wonderful cooking. 

Perhaps then legacy should include family traditions and recipes that are can be passed on from one generation to the next.  Of course, women of the greatest generation did not write down their recipes, as many things were a little bit of this and a little bit of that.  However, if you spent a few minutes with them, I bet you could come up with something that resembles a recipe that you can pass on as a part of your family’s traditions. My wife before her mother died spent time with her mother and grandmother learning about some of the wonderful family recipes that would have been lost had they not been memorialized in writing. 

You might be asking, “what does this have to do with estate planning?”  Planning your estate can be much more that how much money you leave your family.  It can include passing on traditions, many of which may be more valuable to your family then your stock portfolio.  My advice then is to do two things: first, spend time with your family and enjoy it.  If you are fortunate enough to have older family members who are still living, take advantage of their wisdom and experiences.  Second, take time to memorialize anything and everything about your family.  Make a family tree, take pictures, compose your family history and write out your recipes!

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Multiple Health Care Surrogates

Wednesday, July 29th, 2009

I am working with a client from South Tampa who named two of her children to act jointly as her health care surrogates.  Now that my client is suffering  from some pretty significant medical problems, her children are now required to act for her.  Unfortunately, these children do not get along very well and do not have same opinions for their mother’s medical care.  As a result, they are fighting all of the time, and their mother’s care is not consistent.  The doctors and nurses are stuck in the middle of this, since they are getting different directions from two people who have the legal authority to act. 

You’d probably say that this problem is unique and would never happen to you.  And hopefully you would be right, but do you really want to risk it?  After all, we are talking about your medical care at a time when you could be your most vulnerable. 

So, here’s a very simple suggestion: consider naming only one child as your surrogate.  Or perhaps you might want to name someone other than a child as your surrogate.  That way, your children’s fighting won’t delay or hinder your medical care. 

If you do want a child to serve as your surrogate, consider also adding a statement to your medical directives that it is your hope and wish, but not direction, that your named surrogate talk to your other children about your care for their imput.  This will keep everyone “in the loop”, but only one child will have the legal authority to act for you.  Of course, you can’t stop your children from fighting about your care, but at least it will not be delayed and everyone will know what course of action is being taken for you.

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Helping your Adult Children with their Planning

Thursday, May 21st, 2009

Recently I met with a client from New Tampa with his son who had just turned age 18. We decided to include his son in our conferences and even named him as a successor trustee on his trust, as my client feels that his son is “a forty year old trapped in an eighteen year old’s body.” After spending some time with his son, I cannot find any reasons to disagree with him, and so I understand why he wanted his son’s involvement in his planning.

What makes his planning worth writing in this blog is twofold.  First, he has asked his son to serve as his medical surrogate along with his wife, something that we do not normally see in our practice. After having met with his wife, she thought that including her son in the decision-making was a wonderful idea.  She expressed her concerned that she may not be able to help her husband depending upon future medical conditions in light of high emotions that will likely exist. As a result, for the first time in my practice, I named a parent and a young adult child to work together as a medical surrogate.

While that planning may not be unique, the second part of his planning is an eye-opening reminder for our clients with young adult children that even their children may need planning..  My client had advised me that while touring colleges with his son, he discovered rather quickly that he did not have any legal right to obtain access to his medical records, his financial records or any other records that the school has for him. As a result, while his son does not have any assets in his name, we decided to work on his “estate plan”, which for the time-being will include a Power of Attorney and Medical Directives. As a part of that planning, we are putting together a HIPAA authorization to allow his father to gain access to his records, regardless of his son’s health at the time.

This meeting with my client’s son, while rather straightforward, prompts me to suggest to clients that they should have discussions about estate planning with their children and the need for them to have some basic documents as they become adults.

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