Should Mom Do A Living Will?
My aging mother is considering changing her will to a living will to make things easier and more secure should something happen to her. She does have a medical lien on her prop. that we hope to remove soon. What are the advantages to this move? Thanks.
it makes it easier to execute the will and follow the "wishes" of the deceased..........km
a Living Will is not a Will. A "Will" is used to wrap up a person's affairs once they die. a "Living Will" is used to inform the doctors/hospitals/family of the person's medical wishes while they are still alive. At least in my state, it's only a guide and the family still makes the final decisions.
Living Wills dictate medical treatment, etc. A Will is something that dicates how a praty wishes their assets to be passed on. They are two seperate documents.
By chance are you saying that she is considering changing her will to :
1. a living trust and
2. a living will ?
It looks like a little more clarification is in order here.
A "Living Will" is absolutely NOT a "last" or tetamentary will, but is intended for written directions by a person as to whether to "pull the plug" if that person becomes so incapacitated he/she cannot make the decision himself.
We all know of the well publicized cases where a "vegetable" case patient, frequently on life support, at unbeleivable high costs to the family, has NOT done a LW ahead of time, to tell the family what he/she would do if he/she could do it personally...and to give them clearcut directions as to his/her wishes regarding keeping the life support going.
So, without a LW, maybe the family is fighting over whether to pull the life support or keep it going, and all this could have been avoided by use of a LW.
Some of the best done legal forms I've seen have been done for the Medical profession and hospitals frequently have them available for the taking.
I personally encourage everyone to do a LW and make sure the family knows where it is, so the family can see that person's directions in writing and won't have to wrangle over what the person would have wanted should "vegetative" occur.
I trust Suze for her honesty. You might want to read, look around on her site as one example. www.suzeorman.com
http://www.hayhouse.com/suzeorman/yahoo/index.html