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Mar 30, 2015
By Estate Planning Attorney Rick Law. Senior Advocate and Elder Law attorney at the Estate Planning Center of Law Elder Law. Located in Aurora, IL, Law Elder Law provides wills and trusts, estate planning, litigation, probate, guardianship services, and much more.
It is important to understand when planning that you can appoint multiple agents. For example, someone who is in the early stages of Alzheimer’s may wish to appoint one person to take care of finances (power of attorney for financial matters) and another to take care of personal and health-care decisions (power of attorney for health care).
Family members typically act as the agent(s), but some people choose to ask a close friend to serve as their agent. Whomever you may pick as an agent, it is critical to pick someone that you really trust. It is imperative that your agent be on board with the decisions that you have made regarding organ donations and life support.
Life support certainly is the crux of a durable power of attorney for health care. There are many examples of cases in which the appointed agent has refused to follow through on the direction provided by the principal. This often involves cases in which the principal does not want life support and the agent is incapable of removing life support. Frequently, this happens when a parent appoints a child to serve as agent.
Often, people are pressured to pick a family member, but that family member may not be the right choice for religious, moral, or other reasons. The family member may not be willing to follow the wishes of someone who did not want life support. That is an example of choosing the wrong power of attorney agent.
If you’re ready to get your ducks in a row, please give our office a call at 800-310-3100. Your first consultation is absolutely free. We’ll let you know what steps you need to take, right now, to protect yourself and your family. Call now.
Sincerely,
Rick L. Law, Attorney, Estate Planner for Retirees.
Rick was named the #1 Illinois elder law estate planning attorney by Leading Lawyer Magazine. He has been quoted in the Wall Street Journal, AARP Magazine, TheStreet.com, and numerous newspapers and articles. Rick is the lead attorney for Law Elder Law, LLP, focusing in Estate Planning, Guardianship, and Nursing Home Solutions. His goal is to give retirees an informed edge when it comes to dealing with an uncertain future. Get flexible retirement strategies that work during good times and bad, plus information on how you can save your home and assets from being used to pay for long term care. Call 800-310-3100 for your free consultation now!
“We would be lost without Law Elder Law! We walked in their doors over a year ago feeling lost and confused. With a father/father-in-law suffering from Alzheimer’s, we were overwhelmed by the Medicaid process, selling his home, protecting the assets he worked for his entire life, and finding him a memory-care facility that we could trust as his new home.
Law Elder Law helped with all of it! From the minute we walked out of our first meeting, we knew we (and he) were in good hands. We could not have possibly navigated all that had to be done without their expertise.”
A.M., Client of Law Hesselbaum and Law Elder Law