3 Essential Legal Documents

Hello, and welcome back to Legal Tip Tuesday. Vince Quatrini with you in my new background—my home office—complying with the governor’s order. Today I wanted to talk to you about three essential legal documents you should have in these scary times: the power of attorney, the durable medical power of attorney (known as a living will), and a last will and testament. These three documents in combination will give you the peace of mind that you need if something happens. Let’s start with the power of attorney. It simply is you giving the right to someone else to act for you—that can be a significant other, it could be a friend, it could be a bank or a financial institution. No special requirement, but it needs done before you become mentally unable to make that decision, otherwise you need a guardian. If you need a guardian we have to go to court; if we have to go to court, it’s much more expensive.

The second document is called the living will or medical durable power of attorney. The point of it? If you are unable to make a decision, if you are in a vegetative state or in an irreversible medical condition, somebody’s been appointed to act for you—to make those medical decisions that need made in conjunction with your medical provider. “I don’t want tube feeding.” “I don’t want extraordinary measures to be done to keep me alive.” Those are the kinds of things that we check off in our living wills with our clients when we sit across the table from them and think out loud about all of these life important decisions. The final document is your will. Do you have a will? Is it up to date? Have you changed it since you’ve had a child? Have you changed it since someone in the will has passed away? It needs updated. Do you have a guardian for your minor children? What if your parents need a guardian at this point and you want to leave them money? Have you made provisions for that?

A will is an easy document to prepare; we do it all the time of course at our law firm. And we’re doing it now with COVID-19 all around us. We’ve made arrangements to do a phone interview with you, get all the information we need, prepare the document, and figure out a way to get it notarized without the in-person face-to-face that we typically do, so that you feel safe. And you then have the peace of mind that all of these documents are in place for you and your family. So, at QuatriniRafferty we’re here for you 24/7 by text, by telephone, by email. We wish you a very blessed Easter, and a very happy Passover holiday this coming Sunday. Stay safe, and until the next time, this is Vince Quatrini for Legal Tip Tuesday.