What Documents are Needed for Estate Planning?

Video Transcript

"So what sort of documents should you have when you're doing estate planning? Well, you can do a trust, and trusts are a little bit more elaborate than wills are, but trusts are good in some respects because they can do a better job of managing your assets if you're incapacitated, and when you die, if you've got a trust, and the trust is done correctly, you can avoid this thing called probate. Wills, on the other hand, are good because they're simple, people understand them, and when you do a will you get a power of attorney. Let's just kind of summarize the documents you might need if you do a trust, and then will summarize the documents you might need if you do a will. If you do a trust, you get a little will. And the little will is called a pour over will. It's spelled p-o-u-r. If you pass away, and you are supposed to have something owned by your trust, and you left it in your name, then the pour over will says when you die, we don't give it to your spouse, we don't give it to your kids, we give it to the trust, and it pours your assets into the trust then. The problem with a pour over will, by the way, is you go through probate, and the reason people get trusts is to avoid probate. But you get the pour over will, hopefully it'll work. Whether you do a will or a trust, you need powers of attorney. You need financial powers of attorney. Financial powers of attorney will allow somebody to manage your assets if you're incapacitated. You need a durable power of attorney. Durable means that that it will survive even if you're incapacitated. You absolutely need medical documents. You need advanced directives. Advanced directives are sometimes used as a term that covers everything from a medical power of attorney to allow somebody to make a routine medical decision for you, to a living will that allows somebody to pull the plug on you. But regardless of what you call it, you need one more thing on the medical side, and that's some called a HIPPA release. HIPPA's a very difficult and very problematic health care privacy law. If you have a HIPPA release, you list on the HIPPA release everybody you want the doctors to be able to talk to, and the doctors can talk to. Now without a HIPPA release, you might find your family has no access to your medical professionals."