Hi. I’m Bridget Mackay and here’s another installment in my “Cautionary Tales” series of my video blogs. And this story is about a same-sex couple who were sort of old school. One was 78 and one was 82, and they never registered — that sort of was an evolution that came later in same-sex relationships — or married. Another fact that’s good to know in this story is neither of them had Wills, Healthcare Directives or Powers of Attorney, so they have no Estate planning documents. They were sort of living happily together and aging.
Well, it came to be that the younger of the couple, the 78-year old, started to show signs of dementia, and early onset Alzheimer’s. And I think what I see in my practice, at least, in long-term relationship couples, the early signs of this disease often are explained away by the other partner. And part of it is probably denial and not wanting to have to deal with it. And I think we often confuse some dementia symptoms with maybe senility or just getting old. Unfortunately in this case, he progressed fairly quickly. And in some Alzheimer’s cases, they get violent on occasion and do some crazy things. And in this case, the partner was trying to put out the fire in the fireplace with the garden hose, you know, some dangerous things around the house. So it was clear that he needed to get out of the house and his 82-year old partner could not care for him. He was placed in a skilled nursing facility but the skilled nursing facility wanted someone to sign a contract that would be financially responsible. And by this point, the partner was not, who was ill, being placed in the facility, didn’t have the confidence to sign any contracts. And there were no documents in place to identify the person to do that for him.
What happened to this couple was, they came to see me, and we had to start a conservatorship on the partner that was in the nursing home. And the conservator who filed for it was not his 82-year old partner because by this time he felt too old, and just didn’t want the responsibilities that would go with making healthcare decisions and financial decisions. So, it was a family friend who stepped up to be a conservator. And what we petitioned the court for was to give her the power to make all his medical decisions and all his financial decisions. That may seem simple as I’m laying it out, but the truth is when you ever engage in a conservatorship, and that occurs when someone is incapacitated or does not have the ability to pay their bills, to feed themselves, to make medical decisions, and they don’t have any Estate planning documents in place, they have to go to the court in order to appoint… So the court can appoint someone to do all those things for them. And that’s basically the gist of a conservatorship.
At the end of the day for this couple, and for this individual, it took 3 months of being in court and requiring… Getting all the required documents filed and $10,000 in attorney’s fees to finally establish a conservatorship for him. And in that time, from the time he was placed into facility to the time we finally got letters of conservatorship, it was more like four or five months because we had to identify people and they came to the attorney, and me, and try to figure this whole thing out. So it was about five months, and in that whole time, no one was making his healthcare decisions. He had to rely on the best judgment of the doctors in his facility and the nurses because nobody else had authority over his medical care to tell them what to do, which was really the sad thing. And above all else, it was a very expensive process when he, early on, could’ve done a Power of Attorney, Healthcare Directive, Will, or Trust for far, far less.
So the moral of this story again is, as they will be with all of these, in this case no documents failed them and they had to rely on the court. There is always a safety net of the court, either through conservatorship or probate, when it comes to your affairs. But better to have them in place, in the way that you want them, before you have to use that safety net. Thanks.
