Hi, my name is Bridget Mackay. I am an attorney and I practice in the area of living wills, trusts and probates. In this next series of blogs for the month of January, I am addressing all your New Year’s resolutions for 2012 which often is to get a living trust or to start planning your estate.
I want to kick it off with a little discussion about estate planning. What does that mean? I think when you often hear that term or someone says I am an estate planning attorney, people often think that you only work with folks who have a mansion and Bentley cars and lots of money. And the truth is that that’s not true. An estate plan includes several documents that basically put your affairs in order. So if you have any possessions or you have children or you have a house or you care about where your possessions go and who makes your healthcare decisions, then you need an estate planner and you should do it, for your New Year’s resolution.
Why should you do it? I believe that it’s the most loving thing you can do for your family. It gives them direction at a time that they need it most. Whether that’d be you’re injured or you’ve passed away and it’s not only for distributing your possessions. Part of your estate planning includes a healthcare directive which deals with your medical issues. If you can’t make your medical decisions, you choose who makes those decisions and you tell them what your philosophies are about end-of-life decisions.
How would you create your estate plan, now that you have this as your New Year’s resolution? The best thing to do is go to an attorney you trust that works in this area of law and they will prepare for you several documents which I will discuss over the next series of blogs. They include a living trust or will to deal with death or incapacity, they include healthcare directives to deal with catastrophic health events or when you start losing your ability to make your medical decisions. And it also includes a power of attorney for your financial decisions, in case, there is a time where you temporarily cannot pay your mortgage or your bills, your choosing someone to do that for you. But I will go into more detail in future blogs. Stay tuned for the month of New Year’s resolutions and New Beginnings. And again I’m Bridget Mackay, Law Offices of Bridget Mackay, give us a call.
