It’s A Legal Document Giving Power of Attorney to Someone
Video Transcribed: My name is Jason Lile. I am a Tulsa probate lawyer. And if you haven’t seen my other videos on living revocable trusts or pour-over wills, I’d encourage you to watch those. But I’m going to move on with this video with the third and fourth types of documents that I encourage people to have when they come to me to do some estate planning. And those would be powers of attorney.
Specifically, this is just my preference, which I find to be the cleanest way to do it, is a general durable power of attorney and medical power of attorney. And we’ll add the fifth type of document, too, because that doesn’t deserve its video. It’s a small thing.
So a general durable power of attorney. What is it? You may have experienced a problem in your lifetime where let’s say; you’re married, a roommate, or a partner. You need to call the cable company because you want to cancel HBO; if that’s even a thing, you want to cancel Netflix.
So when you do that, the bank, the cable company, the car company, whoever you’re dealing with may say, you’re not on the account, sir or ma’am, and we cannot talk to you. They’re very serious about that.
So one thing you can do to help somebody else conduct all of your affairs in your place if you’re incapacitated, or even if you want them to do that right now, and just have some help. In contrast, you’re not incapacitated, a general durable power of attorney.
It gives somebody else the power to do the things you would do with your affairs. Most of the time, that’s if you’re incapacitated, but sometimes people draw them up and just say, no, I just want somebody else to be able to handle my affairs if I ask them to, okay?
The second type of document you need is a medical power of attorney, which is what it sounds like. It allows somebody to make medical decisions for you. And in this power of attorney, we put any specific wishes that you might have, okay?
Because, let’s face it, if you’re incapacitated, and you need somebody to help you make decisions, then it’s helpful to designate somebody so that it doesn’t just default to whomever or the doctors have no guidance. Because if the doctors have no guidance, they will do everything in their power to keep you alive, depending on insurance and resources, et cetera.
And the very last document that I encourage people to have, which isn’t always separate from a medical power attorney but certainly can be, is simply a living will. It’s kind of deceptive to call it a will.
It’s a short document that just says whether or not you want things like artificial food, hydration, resuscitation, and if you’ve ever met anybody who’s been resuscitated and is in a vegetative state or paralyzed or on a ventilator or anything like that. If you do not want that to happen to you, or let’s say you do want all of the efforts that could be made medically to save you, then you need to put it in a document.
Hospitals hand those out. But I like to put them together with a package along with the living revocable trust, a power of attorney, the medical power of attorney, and the portable wills, so they’re all in one place.
It makes it convenient for the next person to take care of you, to find them all. If you ever need a Tulsa Estate Planning Attorney, a Tulsa Will Drafting Attorney, or a Tulsa Trust Attorney, you can contact me at oklahomawillandtrust.com.