Important Considerations for End-of-Life Planning
Hello, my name is attorney Jason Lile and I am the OklahomaWillandTrust.com attorney in your area in northeastern Oklahoma. I wanted to talk to you a little bit about end-of-life issues. As an estate planning attorney, I do draft trusts and I do draft wills to help people manage their end-of-life issues. But there are a lot of things that might not occur to you before you have a conversation with a professional who deals with these things. That’s important, you know, as the old saying goes, you don’t know what you don’t know. And you need to consider some things that have to do with end-of-life planning.
One of the things that I do is in my office I have a list and it’s a set of questions that I ask my clients to make sure that they’ve considered. Just to give you some examples, have you considered giving somebody all of your online passwords? Have you considered giving somebody the code to your phone or telling them that you don’t want people to have the code on your phone? So your digital life is one thing people often overlook. The second thing is, have you considered conveying to somebody what your wishes are for burial, cremation, natural, you know, ecological burial? Those are becoming more and more popular. What do you want? Do you have a cemetery plot? Does somebody know where the documents regarding the cemetery plot are? Those kinds of things. The second thing is, do you have firearms? Are they antiques? Do you, you know, if they’re firearms that require special permits with suppressors or things of that nature, have you talked to somebody about a gun trust that allows somebody to step into your shoes with those, that are permitted? You know, just various things like that.
Consulting with an Experienced Attorney
What is your desire for end-of-life care with regard to artificial hydration, artificial food delivery, and resuscitation? Do you want to be kept alive on a ventilator? Do you know these things? Do you want to donate your organs? There is a list of things that you should at least talk to somebody about and it helps if you put those instructions in a will or a trust so that the person who takes care of your affairs when you pass away is aware and can carry those out for you. So when it comes to end-of-life issues, you should consult with an experienced estate planning lawyer in Tulsa. Contact us at oklahomawillandtrust.com