A Living Will And How It Is Used

We all heard the term Living Will, but what does this mean and how can it affect our life? Simply put, the Living Will is a document that includes a set of advanced directives designed to tell other people what they should do with your health in case you are unable to communicate your preferences.

Through a Living Will, you are appointing a person to make decisions when you fail to do that. In case you need estate planning help, you will need to focus on creating a Living Will. This can help you provide the guidance that your family needs, especially if one of the members is unable to express his wishes and demands in this particular situation.

A thing to note in here is that this type of document is imperative for understanding what treatments are ok for a person and which are not. Most of the time, the lack of a Living Will can bring in various disputes between family members that have different opinions about your health. These conflicts can easily be solved if you create a Living Will, as this will showcase your wishes in the long term.

Creating a living will is rather easy. However the requirements will vary from one state to the other. This is why you should hire a lawyer as he or she will be able to help you in this regard. A thing to note here is that the requirements tend to vary most of the time, which is why you want to hire a professional to deal with this type of problem. While you can create such a will without an attorney, the one you create on your own might not be valid from a legal standpoint. This is why it’s important to talk with a professional who has experience with living wills in this situation.

As we mentioned above, the Living Will includes a multitude of advance directives that will make it easy for a person to state his/her wishes in as many details as possible. You are not restricted that much by the Living Will, the idea here is that you have to showcase your requirements and ideas, which is something that is relatively simple to do. However, for the will to be valid, it needs to meet the state requirements when it comes to witnesses and notarization.

Personal communication is always preferred whenever possible but the Living Will can be used when necessary if a person is unable to talk and communicate his or her wishes. It is important to note that these documents are accompanied by a durable power of attorney (DPOA) which is a person (agent) appointed by the creator of the living will (principle). The agent is usually someone who is well trusted by the principle as they have the authority and responsibility to carry out health care related, financial and legal responsibilities on behalf of the principle.

As you can see, the Living Will is a document that everone should have especially as they get older and are more likely to have an event that could affect their ability to communicate their end-of-life wishes.