Episode Transcript
[00:00:23] Speaker A: Welcome to your life and legacy. I'm your host, Christopher Nudo. This is the show where we uncover how the choices you make today protect your loved ones and shape the legacy you leave behind.
Today, I'm joined by attorney Dionne Duckett, who concentrates her practice in estate planning and elder law.
Inspired by her own personal experiences caring for an aging and disabled family member, she brings both expertise and empathy to. To help families place peace of mind through proper legal planning. And today, we're starting with one of the most toughest but most important topics. Breaking the silence around death and money.
These conversations can often feel scary and taboo, but without them, families can be faced with legal challenges, financial stress, and even conflict.
Dion, thank you for joining and welcome to the show.
[00:01:29] Speaker B: Thank you, Christopher. I'm happy to be here today and happy to be talking with another estate planning attorney. So thank you for inviting me to join you.
[00:01:39] Speaker A: You're welcome. Hey, let's begin with this. Families often avoid the conversation about death and money, leaving loved ones completely unprepared for the legal realities that follow.
So, you know, you and I know that, you know, people will talk about everything in life, except they don't want to talk about dying, and they don't want to talk about their money. They'll talk about everything else. Why do you think this is and what are some of the methods you have to really coach them to dig into those empathetic times?
[00:02:16] Speaker B: Well, I think a lot of it is just upbringing. People are private people. Parents don't share with children what the finances are.
And I think they're just raised to be private. I think, just in general, you can't tell what's going on or what your options are without being open to discuss things.
And with my clients, often, you know, you give them that intake questionnaire and they don't fill out the things about the property and the assets. And, and so I let them know that working with me, of course there's attorney client privilege and that I can't really help them plan appropriately. I cannot give them the right type of assistance if they're not willing to share with me what their goals, what their fears are, what their assets are. They've worked hard to attain what they've attained. And so.
So it's not a cookie cutter plan. So we've got to know what's going on in order to plan appropriately.
[00:03:26] Speaker A: That's right. And so you get them to open up and share a little bit.
Do you find that even in. In those moments that they still, you know, they're like, hey, you're not going to be calling my kids and discussing this with them, are you? You know, do you. I still find that, that there's a lot of barriers that we have to help them overcome. What are some of the tools you use to make them feel comfortable?
[00:03:55] Speaker B: Well, just small talk.
I don't, and like, I don't usually suit up with my clients. I'm business casual. I think that makes them feel more comfortable.
Often with my clients, since they tend to be older, a lot of times their family members are bringing them in.
And I've even had clients who come in and their children didn't tell them what they were coming in for.
[00:04:20] Speaker A: Oh, my goodness.
[00:04:20] Speaker B: And that makes them very anxious. But I always, because like I said, you know, there's attorney client privilege. I always let the family members know that they have to sit in the waiting area while I talk with the client first. And then I let the client know that we don't have to have the family members present. If they want to have the family members present, they can, but I want to find out from them first what their goals and objectives are. And then at any point in time after that, if they want to bring family members in, they can.
[00:04:56] Speaker A: That's excellent. That's excellent. So you and I know that writing down the real core values of what a family wants and what their desires are is so important for when they die. But explain to our audience exactly why it's so important that we do things in an incredibly clear way for a very positive outcome.
[00:05:23] Speaker B: The clarity is important because I meet with the client and get to know them a lot of times, especially if they're private.
Then after they're gone, they can't explain what they were thinking, what they were trying to accomplish, why they've made the choices that they've made. And so by fleshing that out.
My experience with helping my dad plan was there wasn't a lot of conversation and getting to know who my dad was and what his goals and objectives were other than to get a plan done because he had Alzheimer's and so.
And I have a sister who has down syndrome. And so there are, you know, things that are common to people who have those challenges, but then there's, there's other things. And people have achieved different things, have different family dynamics, all of that. And even though I might schedule a 45 minute consultation on, often they can be two hours, you know, because we get into the conversation if they have. I, I met with a couple today and they want to make sure their dogs were taken care of. I showed them pictures of my dogs.
And so I think getting them comfortable, getting to know who they are and not being up here as an attorney, because they've got to teach me who they are and who their family family is, and then I can teach them the law to a certain degree.
[00:06:58] Speaker A: That's excellent. That. Absolutely. Well, more importantly, you can use the law as a tool where you then can craft something that's very personal for them. You know, speaking of things that are personal, you had shared with me just before we started just what really inspired you to become an estate planning lawyer. The experience you had getting your dad's plan originally done. Share with our viewers that experience again. I really think it was powerful.
[00:07:32] Speaker B: Yes, thank you.
Like I said, my dad had Alzheimer's and I was living out of state at the time, and he needed to do his plan planning.
And I went to the elder law attorney in the area, and for us, that was on the other side of town as well.
And she was a very good attorney, but didn't explain things. And I tried to, as a result, I tried to take things from an educational standpoint, I think, over time. Before, at the time I was out of law, I was serving as dean of students for my law school.
And I found since I've been doing this and the constant education and updating and all of that, I found that there may have been some things. I don't know why they were done the way they were done or why she chose to do them that way. And she didn't explain that to me. And I'm not knocking her. She's a well known, very good attorney. The approach is just a little different from the approach that, that I take. And so I try not to just process or take orders. I want to make sure it's a lot.
It's a lot. And so it's like drinking from a fire hose.
And one of the things that I'm doing now is because you meet with the clients, and I try to make sure they understand in the moment, because by the time they get to the parking lot, they may have forgotten, but.
[00:09:04] Speaker A: At least 80% of everything is true.
[00:09:07] Speaker B: Right. And so. But at least in the moment, they understood.
When I was training, I used to hear attorneys talk about their whiteboards, and I didn't have a whiteboard, but then I realized I was always diagramming on my legal pad and they would take it with them. So I started with the whiteboard. Now they take a picture of the whiteboard.
But yeah, that's the biggest thing I want them to be able to understand and feel comfortable. And then one of the things I'm doing now is putting a maintenance and education program in place. So hopefully we'll develop a lifelong relationship because repetition leads to retention. And so, excuse me. They may not understand today, but over time they can get to understand better.
[00:09:56] Speaker A: We have, we have one minute left in this segment. Just quickly tell our viewers about your maintenance plan and why it's important.
[00:10:04] Speaker B: Well, when it comes to planning, it's not a one and done thing. And so if you were to take a snapshot of, you know, when's the best time.
Well, there's a couple of things people think in terms of what happens to my stuff when I die. And planning is all not just about what happens when you die. It can deal with, you know, incapacity.
And so but the closest you are to death, the more you know what you want to happen to your stuff when you die or who you take care, who takes care of you when you become incapacitated.
So you need to update your planning to reflect changes in life. We know life changes. We know the law changes. We just had laws with the big beautiful bill that may impact some people's planning. And so you need to plan to update and take into consideration all the life changes, the legal changes and just changes in what you may want to accomplish.
[00:11:07] Speaker A: That's fantastic. So we'll be right back. Up next, we'll clear up one of the biggest myths out there, why estate planning isn't just for the wealthy, but for every family.
[00:11:23] Speaker B: Sam Foreign.
[00:11:52] Speaker A: Welcome back to your life and legacy. Want more of what you're watching? Stay connected with your life and legacy and every NOW MEDIA TV favorite, live or on demand, anytime you like. Download the free Now Media TV app on Roku or iOS and unlock non stop bilingual programming in English and Spanish on the move. You can also catch the podcast version right from our website at NowMedia TV.
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Hi, I'm here with attorney Dion Duckett. And now we're addressing a common myth that estate planning is only for the rich.
The truth is every family, no matter their income, needs a plan to protect their children, property and peace of mind.
Too many families believe that estate planning is out of reach and it's going to leave them in a vulnerable spot and it's going to be too expensive and create stressful legal problems because they don't do it. So let's just get right out of the box here, Dion, and ask. So do you have to have a lot of money to do estate planning?
[00:13:21] Speaker B: No, you don't. You don't have to have a lot of money. And it depends on your assets and your goals. Because like we mentioned in the first segment, it's not just about planning for what happens to your stuff when you die. You need to plan for what happens if you become incapacitated. If you can't take care of yourself, who would you want to take care of you?
If you can't take care of the people you care for, who would you want to take care of them? Same thing with your assets. Who would you want to manage your assets? If you don't plan for it, then if you become incapacitated, someone else is going to. The court is going to have to put someone in place, and it could be a family member or someone who you wouldn't support, and it could be a complete stranger if your family's fighting and you know the court can't determine who would be the best they might appoint, especially when it comes to your finances, a county conservator or a county fiduciary to do that.
[00:14:23] Speaker A: That would be a scary thing, right?
So, you know, I've heard about these things called trusts, and I've heard about these things called wills. And how do I know whether a.
What I need?
[00:14:36] Speaker B: Well, I think working with attorneys, working with an attorney is best.
And the trust and the will are documents, but they're tools. And so a lot of times people will call me and they say, I want an irrevocable. An irrevocable trust. Usually they're talking about a revocable trust, but they've heard of this thing called a trust. And they call and say, I want a trust. And, and so I think the better approach is to call the attorney and schedule the consultation. And then it's a counseling matter. You want to discuss what your goals, what your objectives, your fears, your concerns, and then the attorney can determine which tools to use.
Now, the difference between probate and.
Or using a will and using a trust, a will has to go through probate. And a lot of times people think that the executor can just take the will and do what it says do. But the word probate actually means to prove the will, and so it has to be proven valid, and the nominated executor has to be appointed by the court, and then you have to follow the court process. So you're on the court's timeline.
Going through probate is a Public process, people can pull the records once you filed.
It can be costly.
And then there's the time.
If you plan on avoiding probate, using a trust is one way to do that, because property, that's. So I think a definition of what probate property is. Probate property is property that's titled in your name alone at the time of death and it doesn't have beneficiary designations.
And so things like life insurance and retirement plans have beneficiary designations, so they wouldn't go through probate.
So a trust is a separate entity. So if your property is owned by a trust, it's not owned by you.
So that makes it non probate property. And so then a trust can have all of the same provisions that a will has as far as distribution of your property, but it can also deal with the incapacity. A will only becomes operable after death. And so I guess what we say, there's continuity with a trust and you're able to put your instructions. I tell people that the trust agreement is a book of instructions. It's your instructions, instructions on what you want done, how you want your property managed, if you're incapacitated, how you want it distributed if you die, and who you want to do that for you.
[00:17:29] Speaker A: Excellent, great. So I really understood that distinction there where you know, they're both a set of instructions, as you would say. But the trust really helps in that it avoids the complications and the nuances of probate, which as you mentioned, can be time consuming, public and expensive in today's day and age.
You know, unfortunately we're seeing a number of younger people dying a untimely death and they're leaving behind young children and young spouses. And it's a, it's a very unsettling time when these kind of things happen. How can having your estate plan in place help these tragic situations?
[00:18:20] Speaker B: That goes to deciding who you want to be in place.
So if you have done your planning, and typically we were talking about wills and trust wills, trusts only deal with property. So when you have a trust, you'll still have a will. And in that you can nominate who you would want to take care of your minor children or in the case of my family, I have a 39 year old sister who has down syndrome, so. So it may be a disabled child that you are caring for and you know, who best you would want to take care of them. If you don't specify and it's a nomination, you still have to go through the court process for that person to be Appointed, but you need to specify who you want. But then you also need to talk to the person that you're nominating to make sure that it's something that they're willing to do and are able to to do. I've had, not with nominated guardians for children, but I have had nominated executors come to me and say, I was at my cousin's funeral and I found out that they named me as the executor. I don't want to do that.
So you want to talk and that's where that privacy thing, you have to have conversations with people and then you don't want the court, you want the court to appoint who you want in place.
[00:19:47] Speaker A: Yes, excellent advice. Now, you were mentioning the fact that you have a disabled, I believe, sister, you said that has down syndrome. I've heard of these things called special needs trusts.
Is, is this do, do disabled adult children special needs trust, do they kind of go hand in hand? Can you tell us a little bit about that?
[00:20:11] Speaker B: Yes. So the special needs trust, when you have a family member who is disabled, they may need to qualify for government benefits that are means tested. And when we say means tested, we mean you can't have more than a certain amount of property, you can't have more than a certain amount of income. And so when people want to provide for a disabled or a family member or anyone who has a disability, you can put it in a special needs trust. Again, a special needs trust is a separate entity. So that person won't own it, and so it can't be counted against them. They can benefit from it.
And when you have a trust, you have somebody who is the manager of the property in the trust and that's called a trustee.
And so the trust, the person who is the special needs person, the beneficiary of the trust, cannot be the trustee. And so since they're not in control of the property and they don't own the property, it would not be counted against them when the government is adding up their assets to determine whether they qualify for the benefits.
[00:21:23] Speaker A: Excellent explanation. That was wonderful. I understood it completely.
So let me ask this for our viewers.
So if, if I'm coming to you and putting a trust together and I have a disabled child and I have another child that's not disabled and I want to leave money to charity, can all of this be orchestrated within the one trust agreement that you're putting together for me?
[00:21:52] Speaker B: Yes and no.
So, so you may have a few that, like there's different types of special needs trust.
But yes, with a trust, you can specify again who's going to take care of your finances if you become incapacitated. Then you specify who's going to handle things after you die as far as distribution.
And then you can break it up. You can decide whether someone's going to receive something outright or whether they'll receive it in trust. And you can provide different types of trust.
You can provide a special needs trust for someone who has special needs.
You can divide into charitable distributions and non charitable distributions. So there's a lot of different things that you can do. And there may also be other outside trusts that you want to do.
And I don't know how deep you want me to get. I don't want to go down that rabbit hole. But when it comes to that special needs planning, there's two types of special needs trust. There's one where you create it and fund it with your own property, and we call that a first party. And there's one where someone else creates it for a person who has a disability, and that's a third party, and so they have to be separated. So if you have someone who may not have had a disability and then something happens and they want to create a special needs trust with their own property, then that's a certain kind and it requires a payback if the government pays for their care.
So the government wants to be paid back. Whereas if a, a third person, a parent, creates one for a child, there's no payback provision. And so you have to keep those things separate. And so you may have more than one type of special needs trust or supplemental needs trust.
[00:23:58] Speaker A: Well, clearly you are the expert in the area, Dion, and I love that. If families are watching today and want to learn a lot more about you and your estate planning journey, what's the best place they can connect with you?
[00:24:14] Speaker B: Well, I have a website and that's www.ducketlaw llc.com. so it's D U C K E T T.
People often forget the LLC, but it's www.ducketlawlc.com and their telephone number is 404-349-2220. I'm licensed in Georgia, Maryland and the District of Columbia.
[00:24:41] Speaker A: Fantastic. Coming up, we'll focus on what matters most, how legal planning can protect your children if life takes an unexpected turn.
Welcome back to your life and legacy.
We're here with attorney Dion Duckett diving into one of the most important aspects of planning protecting children.
Too often, parents avoid this conversation because it feels too painful.
But legally, the cost of avoiding is far greater. Parents often fail to legally prepare for the unthinkable, leaving children vulnerable to uncertainty and court intervention.
You know, Dion, you and I both know that the thought of death just scares people and they don't want to talk about it.
But, and it's so often that the 90 year old client comes in with their 70 year old child when you know that 40 years ago they should have come in when their kids were just born, or I should say 60 years ago they should have come in when their kids were just, just born.
But they don't.
And so when we have these situations with death of young parents, we end up with guardianship like you and I discussed.
Why is it so important to plan when you have young children?
[00:26:52] Speaker B: It's important again, so that you have the people that you want in place. In place.
And then there's also things like money. So you may nominate someone to take care of your child or be the guardian of your child.
And you may have a different financial background from the person you've nominated. Maybe you have a lot more.
And so things when it comes to planning for your child, you may want them to still benefit from, from your finances and what you were providing for them. But now your child is being maybe introduced to another family that has cousins who are the same age and they may or may not be able to afford some of the same things. But if you are able to, you may want to provide a little for that family as well so that there's equality, especially for the family who is now taking care of your child. So those are things that you want to consider.
And again, the biggest thing is just making sure that you don't want your child in the foster system.
So you want to make sure you nominated and had that conversation and provided as best you can for what hopefully won't happen. You want to, what do we say, Pray for the best and plan for the worst.
[00:28:29] Speaker A: Amen to that.
So, so when we're for our viewers who are now thinking we've got them thinking about the fact that they need to get their planning done and they need to name guardians for their minor children. What are some of those characteristics in a person that would make a good guardian?
[00:28:50] Speaker B: For a good guardian, you want to make sure that it is someone who is capable of caring and capable of managing. For instance, my sister who has down syndrome, she's also type 1 diabetic. So you want to take all of those things into consideration.
You want to take into consideration that person's family situation.
Also there might be legal issues because the person would have to be put in place by the court. And so if they have a criminal, they may be a great family caregiver or something like that, but if they have a criminal background or something that may be of concern for the court.
So you have to think about what you would want done and whether the person you're selecting would be able to do that. And a lot of times you think about when you have a child, the first time you prepare to leave them with a babysitter, what do you go through to prepare? And people, they spend a lot of time preparing the instructions and putting things in place, and they're only going to be gone for a couple of hours. And so now you're talking about being gone for the rest of your life, possibly, or the rest of your child's life. And so you've got to put a lot of thought into it, write up the instructions if there's special needs or there's likes or dislikes, and then put a lot of consideration. It's not just about money when you're selecting somebody as a caregiver.
[00:30:25] Speaker A: So what are the roles and responsibilities then of a guardian? So you've identified the perfect guardian, or so you think the unthinkable happens and now the guardian gets appointed. What are some of the jobs, other than the obvious childcare, the obvious raising of the child? What are some of the more legal things that a guardian should expect to have to do?
[00:30:53] Speaker B: Well, the guardian is going to have to be accountable to the court. So if they're appointed by the court, they're going to have to do an annual update to the court. As far as, you know, the condition or where the child is living, all of those types of things. It's an annual status report because the court has to monitor and make sure that the child is being taken care of.
If there's a conservator in place, then it's the same thing. There would be an annual report and an accounting of what's been spent, what's come into the child's estate, everything that's been spent on the child. Usually there's a bond that's required, and so all of that has to be maintained and reported to the court. Otherwise you risk losing your appointment as the guardian or the conservator.
[00:31:45] Speaker A: And really, for our viewers who have heard both terms, how do you distinguish between guardian and conservator?
[00:31:53] Speaker B: Oh, that's a good question.
So a guardian is a person who is responsible for care.
And so where you live, dealing with the doctors and Making those types of decisions, going to school.
The conservator is a person who's responsible for the property. So in Georgia, it's guardian and conservator. In Maryland, they call it guardian of the person and guardian of the property. And so they can be the same person or they can be different people, because you may have somebody who's a really good caregiver, but you wouldn't want them to touch your money.
And the same. You may have somebody who's a great. You know, my account, my. My background is accounting and computer science. I'm a bean counter. You know, you may or may not want me to take care of your child. I think I'd be good at that, too. But not everybody is.
So.
So you look at all of those different things. But that's, to answer your question, one's guardian of the person.
They're responsible for the care and management of, you know, doctors and where you live and that type of thing. And the other is guardian of the property or conservator.
[00:33:08] Speaker A: Excellent. Excellent. So, and by the way, just for the record, Dion, I think you would be excellent at both.
So just before we started here, we discussed the fact that you really like to take an educational approach. And one of the blessings you have is that you teach in your local church and really help the people at the church understand why estate planning is important.
Tell us a little bit about your.
I would call that your ministry. The fact that you're willing to give of yourself at church, tell our viewers about what you do there.
[00:33:52] Speaker B: And at one point, I chaired the legal ministry, and, you know, so we put on programming and we explain the basics, the difference between a will and a trust. A lot of the things that we've talked about today, why you need to plan, when you need to plan, who needs to plan, A lot of people just don't know. And so it makes you start to think and. Because again, like you said, and it opens the door for that conversation, because, like you said, a lot of people don't want to talk about it. But I think that once they sit in on a seminar and get to ask some questions, and that makes people a little more comfortable. And when they understand what could possibly go wrong, then they may want to do something to make sure that it doesn't go wrong.
[00:34:44] Speaker A: And I am sure that, you know, all being part of the same church community, you come with a great deal of respect and trust, which then you're able to really pour into these people in the most loving way.
[00:35:02] Speaker B: Yeah, it's funny because the first time, a long time, I didn't present at my church because I didn't want to market to my church. I presented at other churches. But then they invited me to present and it was like I became a celebrity as soon as I, when I, when I walk into the church. Everybody's liking the information and every. Because it's needed. You know, 50% of people do not have a plan in place. And so I think it is a way to give back. You know, I don't charge for doing a presentation.
And so, you know, everybody has a little bit more information when they, when they leave, whether or not they pursue the planning. And hopefully they do.
And, you know, I tell them, you don't have to plan with me. Plan with somebody.
[00:35:52] Speaker A: So, yeah, just get a plan done. Because having a plan is better than no plan at all.
[00:35:58] Speaker B: Exactly.
[00:35:59] Speaker A: Yes.
So stay with us. When we return, Dion will break down Will's trust and other documents in simple terms so you can finally feel confid confident about which one is right for your family.
[00:36:29] Speaker B: Foreign.
[00:36:46] Speaker A: Welcome back to your life and legacy. Don't miss a second of this show or any NOW Media TV favorites. Streaming. Streaming live and on demand whenever and wherever you want. Grab the free Now Media TV app on Roku or iOS and enjoy instant access to our lineup of bilingual programming both in English and Spanish. Prefer the podcast Listen to your life and legacy Anytime on the Now Media TV website, NowMedia TV, covering business, breaking news, lifestyle, culture and more. Now Media TV is available 24 7, so the stories you care about are always within reach.
In this final segment, we're cutting through the legal jargon. Wills, trusts, and powers of attorney. They can feel overwhelming. But today, Dion's going to go through each one of them in very simple, practical and approachable steps.
Ho Dion, you and I know this only so well that legal documents often feel intimidating. They're large, they have lots of print. They, they, you know, sometimes, you know, have a lot of legal jargon in them and they leave families confused and paralyzed instead of empowered like you and I really desire to do. How do you. Let's, let's start with the trust. Because the trust is often the largest document. If an estate plan has a trust, how do you break down these otherwise very complex documents into bite sized pieces that they understand?
[00:38:31] Speaker B: Okay, so with the trust, I always talk in threes. And so when you're planning with a trust, the first thing you have is the trust itself.
You can think of it as a box or a treasure chest. And there's lots of different types for different purposes. So for most planning, before we get into advanced planning, we're talking about revocable living trusts. So it's created while you're alive and it's operational while you're alive. And revocable means you can cancel it and you can change it so you're in control.
So you first have your treasure chest or box. It's a separate entity. It can own everything that you can own. You generally don't want to transfer your insurance, your life insurance or your retirement plans to them. But you might name beneficiary, make the trust a beneficiary. So you've got your treasure chest, your box. And then the second thing is your trust agreement, which is a contract, but it's basically a book of instructions on how you want the property that you've put in the trust managed.
And then the third thing is a will. You're always going to have a will. We call it a pour over will, and it's the backup plan. Because ideally you're transferring most or all of your property to the trust.
And I may have mentioned earlier that probate property is property that's titled in your name alone at the time of your death and doesn't have a beneficiary designation. So you may have left something out either intentionally or unintentionally, and that will have to go through probate.
And the will will then take that property and pour it over into your trust. So that's why we call it a pour over, but it'll send it to your trust. So we've got the treasure chest, the book of instructions and the will. And the will is also where you would name name guardians for your minor children. Because the trust only deals with property. Then you've got three parties to the trust. You've got the trust maker, that's the person who creates the trust and usually puts the property in. You've got the trustee who manages the trust property, and they manage it in accordance to your book of instructions. And then you've got the beneficiary, and that's who benefits from the trust, from the property that's in the trust. So the trustee manages the property for the benefit of the beneficiary in accordance to your book of instructions. And then the last. Is that too much?
No, keep going, please. Okay, so then the last thing is the three stages of life. So we've got the treasure chest, the book of instructions and the will.
Then we've got the trust maker, the trustee, the manager and the beneficiary. And then your three stages of life. While you're alive and well, you know, before the trust, you own your property, you manage it and you manage it for your own benefit while you're after the trust. While you're alive and well, you are the trust maker and you're always the trust maker. You create it once and then you name yourself as the trustee.
And so you manage the property and then you're the beneficiary. So the only difference is legal title. The trust owns it, so it doesn't go through probate, but you're still the manager and you're still the beneficiary. Then at incapacity, you're the trust maker, but you've named successors and you can name co trustees or co trustees or in succession you name backups. So if one can't operate in that role, and so then your successor trustees will manage and you're still the beneficiary because you're alive but you're incapacitated. So they are managing the property for your benefit in accordance to your book of instructions.
And then death.
Okay. And so the last stage, of course is death and you're still the trust maker and you have successor trustees who can be the same or different as the incapacity. But finally, since you're no longer living, you're not the beneficiary and your beneficiaries can be people, trust for the benefit of people or charities.
So that's, that's the trust in a nutshell. It's a lot.
[00:43:12] Speaker A: Now I understand why we whiteboard this stuff.
[00:43:15] Speaker B: Yes.
[00:43:17] Speaker A: Now I've heard of these things called advanced directives.
They may include things like living wills, healthcare powers of attorney. And I've also heard of this thing called financial power of attorney. Can you simply break down these kind of documents for our viewers so they understand what they are and what they're used for?
[00:43:39] Speaker B: Okay.
The advance directive is a healthcare document and they're different in different states. You may have heard of a living will.
So in Georgia they combine the two.
So there's a healthcare power of appointment. That's where you name an agent. The person who creates the agent or is granting the powers is the principal. So you name an agent who can make healthcare decisions for you if you are not able to communicate those yourself.
So that's the healthcare power of attorney. The advance directive is where you give instructions about what you want done if you are in an end stage condition.
And meaning, not that you've got maybe stage four cancer, but you've still Got a couple years.
But you are, for lack of better terms, knocking on death do.
And the doctor, you might be on life support and the doctors have said that we can continue treating you, but we can't help you get better.
And if we stop treating you, you'll probably die pretty soon in a short amount of time.
So you get to tell your family members or loved ones what would you want done? Do you want them to keep treating you?
Do you want them to allow you to die naturally but give you medication for pain? Or do you want to do something in between?
Do you want hydration, feeding tubes, do you want a ventilator, that type of thing? So it's where you are allowed to provide your instructions so your loved ones don't have to make those decisions or figure out what you would want done. And so that's the living will portion. And it's also referred to as the advance directive.
In a lot of states, there's statutory documents. So Georgia combines the two in the one document and we call it an advanced directive for health care. We have the appointment of the agent and the directions for terminal and permanent vegetative state. That's the other thing.
If you're a terminal there you asked about the financial power of attorney.
It's similar. That's where you can appoint an agent to manage your property on your behalf. And so there's different things with the finances.
When it comes to the health care, it is only effective if you're unable to communicate what you want. With the financial power of attorney, you can decide when it's effective. Now you have to have capacity with all of these things. You have to have the mental capacity to be able to create the document and understand what it does.
If you've lost that capacity, you can't do the planning.
But with the financial power of attorney, you can say it's effective immediately or you can say that it's effective upon the occurrence of an event. So, so incapacity. And you can define what incapacity is. You can say two doctors have to say, I'm incapacitated, or a panel of people or something like that. So the one that's effective on occurrence of a certain event, we call it a springing power of attorney because it springs into action once the event occurs.
Powers of attorney can be limited or they can be general. A general power of attorney deals with everything pretty much. They can step into your shoes and do whatever you could do.
Limited. It can be limited to a transaction. And an example, my sister and her husband, when they were buying their first house. They were going to be out of town. He was still in school, so they were going to be out of town on the day of closing. So they gave my mother a limited power of attorney, limited to the transaction where she was able to sign on their behalf at the closing. And after that, she had no more power. So that's limited by transaction. It can also be limited by time. You may be going out of the country or out of town for a period of time, and you want someone to manage things while you're gone. So you can say, during that period of time, this person has the power to manage my property. And then when the period is over, that's over. And then another term is durable. And like I mentioned, you have to have the capacity to create the power of attorney. And then when you lose capacity, durable means that it stays in effect.
And the other thing to know about financial powers of attorney is that they die when the person who granted the power dies. So it's not legal to use the power of attorney after a person has died.
[00:48:37] Speaker A: Excellent. Well versed. I love it. This has been incredibly insightful. Dion. Again, remind our viewers where they can learn more about your services and get started on their own estate plans.
[00:48:51] Speaker B: My website is www.ducketlaw LLC.com and my telephone number is 404-349-2220. I also have.
I have some videos with nice little diagrams comparing trust on.
What is it? YouTube? Yes, on YouTube. On Duckett Law. Duckett Law, LLC.
[00:49:20] Speaker A: Awesome. Well, Dion, thank you so much for joining us. Clearly, you are the expert in the Atlanta, Georgia area, and everybody who needs their estate planning done must look up duck.
Today, we've seen that estate planning isn't just for the wealthy. It's about every family who wants peace of mind, protection for their children, and clarity for their loved ones. For our viewers, remember this.
Silence creates confusion, but preparation creates peace.
The best time to plan is now.
I'm Christopher Nudo, and this has been your life and legacy on NOW Media tv.
Until next time, take the steps today that secure the future you want for the people you love most.
