A lot of people ask me when they should do their estate plan. I tell them to do it now or as soon as possible.
I received a spam e-mail telling me that I could be a beneficiary of someone’s estate because the executor has the power to change the will after someone died. You can’t change the will or write one after you die. If this could have been done, I would have written my mother’s will after she died.
You also must have the mental capacity to make a will. My mother was in a coma for a week and she did not have the mental capacity to write her wishes.
Example #1: I received a call from someone whose wife had severe Alzheimer’s. When the wife was first diagnosed, the husband thought that it cost too much to get an estate plan done. He needed to get a reverse mortgage on the house to continue to take care of the wife, but since her name was on the document and she did not have the necessary mental capacity, he had to get a conservatorship (a conservatorship is set up after a judge decides that a person (called the “conservatee”) can’t take care of themselves or their finances. Then the judge chooses another person or organization (called the “conservator”) to be in charge of the conservatee’s care or finances, or both.).
Example #2: Client has a father who is in the hospital. The father had lost mental capacity and therefore it was too late to have him sign estate planning documents. If the father continues in a coma, the children would have to go through conservatorship to be able to make financial and medical decisions on behalf of the father. When the father dies, the father’s estate will go through probate (probate is a legal proceeding that is used to wind up a person’s legal and financial affairs after death. In California probate proceedings are conducted in the Superior Court for the county in which the decedent lived, and can take at least six months and sometimes as long as several years. Probate fees are 5-7% of the gross estate).
The time is now. Like an insurance policy, estate planning is truly a loving thing to do and a smart investment of your money.