As you make your estate plan, one important tool to consider is a power of attorney. In the future, you may not be able to make certain decisions or take specific actions on your own behalf, and you need someone to do so for you. You can choose this person with a power of attorney, making them your agent.
For instance, many medical conditions or emergencies lead to incapacitation, such as heart attacks and strokes. A person experiencing such an event needs immediate medical care, but they cannot talk to the doctors and nurses and express their wishes. Their incapacitation can then trigger a springing power of attorney, meaning that their chosen medical agent can step in and make decisions until they recover.
Giving up rights
It is important to understand the way that this works because some people are hesitant to draft a power of attorney since they worry that they are giving up their own right to make decisions. They do not want someone else to be in charge of medical, financial or legal decisions because they want to have more autonomy to make these choices on their own.
But with a springing power of attorney, this is not a concern. Drafting the document itself does not give up any rights or give the agent the power to make any decisions. The person who drafted the document has to be incapacitated first, and only then can someone else take over these decision-making abilities. If that triggering event never happens, they retain complete control over their own choices.
It is crucial to understand how these more complex estate planning tools work and what legal steps to take as you put your plan together.