If you have a young adult child coming home for the holidays, the Thanksgiving table might serve as a good opportunity to talk with them about estate planning. While most young adults do not own property or have children that may necessitate a Will, two major estate planning documents are often overlooked by young people just starting out: a Health Care Directive and a Power of Attorney. Why you ask? Because when children turn 18 they cease to be children and are adults in the eyes of the law, complete with the right to privacy, regardless of their financial or emotional independence from parents. We may think that by paying a tuition check, health insurance premiums or helping with housing payments parents are entitled to information about the health and financial well being of adult children. Not so.
Health Care Directive
A Health Care Directive is a document that appoints a health care proxy to make medical decisions in the event a patient is unable to do so. Without one, medical professionals may refuse to consult with the parent about the health and well being of the child, even in emergency situations. While, thankfully, most medical care decisions would involve your adult child as an active participant and his/her being able to consent to your involvement in the care and decision making; in the case of an accident leaving your child unconscious, no such consent could be given.
Power of Attorney
This type of document can be drafted to give a parent or other trusted person power to make financial decisions for the adult child either when they become incapacitated, or in the case of a “springing” power of attorney, making a parent a co-decision maker in financial decisions with their child. In the latter case, this would allow a parent to correspond with a bank while a child is away at college, or help negotiate issues with a landlord when your child is living away from home.
For more information on having these documents drafted for your adult child, he or she should consult with a qualified attorney.
