Seguin Estate Planning Law Blog

Powers of attorney are common estate planning tools. Many people in Texas use these documents to make sure that their medical and financial wishes are respected even if they are unable to make decisions on their own. Sadly, there is a significant amount of abuse within this area of elder law.

Abuse of the elderly often brings to mind physical abuse or neglect, but this is not the only way in which another person might harm an elderly individual. Financial abuse constitutes a significant threat to elderly individuals' ability to support themselves during their later years. Many of these individuals have spent their whole lives saving toward retirement and end-of-life care, but a MetLife survey found out that there is a $2.9 billion financial abuse problem among the elderly.

Creating a will is an important part of any estate plan. This document can include much information that surviving family members will find valuable when the time comes to close the estate of a loved one who recently passed. Of course, many Texas residents may not know what to include in their wills.

The exact information included in this document will be unique to each person. For instance, if a person has children who are not yet adults, it is wise to include a guardian appointment in the will so that the children will be taken care of by a trusted person. On the other hand, an individual may not have children and, as a result, does not need to make that designation. However, both can benefit from naming executors in their wills who will handle their final affairs.

Many Texas residents undoubtedly know that going through the probate process can be difficult on surviving family. Individuals may have had to carry out the proceedings for their own loved ones and know firsthand how long the process can take. As a result, they may want to do what they can to simplify the probate process by estate planning.

Fortunately, people can use many planning tools to keep certain assets out of probate, which could help assets pass directly to designated individuals. For instance, parties can create payable-on-death or transfer-on-death designations for some accounts. This allows a beneficiary to be named and for the assets in the account to pass directly to the beneficiary after the account holder's death. As a result, the assets do not need probating.

Technological advances affect Texas residents and those elsewhere in various ways. In fact, many people put a considerable amount of their lives online, and as a result, they create a number of digital assets. However, because these assets are not as tangible as physical assets, they may not always remember to account for them while estate planning.

Even if online assets do not have a considerable amount of monetary value, they may still be important to surviving loved ones. Online photo albums, emails and social media posts could all fall into the category of digital assets, and many family members want the ability to look through those assets after a loved one's death. However, if they are password protected, difficult to find and have not been addressed in an estate plan, family members may be at a loss.