Family matters, part 2

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Today I’ll cover the documents as well as the legal and financial peculiarities that surround

the care of one’s aging parents. If you want to read the previous article, on medical considerations, you'll find it here.
I’ll start with the most important document.

The Power of Attorney
This is a power that one person (the grantor) gives another (his or her representative), allowing that representative the power to do some or many things in the grantor’s name. Any of the powers of attorney that I will explain now can be made for free on this page: 

• A temporary power of attorney is granted for a specific period of time and is commonly used when the grantor needs a representative for the time the grantor is ill, travelling abroad, etc. The day it expires it loses its value completely. 
• A durable power of attorney is valid until the grantor cancels it.
• A financial power of attorney is created exclusively for the presentative to make financial and/or economic decisions for the grantor, exclusively. 
• The medical power of attorney allows the representative to make medical care decisions for/on behalf of the grantor about his/her care.

Every power of attorney expires the moment the grantor dies. Additionally, I have to mention that when a power of attorney is granted specifically for the jurisdiction of one United States state, that power of attorney has no value outside the state. Also, a power of attorney that is not specifically bound to one state, province or region can be used throughout that country, but not abroad.

Living will
This is not an easy talk but every child should have knowledge of his or her parents’ wishes

regarding what they want done after they pass away. Burial, cremation, organ donation, wake, funeral, mass; all these decisions are different from one person to the next, and effort should be made to respect each person’s wishes; it would be good to ask, write down the information, and share it with the family.

Accounts
A while back I wrote a blog post about account inheritance. There’s nothing more difficult than trying to manage one’s parents’ accounts with no prior knowledge of how things are and stand. Therefore, I suggest a sit-down with them, and making a listing of assets, accounts and properties. In the case of accounts, confirm who is set to inherit each (for this you must obtain the most recent account card or the assignment of account beneficiaries and joint owners, for which a financial power of attorney will be needed); additionally, it’s good to share all this information with the rest of the family because when it comes to money transparency is the best policy. If there are any accounts without joint owners, that status should be remedied.

Final considerations
Taking care of our parents as they age forces us to make a series of very delicate decisions,

and oftentimes to change our opinions. In most cases, there is no easy way of doing things. If possible what I always stress is that things need to be talked about before problems arise, and not later. Open communication with your mom, dad, or both, as well as with the rest of the family will allow everyone to be aware of how things stand; keeping up communication as time goes by will help keep the family up to date, both of health issues as changes in parents’ decisions and/or wishes, and it’s best to get used to communicating rather than leaving things unsaid.