Another important step in building your estate plan is choosing your beneficiaries. As mentioned in the article How Estate Size Will Influence Your Estate Plan, the estate size will determine the size of your beneficiary pool. So, when choosing your beneficiaries, you must consider your estate size to avoid unintended consequences. Additionally, along with estate size, here are a few more considerations for choosing your beneficiaries:
1) Consider your marital status.
2) Designated beneficiaries on assets.
3) Using additional types of beneficiaries along with the primary beneficiary.
Typically, in common estates, your choice of beneficiaries may come with complications. Therefore, give careful consideration to each beneficiary and the complications
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Therefore, careful consideration of your marital status is necessary in choosing your beneficiaries. In the end, you may need to list more beneficiaries than previously thought.
Designated Beneficiaries on Assets
When choosing your beneficiaries, carefully consider where to list them. If you designate a beneficiary on an asset, avoid listing the beneficiary in the will for the same asset. As explained in the article List Your Beneficiaries Wisely in Your Estate Plan, a beneficiary listed on an asset supersedes a beneficiary listed in a will. So, by listing a beneficiary on an asset, you remove the beneficiary from your estate plan if the asset in question is all you plan to leave the beneficiary. Conversely, avoid listing a beneficiary in the will for an asset that has a different beneficiary listed on the same asset. Since the beneficiary on the asset will receive the asset, the beneficiary in the will receives nothing and could cause problems for the estate.
Finally, when contemplating listing beneficiaries on assets and the will, consider using a residuary beneficiary. In the event that you forgot about an asset or other property, the residuary will inherit the forgotten
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If your primary beneficiary predeceases you, consider using other beneficiary types such as those listed in the article Common Types of Beneficiaries in an Estate. To avoid having the property default to the estate, consider using alternate beneficiaries or residuary beneficiaries. By using other beneficiaries two results occur:
1) Avoiding multiple changes to the estate plan to account for changes in beneficiaries.
2) Removing confusion about who inherits among the remaining beneficiaries.
While choosing your beneficiaries, if you choose beneficiaries older than you, then consider using additional types of beneficiaries.
Choosing Your Beneficiaries
As a component of estate planning, life circumstances will dictate the complexity of choosing your beneficiaries. If you had multiple divorces with children from each marriage, you’re going to have complications in every step of estate planning. Conversely, if you lived a clean life, choosing your beneficiaries becomes much easier. Still, even a clean life can have complications. For instance, in your estate plan, you may have to provide care for a chronically ill relative. So, in extreme cases, you will need to hire professional planning
On September 12, 2014, Denise Rockett filed a complaint against Eugene Nigro, Esq. Nigro was reportedly negligent when handling legal matters in her late husband’s estate. Specifically, the complainant alleges that Denise, as Executrix of her late husband’s estate, was intentionally excluded from major decisions, not properly compensated, and deprived of control over their properties. Nigro allegedly breached his fiduciary obligation and violated Mass.R.Prof.C. 1.4(b), 1.7(b), and 8.4(c).
However it can also make room for medical, legal and ethical dilemmas. Advances in medical technology enable individuals to delay the inevitable fate of death, overcome cancer, diabetes, and various traumatic injuries. Our advances in medical technologies now allow these individuals to do things on their own terms. The “terminally ill” state is described as having an incurable or irreversible condition that has a high probability of causing death within a relatively short time with or without treatment (Guest, p.3, 1998). A wide range of degenerative diseases can fall into either category, ranging from, HIV/AIDS, Alzheimer’s disease and many forms of cancer. This control, however, lays assistance, whether direct or indirect, from a
This ethical scenario presents an 86 year old female with numerous health issues and chronic illnesses. Mrs. Boswell’s advancing Alzheimer’s disease makes it extremely difficult to initiate dialysis, leading her physician to conclude a poor quality of life. The ethical dilemma portrayed in this case is between nonmaleficence and autonomy. Health care workers should focus on promoting the patient’s overall wellbeing and weigh the benefits and risks of the course of action, while also considering what the family declares they want done. Since the patient is deemed unable to make decisions, the goal is to collaborate with family, assess patient quality of life, address prognosis, and establish realistic care goals.
It’s hard for a family to go through this and the terminally ill want to save their families from as much heart break as they can.
Ethical principles is focused on the morals and values of the individual who has dementia (Cribb and Duncan, 2002) Decision made by family to have a person who has dementia to live in a residential home from their personal home can be seen as inconsiderate to the individual values. It is for the best for the decision to be made before the individual was ill, the family members will feel less guilty. In the event that circumstances of the family members are not capable of caring it is understandable (Curthbert and Quallington, 2008). On the other hand this could be the best decision as cares in residential homes have skills development to provide professional care (Nice, 2010). Naidoo and Willis (2009) stated that the consequential theory is there to measure the end result of action in this case considering the health and wellbeing of people with dementia. The pr...
As we get older and delve into the real world, it is important to start thinking about end-of-life care and advance directives. Although it is something no one wants to imagine, there is an absolute necessity for living wills and a power of attorney. Learning about the Patient Self-Determination Act and the different legal basis in where you live is important because it will help people understand why advance care directives are so important. Although there are several barriers in implementing advance care directives, there are also several actions that healthcare professionals can take to overcome these obstacles. These are also important to know about, especially for someone going into the medical field.
Thanks in part to the scientific and technological advances of todays’ society, enhanced medicinal treatment options are helping people battle illnesses and diseases and live longer than ever before. Despite these advances, however, many people with life threatening illnesses have needs and concerns that are unidentified and therefore unmet at the end of life, notes Arnold, Artin, Griffith, Person and Graham (2006, p. 62). They further noted that when these needs and concerns remain unmet, due in part to the failure of providers to correctly evaluate these needs, as well as the patients’ reluctance to discuss them (p. 63, as originally noted by Heaven & Maguire, 1997), a patient’s quality of life may be adversely affected. According to Bosma et al. (2010, p. 84), “Many generalist social work skills regarding counseling, family systems, community resources, and psychosocial assessments are relevant to working with patients and families with terminal illness”, thereby placing social workers in the distinctive position of being able to support and assist clients with end of life decisions and care planning needs. In fact, they further noted that at some point, “most social work practitioners will encounter adults, children, and families who are facing progressive life limiting illness, dying, death, or bereavement” (p. 79).
The term Three Estates is used to describe the divisions of the European parliament. Parliament is defined by the Webster’s Dictionary
While navigating the abundant and sometimes confusing legal language of advance directives can be time consuming, it would benefit every person to consider their end of life wishes and have some form of written statement available for their doctor and family to understand those wishes. Doing this in advance can prevent emotional anguish, suffering and expensive litigation. In the end, clearly and when possible, written, documentation of a medical directive, a living will, or a chosen health care power of attorney will lessen the burden for the medical professionals and family of a dying or incapacitated person.
Health IT provides the protection of patients’ privacy, confidentiality, and allocating resources in a fair way across programs, services, and patients. Health IT makes available information from the health record and from many authoritative sources that informs patients and clinicians to a point that they are collaborators in the quest to improve the health of the patient longitudinally. That is, from cradle to grave. Ethical practices in end of life care or palliative care is another area where health IT can provide information to clinicians and patience to address patient issues near the end of life. This would include the options of choosing facilities for independent living, or assisted living and/or nursing care facilities. Health IT can assist patients to reenter the work force and support a valuable aspect of providing a living for those disabled or with diseases that may have reduced or eliminated their ability to secure gainful employment. Health IT is effective in teaching clinicians about how to behave with certain patient populations (Fox, Crigger, Bottrell, & Bauck, n.d., p.
THOMAS, K. and LOBO, B., 2011. Advance care planning in end of life care. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Death is a personal experience and to ensure loved one’s wishes, there has to be the ‘what if’ conversation. It is natural to talk about the possible end with loved ones after marriage and having children. Living wills are obtained and do not resuscitate orders, thoughts of a possible guardian for the children, life insurance, appointing a health care agent, and any other loose ends that will ensure the well being of the family. A health care agent is someone who the patient designates to make medical decisions, if decisions cannot be made generally. The chosen agent should be a person who knows the wishes on the extent of medical care treatment wanted. The appointed health care agent should be someone who is not afraid to ask questions of the healthcare professionals to get information needed to make decisions and be assertive to ensure that wishes are respected. (Healthcare Agents, n.d.).
For example, if someone is in a serious car accident and cannot make medical decisions about their lives, the decision is now for a family member or power of attorney to make. However, it may be hard for someone to make a life ending decision for a family member as emotions are involved. A living will give the terminally ill patient peace of mind and takes the burden off the family. Living wills can be written at any time and are considered a legal document if it is signed, witnessed and notarized. This document will have wishes listed, such as, if the patient wants a breathing machine or artificial nourishment at the point where it may be needed. Living wills have been used since 1967 when Luis Kurtner wanted dying patients to still make decisions about their medical care. Living wills do not expire but revoked or changed in written form at time. In a study of six thousand people in 2010, approximately 72% of these people had a legal living will. Living wills are becoming more popular because they give people the idea of more control at the end of their lived. Palliative care is very common, but a living will may give people peace of mind if PAS is not an option for
Lewinson LJ remarked : “I echo the judge’s view that it is plainly undesirable that beneficiaries should be permitted to execute a will in their own favour in any capacity; and that Parliament should consider a change in the law to ensure that this cannot happen in the future”.
Upon my personal reflection, what I had failed to see either is that not all families have the financial option to be able to afford this. In my experience, my grandmother needed assistance for dementia and since all of our relatives had full time employment and were still raising children, my grandmother and ourselves had the privilege to be able to have the option for her to afford assisted living. I now realize my privilege and blindness associated with my assumption. That this is not the case of all people. From learning in lecture that from the government is cutting services, people now do not have a choice but to engage in caregiving, whether they work full time or not, due to financial reasons or limited rooms in assisted living