Understanding Wills, Living Wills, Power of Attorney and Heath Care Proxies

In New York, if you don’t have a Will when you die, then the state will make these decisions for you. You may or may not like what they do. These decisions are too important for the state to determine. A Judge is not aware of your relationships and there is no such thing as common law marriage in NY. So you could have partner who you have been with for decades and they would get nothing or you could have a child who doesn’t speak to you and gets everything.
What property is included in an Estate? In general, your estate would consist of all assets owned by you at the time of your death that are in your name alone or do not have named beneficiaries. This would typically include: real property, bank accounts, personal property. A person executing a Will is called a Testator. The Testator must name the Beneficiaries and Executor in the Will. Other things that can be included in your Will are: Trustee, Guardian, Burial Requests.
A Power of Attorney, unlike a Will, comes into play while you are still alive. It names a person to act as your agent. This means they can take care of your financial matters. For example, pay your bills, contact social security administration or your retirement fund administrator. In order to grant somebody authority to make medical decisions on your behalf you must execute a Healthcare Proxy which allows you to appoint someone else to act as your agent for medical decisions. Without a healthcare proxy, your doctor may be required to provide you with medical treatment that you would have refused if you were able to do so. The Health Care Proxy usually goes hand in hand with a Living Will which is a document that you can use to give instructions regarding treatment if you become terminally ill or are in a persistent vegetative state and unable to communicate your instructions. The living will states under what conditions life-sustaining treatment should be terminated.
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