Legal Planning with Compassion: Ensuring Your Wishes Are Honoured

For those courageously coming to terms with a life-altering or life-limiting diagnosis, we must recognise the importance of addressing crucial legal matters during such challenging times.

Our compassionate Private Client team understands the urgency of ensuring Wills and Powers of Attorney are finalised for those navigating these difficult situations. 

If you do not have a Will, the Intestacy Rules dictate who will inherit your estate. However, the individuals who inherit may not be the people you would want to benefit or ought to benefit. In making a Will, you choose to whom you leave your estate and you can ensure that the people who are important to you are provided for.  Taking timely advice will ensure you understand your options for your Will, especially if your family situation might be complicated. We are also able to provide you with advice on inheritance tax. 

If you have already made a Will it is also important to review your Will regularly to make sure that it is up to date and still expresses your wishes, as there may have been changes to your circumstances in the meantime.

Most people are aware of Wills but you may be less familiar with Lasting Powers of Attorney (LPA). While a Will takes effect on death and passes your assets to your chosen beneficiaries, an LPA is a legal document that is active while you are alive. Your LPA will state which individuals you have chosen to make decisions on your behalf, if you are unable to make those decisions for yourself or if you ask your Attorneys to assist you.

There are two types of LPA. One type deals with financial decisions, including making payments from your bank account, managing your investments or selling your property. The other type deals with health and care decisions, including medical treatment, where you live, or whether you should receive life sustaining treatment. Decisions about your health and care can only be made by your attorney(s) if you are unable to do so yourself.

You can only make LPAs while you still have mental capacity. Capacity is not always linked to age or ill health. We all hope that we will always have the ability to make our own choices, but the reality is that many of us may lose this ability. None of us knows what the future might hold. Although dementia is a common cause of incapacity, you may suffer from an accident or a debilitating condition at any time, leaving you unable to make or communicate decisions.

By having a Lasting Power of Attorney in place, you are planning for the future, whatever it brings.

Other practical matters that we would recommend that you might want to attend to are:

• Locating all of your important documents and telling a trusted person how and where to find them;
• Organising your digital assets so that these can be accessed by a trusted person if and when you cannot;
• Ensuring your pension and death in service nominations are up to date;
• Thinking about your funeral wishes and writing these down;
• Making decisions about how and where you would prefer to be looked after; and
• Discussing any treatments that you might like or not like with your health professionals.

We can offer a ‘Legal Health Check’ with the aim of helping to fully understand your wishes and motivations and ensure that you and your family are protected now and in the future. To arrange a suitable time, please call 01242 574244.