Estate Planning

Estate planning is a passion of the S. M. Moran Law Office, P.C.. Attorney Sheena Moran’s grandmother was in a car wreck and spent significant time in a hospital, where her mother and uncle acting as medical durable power of attorney made a number of medical decisions to authorize emergency care such as whether to proceed with an exploratory surgery, whether to authorize dialysis, to reduce medications, to put her into a medically induced coma or to wake her from a medically induced coma.

A medical power of attorney makes decisions when you are unable to make those decisions. Ultimately, she was diagnosed with MERSA and her advanced directives became effective.

Advanced directives set forth your wishes regarding life sustaining devices (life support) if you are suffering from a terminal condition and unable to effectively receive, evaluate, or communicate your decisions or if you are in a persistent vegetative state. Ms. Moran’s grandmother’s indicated that if she was terminal that she wanted to be made comfortable and removed from life support and allowed to pass. This was difficult for certain family members but knowing that removing her from life support was honoring her decisions and not giving up on her helped the family to grieve together rather than creating discourse.

Thus, Sheena Moran sees the value and importance in ensuring documents are carefully and thoughtfully drafted to reflect the decisions of the client so that they may be respected and honored in death and thereafter. 

The Estate Plan

When drafting an estate plan, the plan should include: 

• A medical power of attorney
• HIPAA release
• General durable power of attorney (financial power of attorney)
• Advance directives (if desired)
• Instructions for disposition of remains
• Will
• Memorandum for disposition of tangible personal property.

The medical power of attorney appoints who will make medical decisions for you if you are unable.

The financial power of attorney appoints who will make financial decisions for your if you are unable to manage your financial affairs.

A will is a distribution mechanism and serves the goal of appointing your personal representative and providing instructions on how your assets are to be distributed.

A memorandum for disposition of tangible personal property can not be used to distribute money, investments, or real estate but can be a list of who to give your other tangible personal property to such as jewelry, watches, houseware, vehicles, campers, ATV’s etc.

Instructions for disposition of remains set forth whether you desire to be cremated or buried and if you want a funeral, memorial, or celebration of life.  

Trusts

Additional estate planning documents may include a variety of trusts.

A will is a distribution mechanism and serves the goal of appointing your personal representative and providing instructions on how your assets are to be distributed whereas a trust can hold assets and distribute assets over time with specific rules on when and how distribution will be accomplished.

There are several types of trusts.

• The most common trust is a revocable or living trust which manages assets in your incapacity and distributes assets upon your death.
• Trusts are often used when planning for a blended family to ensure children of both spouses have protected inheritances while also providing for a surviving spouse.
• Other trusts can be used to provide for a pet (pet trusts)
• Distribute guns which are NFA registered (gun trusts).
• Finally, trusts can be used to assist in charitable distributions or for tax planning. These trusts include Charitable Remainder Trusts (CRT, CRUT, or CRAT), Grantor Retained Trusts, such as Grantor Retained Annuity Trusts (GRAT or GRUT), or Grantor Retained UniTrust, and Qualified Personal Residence Trusts (QPRT). These trusts can help to protect assets from federal estate taxes by removing these assets from your estate at a reduced cost from simply gifting the assets and while often providing for the Grantor in some capacity.