Incapacity Planning Services

All too often, incapacity is equated with old age. While age-related conditions such as Alzheimer’s disease do result in incapacity eventually, the possibility of incapacity is not limited to the elderly. On the contrary, your odds of suffering a period of disability lasting five months or longer prior to reaching retirement age are one in five. A tragic car crash, a catastrophic illness, or even a serious workplace accident could all result in your incapacity at any time. Are you prepared for incapacity if it occurs? Most people are not which is why incapacity planning is so important.

Imagine, for a moment, what would happen if you were suddenly incapacitated without having planned ahead for the possibility. Someone would need to make healthcare and personal decisions for you as well as take over control of your finances and manage your assets. If you are married, your spouse will be the obvious choice as your surrogate decision maker and asset manager; however, a parent or adult child could disagree with that choice, prompting the need for a court to decide. If you are not married, the odds of a disagreement over who should be appointed are even greater, in turn increasing the odds of a court battle. That court battle could result in a rift within the family that may never fully heal. Moreover, if a court is required to intervene, there is certainly no guarantee that the person who is ultimately appointed to make decisions for you and/or manage your assets will be someone you would choose. By failing to plan ahead, however, you effectively gave up the right to decide for yourself.

The good news is that you can prevent all of the uncertainty that follows incapacity by incorporating an incapacity planning component into your comprehensive estate plan. Your incapacity plan will utilize legal strategies and tools that collectively determine who will control your assets and make important decisions for you in the event you are ever incapacitated. It allows you to make crucial decisions now instead of a judge making them for you later.

Although your incapacity plan will be tailored to your unique needs and goals, there are some common additions to the average plan. For example, you may choose to execute a durable power of attorney that authorizes an Agent of your choosing to act on your behalf in legal matters. For healthcare decisions, you will need to execute a specific type of power of attorney known as a “Nevada Durable Power of Attorney for Health Care Decisions.” You may also decide to establish a revocable living trust as part of your incapacity plan. You are able to appoint yourself as the Trustee of the trust along with appointing someone you trust to take over management of assets held in the trust as your Successor Trustee. In the event of your incapacity, control and management of the trust assets shifts automatically, without the need for court intervention, to the Successor Trustee chosen by you.

Although no one likes to envision their own incapacity, failing to plan for the possibility leaves you vulnerable. At Anderson, Dorn & Rader, Ltd. our incapacity planning attorneys are committed to helping you create a plan that protects both you and your assets.