Estate Planning 911: 5 Estate Best Practices We Can Learn from Joan Rivers

The worlds of comedy and entertainment were rocked with the death of comic Joan Rivers following minor elective surgery.   While she may want to be remembered for her talent to make us laugh, there are 5 things we can learn in our estate planning from this tragic loss.

1. Have your estate plan in order.   Having a basic estate plan, like a will and a revocable or living trust, and a power of attorney, is, well, basic. Get it done. Especially if you have a spouse, minor children, loved ones with a disability or those who may depend on you like an aging parent.  Get your estate house in order because we never know when we are going to go. Even after so called minor surgery or elective procedures.
2. Review and update. Don’t throw your estate plan in a vault never to be  looked at again like you are hiding a bad photograph.  We forget what’s in our wills and living trusts and forget “who gets what.”  While you may not think that you will ever want to change what your will or trust says, probate lawyers know that that’s not the case.  We change our wills and who inherits, as we age and as we, and our beneficiaries, change.  That’s what codicils to wills are for, or amendments or restatements to trusts. Most estate planning attorney recommend that you review or reconfirm what’s in  your estate plan each year. When Joan lost her husband Edgar years ago, her focus shifted to her daughter, Melissa, who, while very close, evidently had ups and downs with her mom, perhaps not unlike most parent-adult child relationships.
3. Don’t forget health care documents.  Before she passed, Joan Rivers was alive but un-conscious.   If that happens to you, who will make health care decisions for you?  Do you want to be sustained by artificial means like a machine or do you want to die a “dignfied death?”  Do you have a living will, and, perhaps, more important, do you have documents where you actually empower someone to make health decisions for you like a health care proxy or health care surrogate?
4. Power of attorney.  Perhaps the most powerful of all “property” documents, these enable someone you choose to pay bills, shift money, make personal decisions like the care you receive and where you will live. Who will insure that your income taxes and condo fees are paid?  Who has authority to hire more health care professionals or at-home or visiting nurses?  With the right estate documents, you can also avoid a sometimes costly, and public, guardianship proceeding.
5. Living trusts.   Like a will, a revocable or living trust can leave your estate to your chosen beneficiaries.  It can also dis-inherit those who you don’t want to receive an inheritance.  Unlike a will, a living trust is private and can manage your money and property if you become incapacitated or if you age and don’t have the time or energy to manage your affairs.  Today, living trusts are widely accepted, quick to write or prepare, inexpensive, and widely understood.   Revocable or living trusts are not for the just rich and famous.