The Power of an Advance Directive

By Patricia L. Nelson

Like many states, Oregon has an Advance Directive form. This form allows you to name a person to make health care decisions for you if you are ill and unable to communicate your choices by any means. The person you name is called your Healthcare Representative. In your Advance Directive, you may name a primary and an alternate (or two or three) Healthcare Representatives. The Advance Directive also allows you to tell your Healthcare Representatives what life support you would like and what life support you would not like to have.

Why is an Advance Directive important? In the absence of an Advance Directive, no one legally has the authority to make healthcare decisions for you. As a result, we may need to go to court to have a guardian appointed for you. The difficulty with a guardianship is that it is expensive and time consuming, at a time when you are in a medical crisis.

Additional limitations with a guardianship are that we don’t know whom you would have named to be in charge of these important decisions, had you completed an Advance Directive. Also, we don’t know what choices you would have made about which life support measures you want and do not want. Generally speaking, in the absence of that guidance from you, a guardian will likely err on the side of giving you life support you may not have wanted.

Attorney Patricia Louise Nelson located in Bend, Oregon in always happy to help with your legal questions. Two Spruce Law is covering the topic of the Oregon Ancillary Probate in todays video!

Need help with your estate planning or probate in Oregon? Call Two Spruce Law today!

541-389-4646

Visit twosprucelaw.com to download our Estate Planning 101 document that covers many frequently asked questions about Estate Planning - from what an estate plan covers, to what to expect to pay.

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Most of my estate planning clients who want to leave assets in trust for young people want to have those funds used for education. But what does “education” really mean? Certainly, it would be educational to fly off to Europe and hobnob with the rich and famous. But is that really the sort of education you want to fund for a young person?

On a more serious note, I encourage you to be specific about what education means to you. For example, if you consider foreign travel to be educational, be specific about what that might look from your perspective so that your trustee has the benefit of your thoughts on the topic. Do you mean foreign travel as part of a formal university study abroad program? Participating in a religious organization’s international service? Or something else?

Even if your trustee is faced with the relatively simple question of paying for in-state tuition, room, and board at a university, so you want to fund the entire cost of an education? Or, perhaps, you might feel more comfortable if the beneficiary has some “skin in the game” by paying for part of the educational experience by working during the summers and having a part-time job during the school year?

These are questions I encourage you to consider in setting up a trust for a young person. Give your trustee the benefit of your vision on this topics so they can make the best decisions for you.

Find out more at: https://twosprucelaw.com/videos/what-does-providing-for-education-mean-to-you

Why do I need a Probate if I have a Will?

By Patricia Louise Nelson

“But she died with a will! Why is the bank requiring a probate?!” I wish this were an uncommon question in my practice. Unfortunately, it is one of our most frequently asked questions. The number one misunderstanding of my clients is that a will avoids probate. The opposite is true.

A will requires a probate to implement it. By contrast, a revocable living trust does not. A will cannot by itself get the assets to the beneficiaries. It is like a car without a transmission. All the working parts are there, but without the “transmission” of probate, it cannot get things to the beneficiaries. The probate process implements the will.

The benefit of a will is that it can change who gets what from the intestate statutes (laws that determine who will get your assets). In Oregon, if a person that dies without a will, is married and either has no children or all their children are also the children of their surviving spouse, then all their assets go to the surviving spouse. If, on the other hand, even one child of the deceased spouse is not the child of the surviving spouse, then one-half of the assets go to the surviving spouse and the other half is divided among all of the deceased spouse’s children (even if some of them are also the children of the surviving spouse). If the person is not married and has children, the children will take the assets. It gets more complicated if a child of the deceased person died before the deceased person, so call our office to help figure out who gets what if a person died without a will.

Find out more at: https://www.twosprucelaw.com/videos/if-i-have-a-will-why-do-i-need-probate

Five Ways You Can Save Money on Probate

By Patricia Louise Nelson

Probate can seem overwhelming at first, but it is possible to go through the process in an efficient way that saves the estate money. Here are five ways:

Choose the right path: In Oregon, there are two ways to probate an estate: the small estate process and the full probate process. Be very sure a small estate will work for your situation before you head down that path. It will be more expensive to start with a small estate and then realize you need to start over with a full probate.

Seek legal advice: Although it may seem counterintuitive, hiring a good attorney from the beginning of your case will save you money in the long run, because an attorney will help you to choose and stay on the right legal path. This advice may seem self-serving, as we are of course, a law office, but we know from experience that fixing mistakes is always more expensive than avoiding them in the first place.

Stay organized: Keep all estate information in one organizational system, so you can easily look up information about heirs, devisees, assets, creditors, bank statements, etc.

Communicate and respond clearly: If your attorney requests something from you, read the request carefully and be sure to respond and cover every topic the attorney has asked you to address. Poor communication and repeated back and forth will cost you money and time.

Be on time: Probate cases involve many important deadlines with the court that you must be able to meet. Hiring a good attorney will help to make sure the estate is efficiently administered within the legal deadlines and with a minimum of delay and cost.

Find out more at: https://www.twosprucelaw.com/videos/how-to-save-money-in-probate