Dear Liz: Please tell your audience that if they have any bank accounts, loans, credit cards or utilities, they should legally appoint someone to make decisions for them if they should become ill or injured.
The backstory: My then-40-year-old son went to the hospital with a stomachache. He fortunately told the hospital I could make healthcare decisions for him if he became incapacitated. He then suffered cardiac arrest that resulted in anoxic brain injury. After his injury, I had to deal with such things as ending his apartment lease, canceling utilities and dealing with his car loan and bank account. I had no legal authority because he did not have a will, trust or advance directive. I subsequently learned that being a conservator would enable me to do the necessary things on my son’s behalf. The entire experience was dreadful, and I wish it on no one else.
Answer: The document that could have helped you is called a financial power of attorney and every adult should have one. Financial powers of attorney designate a trusted person to pay bills, file tax returns, close accounts and make other money decisions should the creator become incapacitated. These documents can be created online for about $40, although attorneys also offer them as part of the estate planning package when creating wills or living trusts. If your son had created one, it would have saved the thousands of dollars you probably paid to get a conservatorship.
The second document every adult needs is a healthcare power of attorney, also known as a healthcare proxy, which names someone to make medical decisions in case of incapacity. Again, these are easily created online or can be drafted as part of an estate plan, and they can spare families the agony and expense of going to court to care for a loved one.
My parents made very thorough estate plans with the aid of an experienced and capable attorney. However, when my mother was dying, the bank they had used for decades refused to accept the durable powers of attorney that she and my disabled father had signed, insisting that they turn up in person (which was impossible). Apparently, although some states require banks to honor these documents, no federal law requires this. We spent much of my mother’s final few days trying to resolve this problem instead of being with her.
Banks don’t want to pay their own attorneys to read through someone’s POA if they don’t have to. Your readers should check with their own banks to find out whether they will accept a POA drawn up by someone else. And the federal government should pass a law that requires banks to honor properly drafted POAs no matter who wrote them.
Often, there are already laws on the books that would require the bank to accept the POA, but these are ignored. You may need to involve your attorney in getting the banks to follow the law. Nolo has some other ideas here: https://www.nolo.com/legal-encyclopedia/can-banks-refuse-a-power-of-attorney.html