Category Archives: Incapacity

Dear Liza: My parents have a revocable Trust that is very outdated and we want to make amendments to it. I understand most of the Trust but am having trouble with the Survivors Trust. I was surprised to see that upon the death of one spouse a Survivors Trust may be established. Is this really a necessary part of a Trust. Isn’t being the Co Trustee basically the same thing? A Survivor’s Trust is often created for tax planning. It’s common.  Many living trusts, especially those drafted prior to 2012 (when tax laws changed) are designed to minimize the estate tax at the second death. Trusts like that typically divide the trust estate into two trusts when the first spouse dies: one trust holds the decedent’s assets and is often called the Bypass Trust (or the Credit Trust); the other trust holds the survivor’s assets, and is called the Survivor’s Trust. Usually, the survivor can use assets in both trusts, but, to the extent that they don’t use up all the money in the Bypass Trust, that money passes estate tax free to the beneficiaries.  If your parents don’t have more than $10 million (like MOST people), their trust can most likely be simplified to just hold all of the assets in one, revocable trust after the first death. This trust is still often called the Survivor’s Trust. But this is all completely separate from who manages the trust, whatever it is called. That person is the successor Trustee, or, if appointed during your parents’ lifetimes, a co-Trustee. If you are helping your parents take care of their finances, and they’d like to help them manage their affairs, they can appoint you to serve with them now as a co-Trustee, or even resign, and let you take over as sole Trustee now.

Dear Liza, my parents do not have a living trust in place. I need to help them set one up. My father and mother are 91 and 83 respectively. My father has a form of dementia that prevents him from making decision about his property. My Mother is fully capable. Does my Mother have the right to make decisions about a living trust for both of them? Does my father have to sign anything?  I’m sorry that your father is no longer capable of making decisions about his property. Because your father lacks the capacity to understand the nature and consequences of his decisions, he can no longer do any estate planning on his own, even if he’s physically capable of signing his name.

Here’s my  short answer as what kind of estate planning options are available now: your mother can only create an estate plan that includes your father’s property if your father already has a Durable Power of Attorney in place that authorizes her, as his Agent, to create a living trust on his behalf. Not all Durable Powers of Attorney authorize that power, many authorize an Agent to transfer assets into a trust that’s already been created, but not to create a new one.

If your father didn’t sign a Durable Power of Attorney authorizing the creation of a trust, then your mother has two choices:

1) She can create a living trust that holds her 1/2 of the community property. She can leave your father’s property out of that trust. If he dies first, she can have his property transferred to her via a Spousal Property Petition (this is a very simple probate procedure that a surviving spouse can do), and put his property into her trust at that point. This isn’t a perfect solution, because if your mother dies first, your father has no estate plan in place.

     2) She can go to court and have herself named as your father’s conservator — this is a court procedure that, essentially, strips your father of the ability to make legal decisions and allows someone else, a conservator, to do so for his benefit under the supervision of the court. This is expensive, public, and potentially adversarial, but it’s the only way to create a Will or a trust, for someone who now lacks the legal capacity to make their own decisions.

Sorry that I can’t offer you better news, or more options. Good luck.

Dear Liza:  My mother, suffering from Alzheimer’s, is completely mentally incompetent and living in a nursing home in Arkansas.  I have only recently learned – surprise! – that she does not have a will.  With my father and brother already deceased, I am her only legal heir, but I fear the difficulties in settling her estate upon her death.  Is there anything I can do now to ease that transition, or I am simply going to have to bite the bullet and hire an attorney?  I do hold her Power of Attorney, but I know that does not grant me the right to write a will on her behalf. I am sorry to hear that your mother is no longer able to manage her own affairs.  You are absolutely correct that, at this point, you don’t have many options in terms of putting a Will in place for her. She can’t write her own now that she doesn’t understand what she would be signing, even if she’s still capable of physically signing a document.

The only legal avenues available to you both involve working with the probate court in the county where your mother lives (and, unfortunately, this also probably involves working with an attorney). You could petition the court to be named your mother’s conservator.  If this petition is granted, you would then be  your mother’s legal guardian, and in a position to have a Will drafted for her, but conservatorship is a long and complex process which will require court hearings, proper notice, and an investigation to determine your mother’s competence and your suitability as her conservator. If you are her only  heir, you could also wait until she dies, then  inherit under your state’s intestacy statutes, which would require a probate proceeding upon your mother’s death, if her assets exceed the small estates limit in Arkansas, which is currently $100,000.

Dear Liza: My 91 year old mother had a stroke in April. Her living trust designates my brother as Medical Power of Attorney and myself as Financial POA.   Her lawyer is asking for letters from two doctors stating our mother is mentally incapacitated before he can talk to both of us about her trust.   Why would a lawyer ask for them? Wasn’t the point of the trust to make everything hassle free?  Your mother’s lawyer is asking for letters from two doctors stating that your mother is incapable of managing her own affairs because, most likely, the trust states that you and your brother can act as successor Trustees only upon your mother’s incapacity. The trust probably also states that incapacity is to be determined by two letters from physicians stating, under penalty of perjury, that your mother is incapacitated. Many trusts are drafted this way. The idea is to protect your mother from having her powers as Trustee taken away unless she really can’t manage her own affairs.  Ask the attorney to provide you with letters for the doctors to sign — that shouldn’t be a big deal if, in fact, she isn’t able to manage.