| June 15th is Elder Abuse Awareness Day!Sometimes you see those terrible stories shown on TV related to elder abuse and think, do they really happen? Unfortunately, some of them are real. The movie I Care a Lot tells the story of a con artist named Marla Grayson who makes a living by becoming the court-appointed guardian of vulnerable elders who she places in a nursing home, where they are sedated and left unable to manage their affairs. Meanwhile, Marla sells all of the elderly person’s belongings and property and pockets the cash, while the elderly person’s family members watch helplessly. Fortunately, this nightmarish circumstance can be avoided by doing one simple thing, naming trusted decision makers in your Estate Planning documents.By naming trusted decision makers in your Estate Planning documents, particularly in financial and medical powers of attorney, and updating these documents regularly, you can avoid being placed at the mercy of a court-appointed guardian like Marla Grayson. A Durable Power of Attorney and Health Care Surrogate allows you to appoint someone to make financial and medical decisions for you when you are unable to make them for yourself. You can customize your choices by appointing one person to make financial decisions and another person to make medical decisions. You can even choose backups to act as alternates in case your first choice cannot or will not act for you.Unfortunately, if you do not choose someone to be your decision maker, or if the person you have chosen cannot or will not act for you, the state may choose someone for you. This person will have extensive authority to act on your behalf, and at that point, you will have no say in who that person should be. Sadly, the person chosen by the court could be a family member who you do not want making decisions for you or a court-appointed person with bad intentions, such as Marla Grayson. With the odds of becoming incapacitated as people are living longer, this is not something you want to leave to chance, particularly when the solution is so easy.You can avoid a real-life nightmare by taking the simple step of creating or updating your incapacity documents such as Durable Power of Attorney and Designation of Health Care Surrogate. We know how important it is to select the right person to be your trusted decision maker, and we would be happy to help you create or update this important piece of your estate plan.If you are interested in creating an estate plan or you need to make changes to your estate plan, Pittman Law Office can help. Call us for a free consultation, our number is (352) 399-6944. In addition, the State of Florida has created a program to assist retired citizens in how to protect themselves from becoming crime victims and The Villages has an active chapter, it is called, Seniors Vs Crime, https://www.svcinthevillages.org/ and there are plenty of resources online that you can learn more about elder abuse such as https://www.justice.gov/elderjustice. |
