At the beginning of an Estate Planning file, the team at LK Law will send an intake questionnaire to our clients for completion. The last two pages of this questionnaire focuses on incapacity planning including Advance Directives.
What is an Advance Directive?
An Advance Directive sets out your wishes for health care in the event that you are incapable of expressing these yourself. The Advance Directive is governed by the Health Care (Consent) and Care Facility (Admission) Act, and can be fairly general or contain specific provisions regarding the type of health care you will consent or refuse. For some, their desired wishes may relate to certain strongly held preferences or beliefs. For others, they may be seeking peace of mind. Regardless, preparing an Advance Directive is an important step to consider when developing an estate plan.
I am moved to do this short post after reading a recent news story that described a classic dispute between family members who earnestly believed that a relative, who was in a vegetative state, was still capable of recovery even though the treating medical staff were giving contrary advice.
By thinking about incapacity planning well ahead of time, you can spare your loved ones the anguish of trying to keep pushing for treatment when the medical advice is that the time for treatment has passed. With an Advance Directive your family will know your wishes and what you want to do.
For assistance with estate planning, including the preparation of an Advance Directive, please contact any member of our estate planning team.
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Timothy N. Grier Partner | Estate Planning & Litigation Langley |
This article is intended to be an overview of the law and is for informational purposes only. Readers are cautioned that this article does not constitute legal or professional advice and should not be relied on as such. Rather, readers should obtain specific legal advice in relation to the issues they are facing.