Preparing for the death of a spouse.

[moneysense]

One of the hardest facts in the world to face is when your life mate is pronounced terminal. The period of time between this pronouncement and the actual death of your spouse will be extremely stressful with you both forgetting things that need to be done.

The first thing that needs to be done is Power of Attorney. This gives the healthy spouse the right to take care of any bank accounts, selling of any property, and should also include Medical Power of Attorney for when your spouse becomes confused or unresponsive.

It is a good idea, if you have children, to make one or two of them alternate Power of Attorney in case any unforseen problems happen to the healthy spouse. This way you can be assured that the ailing spouse will be taken care of if something happens to you.

One thing you must remember is that after your spouse has passed, the Power of Attorney is no longer effective.

We will be discussing many things that need to be done before and after the death of your spouse.

[bigbux]

Thank you for writing about this topic. It's hard when someone you love passes, and all the resulting paper work is enough to push you over the brink sometimes.

The death of a spouse is probably the single most traumatic event in people's life. Grieving is something we all are told about, but it's impossible to imagine the impact of it until you go through it.

It helps enormously to have all one's ducks in a row.

[moneysense]

There are so many things you two will need to talk about. And it wont be easy because you are making preparations for something very unpleasant but it needs to be done at all cost.

One thing that you need to talk about is where your spouse wants to be at the end. Whether he/she wants to be in the hospital or at home. But whichever decision is made, your spouse will need a Living Will and it is best drawn up by your attorney.

Generally, a living will describes certain life prolonging treatments. You, the declarant, indicate which treatments you do or do not want applied to you in the event you either suffer from a terminal illness or are in a permanent vegetative state. A living will does not become effective unless you are incapacitated; until then you'll be able to say what treatments you do or don't want.

These treatments include, life support, intubation, mechanical feeding, and an order to DNR or do not ressusitate.

With a Living Will, there can be no arguments from anyone as to what treatments your spouse does or doesnt want. And as the end nears, it will make it much easier to just hand a doctor the Living Will rather than try to explain at this time what does or doesnt need done.

For complete information on Living Wills, go to alllaw.com

[bigbux]

I think these vary from state to state. Here in Oregon, the DNR (Do not resuscitate) is a totally seperate thing and not included in the living will.

So be sure to ask your lawyer for both items, you may need seperate forms.

As far as the DNR goes, I personally wouldn't hand it over to medical personell until I know for sure that we are nearing the very end and your spouse is not wanting to have a little more time. These are very personal decisions, and I would not give medics a chance to make them for your loved one.

[moneysense]

Something else that needs to be addressed at this time are funeral arrangements. Most people have a certain way they want things done and in order to make sure this is done the way they want, you will have a couple of options.

One is to go to the local funeral home and pick up one of their booklets that allows you to write down everything pertinent to what will need to be done.

My booklet is titled: Personal Arrangement Guide and it includes the following: Vital Statistics, Preferences and Requests, How yhou want the obituary to read, People to notify, Life Insurance, and a Record of Accounts such as bank accounts and credit cards etc that will need to be taken care of afterwards.

My husband and I had gone to the funeral home of choice and made all arrangements and he picked out his casket. This was a very hard thing to do but I am glad that we did it when we did as I dont think I could have handled it myself.

[bigbux]

We also did this years ago, we decided to go for cremation.

This is an unpleasant task no matter when or how you do it, but it sure takes a lot of burden off the surviving spouse.

Not only that, it can be extremely costly. Going into debt for the funeral just after one loses a spouse is really a very bad idea, the situation usually throws a wrench into your income anyway for some time.

Do take care of this, regardless of your age and life expectancy. Some day you will be glad you did.

[moneysense]

Another thing that needs to be done as soon as possible is your spouses Last Will and Testament. This needs done if there has been no prior will written up for your spouse or if there are any changes to be made to an existing will which will null and void any previous will.

You dont have to have this done in front of a lawyer but I chose to go through ours for my husband and myself.

For further information on wills, I am including a link to wikipedia which explains what a will is and how to go about doing it or having it done for you.

Wills

[bigbux]

Oh yes, without a will things can get very sticky for the survivor.

With a good will and with the spouse signing on all accounts and being on all titles (house, cars) you can avoid probate entirely. And that is what you want to do.

[moneysense]

Yet another thing to be taken care of is the Life Insurance as it will most likely be used to pay for the funeral costs.

As I had said before, my husband and I had gone to the funeral home of choice to take care of all the many details so that arrangements would be already taken care of. On that day, I left the Life Insurance Policy itself with the funeral director. That way, when it was needed, it would already be there and there would be no mad search looking for it after my husband was gone.

When the time came, because they already had the policy, they took care of getting the payment from the company and a few weeks later the remainder of the policy was sent to me in form of a check.

These are the easiest ways to take care of the many things that will need to be done in preparation for your loss and this way a lot of stress is alleviated.

[moneysense]

I cannot stress the importance of everyone having a will enough. Dying intestate or without a will can have some pretty disastrous results such as the following.

When you die without a will, your assets will be divided according to the laws of the state you reside in and therefore things wont go to whom you would have liked them to.

Then there are the taxes:

In addition, there are negative tax consequences that may arise for your estate as well as your heirs if you don't have a will and don't provide for any tax avoidance methods. Both federal and state governments may impose taxes on the transfer of your property, and a tax may also be imposed on the property distributed to your heirs.

So make sure your will is done. Any time you have assets of any kind, you need a will no matter what your age.

For more information: Dying intestate