A will or testament is a legal document that expresses a person's wishes as to how their property is to be distributed after their death and as to which person is to manage the property until its final distribution.

The terms "living will," "health care directive," and "advance directive" all refer to the legal document that lets people state their wishes for end-of-life medical care.

A trust is a legal relationship in which the legal title to property is entrusted to a person or legal entity with a fiduciary duty to hold and use it for another's benefit.

Powers of attorney can be helpful to older people and others who want to choose a trusted person to act when they cannot. Creating a POA is a private way to appoint a substitute decision-maker and is relatively inexpensive, although it may involve help from a lawyer. If you don’t create a POA in advance, a friend or family member might have to go to court to have a guardian appointed – and that process can be lengthy, expensive, and very public.

The beneficiary for an account is the person you want to benefit from the account after you die. Beneficiaries can be named for individual retirement accounts (IRAs), mutual funds, annuities, bank accounts and life insurance policies. .

Yes. This is part of Phase 3. While we are not attorneys and do not offer legal advice, we do offer a space (via Zoom) to assist families with understanding the items a traditional Will Questionnaire will ask for; in addition to supporting families with gaining comfort with the entire process in general.

a person who has died without having made a will.

In the field of medicine, a healthcare proxy is a document with which a patient appoints an agent to legally make healthcare decisions on behalf of the patient, when the patient is incapable of making and executing the healthcare decisions stipulated in the proxy.