Young Adult Estate Planning

A health care proxy (a/k/a an advance directive or health care directive) grants your named agent the authority to make medical decisions for you should you become incapable of making or expressing your wishes. You can grant your agent the authority to give, withhold or withdraw consent to medical, surgical, and psychiatric treatments, nursing home care, hospitalization, home health care treatment, and life support decisions.

A durable power of attorney is used to appoint a person or organization to manage non-health affairs if you become unable to do so yourself. This may be due to physical or mental incapacity, or, for example, because you leave the country and aren’t able to attend to such matters.

Granting a power of attorney does not mean you are giving up the power to act on your own behalf. You can limit the power to a particular activity (for example, selling your home), and you can revoke it in the future.

Agent for Power of Attorney

Many people name their spouse/partner or, in the case of a young adult, their parent/s, as their agent for the power of attorney, and this is often a good decision.