Even married couples need a financial power of attorney for each other
Attorney Chris Merrill: One of the things that you may check in with Holley about is a financial power of attorney. People often will say to us, "Oh, Tom, Chrissy, we're husband and wife. We don't need that." However, you do because there are often times as husband and wife, if you have a retirement account in your individual names, you need the financial power of attorney even as husband and wife to talk to that financial institution if either was temporarily incapacitated. You can call Attorney Holley Knapik right now at 407-423-5561. She's happy to answer any legal questions you may have. Of course, Attorney Tom Olsen is available live on the air to answer your questions at 407-916-5400, or you can text Tom your short legal question to 23680.
Tom, we do have some upcoming workshops. We have free one-hour workshops available to you our listeners that we do in our office. Very informative. Your workshop, Tom, Easy Ways to Avoid Probate. We have a few seats available Wednesday, May 15th. We would love to have you join. If you are interested in joining attorney Tom Olsen's one-hour Easy Ways to Avoid Probate Workshop, we would invite you to call Holley right now at 407-423-5561. You can reserve your seat with Holley, or you can call anytime 407-423-5561 and just leave your name and number to reserve your seat, as well as you can go to our website at olsenlawgroup.com, O-L-S-E-N Law Group dot com.
Right there on our website, you can select the workshop and then your name and phone number, and we'll reserve a seat. Also, too, if you have any questions, then of course we can answer those as well, but we would love to have you join Attorney Tom Olsen's workshop. We also have How to Protect Your Life Savings from Nursing Homes. That one is available on Tuesday, May 14th. If you're interested, again, you can call Holley right now at 407-423-5561 right now or anytime to reserve your seat. We would love to have you join with these informative workshops.
Attorney Tom Olsen: I'm sure the people out there are going, "What are those dates? What are those times? I'm not sure. Is that going to work for me or not?" Also, you can call the Olsen Law Group anytime and ask us to mail you a postcard. It's got all of our upcoming workshop dates, titles, times up for the next few months, and they can find out which one suits them the best.
Chrissy: Exactly.
Tom: If you haven't been to my workshop on Easy Ways to Avoid Probate, well, you're going to get really educated in a short period of time. You're going to really enjoy yourself, and it goes very quickly. You're going to walk out of here a much more educated person about how to avoid probate. When we say that Chrissy, we know that from all the wills and estate planning and trust we've done for people over the years, when we say yes, we want to help you avoid probate, they just perk up because people, whether it's their parents or a friend or a neighbor or a co-worker, they've all heard some horror story one or another about somebody had to go through probate, long and expensive. They know that they want to avoid it. They don't know how to do it. Well, that's what we're all about helping them to do here at the Olsen Law Group.
Chrissy: Absolutely.
Tom: They can come to our workshop, but as well, we have easy booklets to read as well on Easy Ways to Avoid Probate. You can get those by calling or contacting the Olsen Law Group anytime 407-423-5561 or through our website olsenlawgroup.com. Chrissy, you were talking about financial powers of attorney between married couples, and sometimes the married couples think, "Well, we don't need to do financial powers of attorney between ourselves. We own everything jointly." Well, the point is that even married couples have assets under individual names like IRAs, 401Ks, pension plans, Social Security.
Chrissy: Correct.
Tom: If the wife is in a car wreck and is comatose or the wife develops Alzheimer's, she might live for many years where those assets need to be managed, and the only way the husband is going to be able to do that is through a financial power of attorney where she appoints him her agent to do those things for her.
Chrissy: Exactly. People often think, "Oh, Tom. It's okay. I've named my spouse in the account as beneficiary." Unfortunately, that is a false sense of security because that is about when the spouse passes away. It's not about what you've been describing, which is the spouse is alive but incapacitated. This is where you must have the financial power of attorney.
Tom: Now, people might be thinking, "Well, what's the big deal? I don't have a power of attorney. I'll just figure out another way to manage my spouse's assets or manage mom and dad's assets." Well, we go from something simple and easy. Financial power of attorney got to go be signed while mom and dad are alive and competent to something 180 degrees to something very complicated, time-consuming, and expensive, and that's a legal guardianship.
Chrissy: Exactly.
Tom: To set up a legal guardianship, folks, you're talking about six months and $6,000 just to set it up. When you petition for that guardianship, we don't know who the court's going to appoint as a guardian. It might be you. It might be another family member. It might be a complete stranger. There's a lot of unknown there.
Chrissy: Correct.
Tom: All of that can be avoided by having a good durable power of attorney for financial affairs in place.
Chrissy: Exactly. Very important. We are happy to answer your questions. Oftentimes, it starts with just a phone call for a few minutes that we are able to explain to you what and why and answer those questions, but financial power of attorney-- Here's the other thing, Tom. I know we do more and more. I do more and more when the child turns 18. We've just been talking about married couples. However, this is where from 18 to 108 and everywhere in between [unintelligible 00:07:07].
Tom: There are some people out there thinking right now, "Well, Tom, years ago we had our wills done. I'm pretty sure there's a financial power of attorney in there, so I should be all good to go." Well, not necessarily because we're qualifying it by saying a good financial power of attorney, and so folks, pull it out. Make sure you got one, but if you're not sure about how good it is, well, good news is Olsen Law Group, we will give a free review of your existing wills, powers of attorney and make sure they're good to go.
Then number two is that banks and other institutions don't like old financial powers of attorney. If yours is more than five years old, that in and of itself is a reason for you to redo it. The Florida statutes don't say that, but that's just the fact of the matter is banks and other institutions don't like them if they're more than five years old.
Chrissy: Absolutely. Again, if you're have a question about it, if you have that old financial power of attorney, we can take a look at it for you, but we can definitely look and/or answer questions about your power of attorney.
Tom: I'm going to take it one more level Chrissy because this happens on a regular basis. People come and see us for their free review of their estate planning documents, wills, powers of attorney. They turn over their envelope to us. We pull them out, and they're all copies. They're not originals. They're copies. They're stamped copies. I go, "Well, these are not original. These are copies." "What? No, those got to be." "No, these are copies. Look, I can tell." It might be stamped copies. Then you look at it. You'll see a stamp, and it says the original of these documents is being held at the lawyer's office. Guess what? Those lawyers aren't even in business anymore.
Chrissy: Absolutely.
Tom: It's often the case.
Chrissy: Correct.
Tom: I've never understood the reason why lawyers hold on to the original documents from behalf of their client. We're not believers in that. The originals belong to the clients. Yes, we scan them for our copies, our file, and we scan and put them on a thumb drive for the client, but the clients leave here with the original. A lot of people are under the false impression that they have estate planning documents that are good to go. They're in an envelope somewhere, but they're not even originals. They're copies.
Chrissy: Exactly.
Tom: Maybe they did have the originals once upon a time, but the originals have been lost. People move around all the time and then can't find these documents. That's one of the reasons why we like to put them in a white notebook.
Chrissy: Correct.
Tom: Much easier to keep track of. These white notebooks, you can put it on a shelf somewhere, and you'll know where it is. It's not stuck in a drawer somewhere.
Chrissy: People love our notebook. They do. It's about helping them to make sure they don't lose track of it and keep them organized.
Tom: Exactly. Hey, folks. My name is Tom Olsen. The name of the show is Olson on Law. We're going to take a break. We'll be back in just a few minutes.
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