Disease, uncertainty and loss aren’t fun. Same usually goes for death and estate planning. However, what’s less fun, is not being ready if (or when) it takes place.
Today’s COVID-19 pandemic is a reminder that everyone is vulnerable. Its worldwide reach has created circumstances that most people never before considered, but which have always been possibilities. It is an opportunity to break from routine and to consider how to best protect yourself, your loved ones and your future if you become unavailable for any reason.
As we navigate the many impacts of the pandemic, Santa Barbara Fiduciary would like to offer some guidance and planning solutions to help you make sure that you, your loved ones, and your affairs are taken care of the way you want in the case of your absence. Planning for the inevitable remains one of those critically important matters, too often set on the back burner. Santa Barbara Fiduciary is here to help ensure harmonious transitions, and that your planning and wishes are honored. Your peace of mind is our priority.
Showing Your Estate Plan a Little Love During COVID-19
Self-care means taking action today to improve your health or circumstances tomorrow. Self-care isn’t limited to your physical well-being and should include ensuring that your financial and emotional needs are met when the unexpected strikes or the inevitable arrives. Self-care for your affairs includes showing a little love to your estate plan by giving it some attention.
Estate planning is not just about naming your beneficiaries. It also includes identifying the people in your life that you trust have the skills, availability, objectivity and fortitude to advocate for you, your loves ones, your own health, and your financial stability when you’re sick, injured, or quarantined. And fiduciary planning isn’t just about naming that person- it’s about providing that person with the information and insight to diligently carry out your plan.
Here are ways that Santa Barbara Fiduciary can help you to be prepared.
Durable Power of Attorney Appointments and Financial Concierge Services to Pay Bills or Handle Business
Durable powers of attorney are incredibly flexible documents that can impart authority to another person or agent. The level of authority can be as broad or as narrowly- defined as you wish, and is designed to designate your “backup” should you become incapacitated. If you are quarantined or hospitalized and require someone trustworthy enough to access your bank accounts, write checks on your behalf, or handle pending business, a power of attorney can be used to grant Santa Barbara Fiduciary the authority to act on your behalf. That power can be revoked at any time, and only has an effect during your lifetime.
Outside of legal appointments, Santa Barbara Fiduciary can help restore final order to your life with remote financial concierge services including assistance aggregating financial information, making timely bill payments, establishing/implementing efficient systems for tracking and reporting financial information, establishing systems or plans to organize financial records, and managing mail. We can help shoulder responsibilities, sort through and prioritize issues and help with decision making, when your available and when you’re not.
Self-Care Planning Through Advanced Health Care Directives
An advanced health care directive is an opportunity for you to tell your doctors, nurses, and loved ones what is most important to you about your physical, mental and emotional health. If you value maximizing the time you have here on Earth, you can indicate your preference to receive any and all life-saving measures. If you prefer quality of life and minimizing pain, there is a wide spectrum of options that can be completely customized to your individual preferences. But it’s for not, unless you have in place an individual willing and able to advocate for you
One of the scariest aspects of not being well is not being able to express to the people around you what you need. With advanced care planning, Santa Barbara Fiduciary puts an emphasis on identifying the people and circumstances that best contribute to your mental and emotional health. For some individuals, this means ample human interaction or it might mean listening to classical music, and the attendance of a priest, rabbi, or another religious leader. For others, it means withholding food even when they cannot feed themselves. By setting forth in writing the people and circumstances that are most important to your physical, mental and emotional health, Santa Barbara Fiduciary can help to ensure you’re cared for in the manner you wish, at all stages of life.
Objective Successor Trustee Appointments Ease the Burden of Your Loss
Santa Barbara Fiduciary acting as an independent, skilled and objective successor trustee can alleviate the weight of the burden that death often leaves behind. Being a successor trustee is a big deal and a lot of work. It involves considerable time expended in preparing financial analyses and spreadsheets; shepherding assets; searching for and tracking down lost information; tax reporting; traveling to financial, debt related, creditor, and other business entities for research; evaluating, repairing, and making decisions concerning real and personal property; determining status and then preparing an accounting to beneficiaries to provide status of the trust estate – this takes time and acumen that family members might not have or be willing to devote. Santa Barbara Fiduciary, acting as an agent understands the mechanics of estate plans and fiduciary appointments and are able to work quickly and efficiently through the required administration steps. Because those we love are often busy with their own lives, sometimes living far from where we are and can occasionally be in conflict with one another, using Santa Barbara Fiduciary can simplify our planning and put your concerns to rest.
At Santa Barbara Fiduciary, we think the interruption of the COVID-19 pandemic is a perfect opportunity for some self-care for both you and your estate. And only when we first help ourselves can we effectively help others.
We encourage you to take action today for peace of mind and confidence that you will be living a life on your terms throughout instability and life transitions and that your loved ones will be safe and cared for when you’re gone.
Start Today with Remote Successor Fiduciary Appointment Planning
Santa Barbara Fiduciary is proud to offer a 6-step remote Successor Fiduciary Appointment Planning solution:
- Contact us by phone or email to let us know you’re interested. We’ll follow-up to make sure that our office is the best fit for your fiduciary needs and to schedule your complimentary Initial Consultation by either call or video conference (your choice).
- For no commitment or charge, we will provide you with our Successor Fiduciary Appointment Planning intake packet, so that you can tell us about the important people in your life and the assets that need protecting. This gives us a starting point so that we are better prepared to ask you the right questions during the Initial Consultation.
- During our remote Initial Consultation, we will get to know each other, review your current circumstances, and, often, we will jump in to documenting your unique needs and goals and designing your Successor Fiduciary Appointment Plan at this meeting. If you chose to have Santa Barbara Fiduciary represent you as a successor agent, we will also agree on a fixed fee for the planning.
- After our Initial Consultation, you’ll have some homework – the completion of a more comprehensive questionnaire that ensures we capture complete and pertinent information to your individual circumstances, planning, intent and wishes. You’ll also provide us with a copy of your estate planning documents.
- We do the rest! (Well, almost.) We’ll review your estate planning documents, prepare a memorandum of understanding, prepare what we call our client ‘Quick Reference Sheet’ and establish your internal file. We will provide you a copy of these documents (a handy reference you can you use for yourself or pass along to loved ones as you see fit) and ask that you review it for accuracy.
- We realize that our clients will only have peace of mind if they know that their planning is up-to-date and remains current. We also know that fiduciary fees can quickly become very expensive. For these reasons, we offer a maintenance program. With this program you are able to obtain ongoing fiduciary services and advice to keep your successor fiduciary planning current at a substantially reduced cost.
In crisis and in health, Santa Barbara Fiduciary is here to support you in any way we can.
