Video Transcript
As far as an age at which you're to create an estate plan, in reality, anybody who's over 18 should have some sort of estate plan, because once you're adult, certain decisions your parents could have made for you when your minors is no longer true.
As an example, as soon as you're 18, your parents or anybody's access to your medical records is none. Okay? Hospitals and doctors are not allowed to release medical information to anybody once you over 18 without written permission. And if you were ever to go to hospital unconscious, obviously, you can't give that permission. So that's why we always recommend to our clients, especially when they have young adult children, especially if they're going to go away at college, is to have them sign a power of attorney health directive to make sure that their parents or siblings can always, there's always somebody that can make decisions for them when they cannot. And that's regardless of how much or how little assets you have.
Now, I'll be honest, it's not so much an age base that people should have an estate plan. It's usually A, you have assets like a home, or B, have children. I mean, those are the other most common reasons that people should have an estate plan. Obviously, that's not age-dependent other than that you're an adult.
So we recommend anybody again that owns a home, has children, or just wants to make sure that if something happens to them, that things are resolved in an orderly fashion, that they have an estate plan to make sure that's happened. Because at the end of the day, you always want to be able to choose who's in charge, when I can't be, of myself, my assets, and if I have children, most importantly of the children.
