What Is Estate Planning?

You can save your loved ones a lot of money and frustration by devising a plan for the management of your health care and property in the event you become severely disabled or pass away. An Alaska attorney who does estate planning can help you with:

• Advance health care directives that give instructions on how you want your health care managed if you become incapacitated and unable to speak for yourself
• Powers of attorney that appoint someone to manage your property and sign legal papers for you if you become severely incapacitated
• Wills and probate that transfer your property to selected beneficiaries upon your death
• Trusts that provide for the care of minors or disabled persons, minimize taxes, or protect against creditors
• Strategies to avoid probate that transfer property at death-- insurance, gifts, joint ownership of property, bank accounts
• Medicaid eligibility planning

Advance Health Care Directives

In 2005 Alaska passed a law that replaced “living wills” with a new form called an Advance Health Care Directive. The Advance Health Care Directive allows you to give instructions for your health care, appoint someone to make health care decisions for you, and name a health care provider. It has five parts. You can fill out some or all of the parts:

• Part 1 – Health Care Durable Power of Attorney: You can select someone, an agent, to make health care decisions for you. You can indicate whether you want your agent to act for you only if you are incapacitated, or you can have your agent make your health care decisions even when you’re still able to make them.
• Part 2 – Instructions for Health Care: You can give specific instructions regarding your health care and indicate whether you want to receive life-sustaining treatment, like artificial respiration or feeding tubes if you become terminally ill or permanently unconscious.
• Part 3 – Anatomical Gift at Death: You chose whether to donate organs or other body parts upon your death.
• Part 4 – Mental Health Treatment: Here you can indicate your wishes regarding the mental health treatment you do or don’t want to receive if you are incapacitated. Or, you can indicate that your agent will make those decisions for you.
• Part 5 – Primary Physician Designation: You can name the doctor primarily responsible for your health care.

To be valid, the Advance Health Care Directive must be signed by you and witnesses. The Directive can be witnessed by a notary public. Or, you can have two adult witnesses sign who aren’t your health care provider or health care employee, and one of them can’t be a relative or someone who inherits from you after your death.

Powers of Attorney

In Alaska, you can sign a durable power of attorney to appoint someone to handle your finances and personal affairs if you become incapacitated. At a minimum, a power of attorney should include the power to:

• Manage and transfer all money and property 
• Deal with the IRS
• Make gifts on your behalf
• Create and amend any trusts you set up

You don't need to transfer any assets at the time you sign a power of attorney, but it's a good idea to keep the person you've chosen informed about your ongoing financial matters.  

Making A Will

In Alaska, you can make a valid will if you are at least 18 years old and of sound mind. The will must be in writing and signed by you or in your name by some other person in your presence by your direction. Your will must be signed by at least two people who witnessed either the signing or your acknowledgment of the signature.

Alaska law does recognize holographic, or handwritten, wills as valid even if they aren't witnessed. The signature and important parts of the will must be in the handwriting of the testator (person making the will).

In the will you can indicate who receives your property after you die. You can also select a guardian for your minor children and designate a person, called an executor or personal representative, to manage the settling of your debts and distribution of your property after your death. You can deposit your will with an Alaska state court for safekeeping for a fee of $40.

Dying Without A Will

 If you die without a will (known as dying intestate) in Alaska, your assets are divided among the members of your family. If you have no children or parents, or all of your children are also children of your spouse, your spouse gets all of your property. If you have no children but have parents, your spouse gets the first $ 200,000 plus three-fourths of the balance with the remainder going to your parents. If you leave children who are also the children of your spouse, and your spouse has other children, your spouse gets $ 150,000, plus one-half of any balance of the intestate estate. If you leave children who are not descendants of your surviving spouse, your spouse gets $ 100,000, plus one-half of any balance of the intestate estate

Any part of your estate that does not go to your spouse will go to your children. If you do not have children, any part of your estate that does not go to your spouse will go to your parents. If you have no surviving spouse, children, or parents, your property will go to other relatives.

Related Resources on Lawyers.com^sm

- Contact an Estate Planning attorney in your area for specific advice, and read about Selecting a Good Estate Planning Lawyer
- Need a form? Access hundreds of Personal Legal Forms, including a Living Will and Power of Attorney 
- Read Trust Basics, Gloria Allred Wills & Estate Planning Tips and other Estate Planning articles and information
- Legal Dictionary
- Visit the Legal Forums for discussions on Estates, Wills & Probate topics