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 Idaho lawyer 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 to 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 Directive for Health Care

An Advance Directive for Health Care contains written instructions that tell how you want your health care to be managed if you become so ill you can't speak for yourself. You can file your Advance Directive in a State Registry maintained by the Idaho Secretary of State.

Your Advance Directive can include one or both of the following parts:

• Living Will: You can indicate your treatment preferences in the event you become fatally ill and near death. Your living will becomes effective only when doctors certify you have a terminal and incurable illness or are permanently unconscious
  You can indicate whether you want life-prolonging procedures, like artificial respirators or feeding tubes, to be used to extend your life as long as possible. Or you can indicate you want these procedures to be withheld. You will always be given necessary pain and comfort medication no matter what option you select.
• Durable Power of Attorney for Health Care: You can select someone to be your agent to make your health care decisions if you become too sick to make them yourself. You may give your agent broad or limited authority to make decisions, and you can include specific instructions regarding your wishes. 

Powers of Attorney

In Idaho, you can sign a durable power of attorney to appoint someone to handle your assets if you become incapacitated. At a minimum, a power of attorney should include the power to:

• Manage and transfer all assets
• 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 Idaho, you can make a valid will if you are an emancipated minor (legally responsible for yourself) or at least 18 years old and of sound mind. Your will must be in writing and signed by you or signed in your name by another at your direction and in your presence. You need to have two people sign your will after they either witness the signing of your will or your acknowledgment of the signature of the will.

Handwritten, or holographic, wills are allowed, even if not witnessed, if the important provisions and signature are in the handwriting of the testator (person making the will).

In the will you can:

• Distribute your property
• Select a guardian for your minor children
• Name an executor or personal representative to manage the probate of your will and the distribution of your property after your death

You can change your will by making a new will that replaces or revokes the old one or by making an addition to the will, called a codicil. Changes such as a marriage, divorce, birth or adoption of a child, new property ownership or moving to another state should cause you to review your will and consider whether it should be changed to fit your new situation.

An Idaho lawyer who does estate planning can explain the consequences of some of the most basic choices you must make, such as whether property you want to leave to your minor children should be put into a trust at your death. It makes sense to consult with an Idaho estate planning lawyer and have him or her draft your will so you avoid costly mistakes and achieve your intended results.

Dying without a Will

If you die without a will (known as dying intestate) in Idaho, your assets will be divided among members of your immediate family. All of the community property will go to your spouse.

Your separate property will go to your spouse if you do not have children, a parent or parents. If you have a parent but no children, your spouse will receive one-half of your separate property. If you have children, you spouse will receive one-half of your separate property.

The part of your estate that doesn't go to your spouse goes first to your children. If you do not have children, the remainder of your estate goes to your parent or parents. If you do not have children or any parents, the remainder of your estate goes to your brothers and sisters.

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 an Living Will, Power of Attorney and Last Will & Testament 
- 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