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 if you become severely disabled or pass away.

A Texas estate planning attorney can help you with:

• Advance health care directives telling how you want your health care managed if you ever become too ill to speak for yourself
• Powers of attorney appointing someone to manage your property and sign legal papers for you if you become unable to take care of your own affairs
• Wills and probate that transfer your property to selected beneficiaries upon your death
• Trusts that provide for the care of children or disabled persons, minimize taxes or protect against creditors
• Ways to avoid probate that transfer property at death - insurance, gifts, joint ownership of property, bank accounts
• Medicaid eligibility planning

Advance Directives for Health Care

An advance directive is a legal document giving instructions about the medical care you want to receive if you later become incapacitated.

Texas advance directives include:

• Medical Power of Attorney: You can select someone, such as your spouse or a close friend, to be your health care agent. This person has the authority to make health care decisions for you if you become too ill to make these decisions for yourself
• Directive to Physicians and Family or Surrogates: You can indicate whether you want life-support treatment, like artificial respiration, if you become terminally ill and near death or suffer an irreversible debilitating condition
• Declaration for Mental Health Treatment: You can indicate the type of mental health treatment you do or don't want to receive if a court later finds you lack capacity make those decisions. You can make choices about psychoactive medication, convulsive therapy and emergency mental health treatment
• Out-of-Hospital Do Not Resuscitate Order: Patients may ask their doctor to sign an order telling emergency medical personal and other health care professionals outside of a hospital setting to withhold CPR or other attempts to revive you if your heart and breathing stop 

Powers of Attorney

In Texas, you can sign a durable power of attorney to appoint someone to handle your assets if you become severely disabled. 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 when you sign a power of attorney. It is a good idea to keep the person you've chosen informed about your ongoing financial matters.

Making a Will

In Texas, you can make a valid will if you are of sound mind and at least 18 years old or have been lawfully married or a member of the armed forces.

Your will should be in writing and signed by you, or by someone who signs for you at your direction and in your presence. Two witnesses aged 14 or older must sign your will in your presence.

You will can be made "self-proving" if you and the witnesses sign and swear to statements in an affidavit in front of a notary public. A will that is "self-proving" can be admitted to probate without requiring the witnesses to later appear in court to testify that it's your will.

Texas law does recognize holographic, or handwritten, wills that are completely in the handwriting of the 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.

A Texas lawyer who does estate planning can explain the consequences of some of the most basic choices you must make in writing your will. It makes sense to have an estate planning lawyer draft your will so you avoid costly mistakes and achieve your intended results.

Related Resources on Lawyers.com^sm

- Contact an Estate Planning Law Lawyer in your area for specific legal advice, and read about Trusts & Estates: Selecting a Good 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