Your Child is Now an Adult, Whether You Like It or Not
Parents don’t think about this, but a college bound senior is leaving the nest legally as well as physically. When your child turns 18, they are adults in the legal sense of the word. Suddenly, they have legal rights of their own. That means you cannot just swoop in and act for them if they are not able to make decisions for themselves.
Nobody likes to consider this, but what if your child cannot make decisions in an emergency. How would you communicate with their doctors? How would youmanage their finances? How would make any legally binding decisions for them?
Well you can, IF you plan ahead. And we are going to make it easy for you by giving your college bound child a FREE set of these important legal documents if their parent or parents get their own estate planning documents done too.
Parents know they also need these important legal documents. But people put off their own estate planning issues because they think they have time. You may have time. But your college bound child is leaving soon, and you better act fast to get these documents done before they leave.
To cover yourself in an emergency, you can get these three important legal documents for your child:
(1) HIPAA Authorization
Your child’s medical records are protected by federal law once they turn 18. Nobody can see them without an explicit authorization under the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA). If there is some emergency, you could be in the dark about your child’s condition.
Luckily, this is a one page form document and easy to fill out. Your child can give you legal authority to obtain his or her medical records for up to one year. The form does expire after one year, so you do have to get this document renewed each summer.
A HIPAA form only gives you the right to see your child’s medical records. For the actual power to do anything with that knowledge, you need another document.
(2) Advanced Medical Directive
This is sometimes called a Living Will. People only think about this for the elderly, but it can be even more useful for a parent of a college student. This document gives you (or some other agent your child can choose) the legal right to make medical decisions in the event your child is not able to make decisions for themselves.
This document is not as simple as a one page HIPAA form, but it is not overly complicated. It requires your child to consent to giving you the power they legally have now, but it is usually limited to a circumstance where a doctor has certified that your child does not have the medical capacity to make their own medical decisions. So it is not triggered immediately, only upon the happening of some emergency situation.
(3) Financial Power of Attorney
This document is WAY more complex than the other two listed above. A financial power of attorney gives you the right to make any and all financial decisions for your child. You will essentially be their agent for all legal and financial matters. So you can sign their name to contracts, and handle their financial accounts.
You had this legal decision making authority before they turned 18. You don’t have it now. So if you think you can just log into your child’s bank account and pay some bills you better think again. You can’t do that if they are over 18.
Whether or not your child needs a financial power of attorney is a question to discuss with an attorney. We feel confident in saying that almost every college student needs to do the first two documents, but not every college student needs, or will be comfortable with, the last one.
Remember our offer – we will do these documents for your child for free IF you as the parent get your own estate planning documents done with our firm.
This is a very valuable offer, partly for the money saved, but mostly because we hope it motivates you as a parent to get those probably long overdue estate planning documents done!
