Polk City, FL - Florida · Member since 2014 · 3 posts · 0 votes
I live in Florida and my father lives in southern IL. I need a lawyer in southern IL (close to Metropolis, Illinois) to set up a life estate deed and paperwork to Pay on death bank accounts ect... for my father.
Investor · Kirkland, WA · Member since 2017 · 310 posts · 271 votes
9y
Hi Susan,
As a professional fiduciary I see almost no one that has done medicaid/end of life planning before it's needed, and even then usually at most a will or living trust. There are other issues that can come up besides what you might think you want to do with real property (life estate as you said) and bank accounts (POD as you said); your father could begin to suffer from diminished capacity and might need a guardianship or DPOA at some point in the future, there are advanced directives, POLST forms, benefits planning... These other issues are part of the overall planning a good estate planning attorney will be able to help you with.
I'm not an attorney but I will say on this issue it's not the type of task to try to do yourself. Working with an attorney familiar with estate planning is worth it. Assuming this is for your father, I recommend you poke around and find an estate planning attorney in IL. You should both meet with them before you make any decisions on life estates and POD.