Arizona Estate Planning Documents A La Cart

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Arizona Estate Planning Documents A La Carte^tm

Purchase Only the Docs You Want

by Arizona estate planning attorney Richard Keyt

I prepare comprehensive estate plans for single people and married couples for a fixed fee of $1,500 for the Family Protection Plan, which consists of 12 estate plan documents for each spouse. A revocable living trust is an additional $1,000. Each plan includes: (1) information collected on a 21 page questionnaire, (2) a minimum of two hour plus conference sessions with a KEYTLaw estate planning attorney to design an estate plan and sign all the documents in front of witnesses and a notary in our conference room, (3) all signed documents scanned and put on a CD in digital format,(4) a DocuBank membership, and (5) a beautiful portfolio to hold all of the documents.

For people who want quality custom drafted documents prepared by an experienced Arizona estate planning attorney and who are willing to pay less and eliminate the extra services mentioned above, I offer my A La Carte^tm estate plan document service. You pick which of my 10 estate planning documents you want. Purchase only the documents you need. Pick one, pick several or pick all 10 and save $460 off the individual document price. We prepare two of each purchased document at no additional cost for married couples.

I believe it is important that people have a basic estate plan that will protect their loved ones in the event of a death or incapacity. This is especially true when a family has minor children. If you do not have the basic estate planning documents in place, you are taking a risk that your family may suffer a "Terry Schiavo" nightmare. Remember Terry who made national news? She did not have a health care power of attorney or a living will so her husband and parents battled for years in court over medical decisions and whether to pull the plug on life support.

When bad things happen to people who have not designed a health care agent or or don't have a living will, the family must go to court and spend thousands of dollars on lawyers fees plus suffer the mental stress of a court proceeding. Don't let that happen to your family. Prepare now and protect your family.

Here's a list of the A La Carte^tmcustom-drafted estate planningdocuments you can purchase from me.

Primary Estate Plan Documents

Last Will & Testament. Your Will disposes of your probate assets to the heirs you name in the Will. If you do not have a Will or a Trust, your probate assets will go the heirs selected by Arizona's law of intestate succession. If you have minor children, your Will is the document where you name one or more people to be the guardian(s) of your minor children if something happens to you and your spouse.
Durable Financial Power of Attorney. Your Financial Power of Attorney (“FPOA”) is a document that gives your designated Agent(s) the right and power to act for you with respect to your financial affairs if you are alive and incompetent. This document only affects property that is not owned by a Trust (if you have a trust). Your FPOA will become effective if and only if you become incompetent. Your FPOA and the powers given to your Agent(s) in the FPOA terminate on the moment of your death. Your FPOA is very comprehensive. Your Agent(s) will not have to go to court to be appointed your conservator if you were to become incompetent.
Living Will. A Living Will does not dispose of property. A Living Will authorizes a doctor to pull the plug if you are not conscious and are being kept alive by a machine or in a terminal condition. Without this document, your family may not be able to convince a doctor to pull the plug without spending a lot of money and suffering a lot of heartache to get a court order to pull the plug. A court order takes time and lawyer fees while hospital and doctor bills go through the roof.
Healthcare Power of Attorney. The Healthcare Power of Attorney is a legal document by which you give an Agent the ability to make health care decisions on your behalf if you are unable to do so. Typically, the Agent chosen is a spouse, a trusted family member or a friend. Spouses usually name each other as the first choice. You may have more than one Agent and may choose whether the Co-Agents may act independently of each other or if they would have to join in the exercise of the power.
HIPAA Authorization. This document authorizes healthcare providers to give information about your health, medical condition and treatment to your designated agent (usually the person named as your health care agent). Without a HIPAA Authorization, many times your family may not be able to get information about you and your health care from doctors and hospitals because a federal law called "HIPAA" restricts who can have access to medical records of patients.

Ancillary Estate Plan Documents

Personal Property Memorandum. The Personal Property Memorandum is used together with your Last Will & Testament. Use this document to make gifts of certain types of tangible personal property without amending your Will. Tangible personal property is something you can touch like a painting, a couch, a diamond ring. Intangible personal property is something you cannot touch like a bank account or stock of General Motors. The Personal Property Memorandum works great for things like furniture, clothing, art, jewelry, but it cannot be used for something that has a title like a car. Here's how it works. You may say in your Will that you give everything to your children after you die. Two years after you sign your Will you decide you want to give a treasured piece of jewelry to a specific child. Without a Personal Property Memorandum, you would have to amend your Will to give the item of jewelry to the child. If you have a Personal Property Memorandum that is authorized and referred to in your Will, then you can change who receives specific items of tangible personal property as often as you like and you do not have go through the hassle or expense of amending your Will. When you purchase this document, we also give you a Word version of the document so you can print it and make any changes in the future. If you do make changes, destroy the old document and replace it with a newly signed one. This document can also prevent disputes among your children after you are gone if you distribute it to your family. A quick way to create disputes among children is to give property to one child and never tell the other children. When you have a PPM, you can give every child a copy so everyone will know that you are giving the item of jewelry to the one child.
Healthcare Power of Attorney for Minors. This document is used by parent(s) to designate another family member or friend to make healthcare decisions for an injured minor child if both parents cannot be contacted or are unable to provide instructions to the child's health care provider.
Mental Health Care Power of Attorney. This document is similar to a medical Health Care Power of Attorney. The difference is that the Mental Health Care Power of Attorney only concerns mental health. It authorizes somebody you select to make decisions for you about your mental health if you cannot.
Organ Donation Declaration. This form is used to donate all or part of your body for medical purposes.
Post Mortem Wishes. This is a letter signed by you in which you plan your funeral or memorial service. It's a fill-in-the-blanks letter for you to tell your family if you want an obituary, where to print it, the contents of your obituary, what music to play or scriptures to read at your service, who the pall bears should be and other information about what you want to happen after you are gone. The 12 page document covers a lot more ground than we have space. Although you should sign your Post Mortem Wishes, it is not legally binding on your family or anybody else. The purpose of the document is to give you an easy way to tell your family what you want to happen after your death. Most people never talk about this subject with their family. How will your family know what you want if you don't tell them?

How to Hire Arizona Estate Planning Attorney Richard Keyt to Prepare A La Carte^tm Estate Planning Documents

To pick the estate planning documents you want Richard Keyt to prepare for you, complete the Arizona Estate Plan Document Preparation Agreement online then print and sign it. You can pay online with your Visa or MasterCard (click on the link to the store at the end of the Agreement). Deliver your signed agreement to Richard Keyt at the address on the last page of the Agreement.

You must be an Arizona resident to purchase our A La Carte^tm estate planning documents.

Phoenix Attorney Richard Keyt

Richard Keyt is an Arizona wealth preservation attorney who practices estate planning, including preparing Wills and Trusts. Rick is a Phoenix attorney licensed to practice law in Arizona. He has practiced law in Arizona since 1980. Rick can be reached by telephone at 602-906-4953, ext. 3, email at rickkeyt@keytlaw.com and fax at 602-297-6890.

To hire Arizona estate planning attorney Richard Keyt to prepare A La Carte^tm estate plan documents for you, complete the Arizona Estate Plan Document Preparation Agreement online then print and sign it. You can pay online with your Visa or MasterCard (click on the link to the store at the end of the Agreement).

When we prepare a trust, we purchase a five year membership for our clients in a fabulous service called DocuBank, which provides emergency access to your healthcare directives, 24/7/365, online and via phone or fax. We include DocuBank as part of our estate planning services to ensure that your living will, health care power of attorney and other medical directives will be available at the hospital when you need them, where you need them.

Be sure to carry your DocuBank Emergency Card in your wallet -- next to your driver’s license or health insurance card -- at all times. You should also periodically update your emergency contact and medical information stored with DocuBank. To do so, simply click here or on the DocuBank logo. For more information on this valuable service, visit www.DocuBank.com.

This page was last modified on December 12, 2009.

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