Senior Estate Planning: Protecting Your Lifestyle Wishes

Seniors generally tend to be clear eyed about where they want to live as they approach their late 70s and beyond. Their families may have other ideas when the time comes, especially after they have been appointed as Enduring Power of Attorney and/or Enduring Guardian.

Informed risk assessment of whether to continue to live at home or move into aged care is essential when reaching a vulnerable age. Ideally, this is a conversation to be had with your lawyer when preparing estate planning documents in the years leading up to retirement.

Basic considerations include choice of residence as the ageing process unfolds. Many seniors become empty nesters, living in the family home where children were raised. Downsizing may become the next step. The choice of alternate residence includes smaller properties suitably fitted for seniors, retirement villages and aged care facilities. Alternatively, modifications to the existing home to accommodate looming frailty can also be considered. Elderly seniors living alone are most at risk. Downsizing may be imposed upon them by their families, especially those holding Enduring Power of Attorney and Enduring Guardianship.

When preparing estate planning documents the senior person’s wishes should clearly be made known to their appointed attorneys and guardians. Written statements of wishes can define preferences as to how to manage important lifestyle decisions, especially where there is no loss of capacity. Of particular importance are the repercussions of having carers moving in to care for the elderly, and whether such arrangements should have written, defined parameters.

Of consequential importance is the potential for elder abuse that seniors may be exposed to in any residential setting, whether from internal or external sources. It becomes incumbent upon appointed enduring guardians to supervise the wellbeing of the elderly person in their care, absent which there is a breach of legal responsibility in failing to carry out their duties.

A well thought out written statement at the time of drafting estate planning documents, reviewed on an ongoing basis, is crucial for a tranquil transition into advanced senior years.

Those appointed as Powers of Attorney and Enduring Guardians have an ongoing responsibility to ascertain and adhere to the senior person’s wishes known to them, especially if such wishes have been set out in a written statement of wishes.