Should you have a financial power of attorney?
Attorney Tom Olsen: Robert, here's a text. The text says is it important for us to have a financial power of attorney? The answer is yes.
Attorney Robert Hidock: Tom it is the most important tool that anybody could ever have. In particular with asset protection and protecting assets for Medicaid. You can't do anything without a really good financial power of attorney. Sometimes I'm meeting with somebody that has a power of attorney and I'm always constantly reviewing them because I need that power of attorney to say what I need it to say so they can protect the assets and if they don't have what we need and they can't do it, and so like sometimes you'll see a power of attorney that doesn't even have the word Medicaid in it. I'll tell you, there must be a new one out at Home Depot or Office Depot or Office Max that it specifically says, "No personal services contracts are allowed."
Tom: Really?
Robert: I've seen three within the last two weeks.
Tom: Wow. Huh.
Robert: That would be the most detrimental thing you could ever do for Medicaid planning.
Tom: Not only for nursing home planning, but for general purposes too, now there's some married couples out there right now listening and thinking, "Hey, husband and wife, we own everything jointly. What do we need a power of attorney for?" Remember that even married couples have assets in their individual names like social security, pension plans, life insurance, et cetera.
Even married couples need to have these financial power of attorney between themselves and then the other thing is that if your mom is widowed and she becomes incompetent, you need this financial power of attorney to get access to her bank accounts so you can pay her bills for her and you might be saying, "Oh Tom, what's a big deal? I'll just get a guardianship going." Remember, it takes about five months and $5,000 to set up a legal guardianship, and all that can be avoided very simply by having a good financial power of attorney. Note that I emphasize good because not all financial power of attorneys are good, especially the ones that you buy from the office supply store.
Robert: Yes, and Tom I've noticed also now, since COVID, banks have a very high level of scrutiny with respect to powers of attorney so it's critical that you actually really have a good, good power of attorney.
Tom: Of course, we can assist them with that here at the Olsen Law Group. When we do estate planning for people wills and trusts, [unintelligible 00:02:24] et cetera, doing a financial power of attorney is standard procedure. We always do that and when you do any kind of Medicare plan for people, you always include one of those as well.
Robert: Yes. If I do a Medicaid assessment for someone, it comes with a free power of attorney and if it's two people, obviously it's two powers of attorney because it's that important.
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