Patti's Blog - Advocate for Elders, People with Disabilities and Their Families

Fearing death, doing good

Excerpt from HHS.gov: (click for entire article)

Researchers say that having to think about death can bring out the good in people. At the University of Missouri, Kenneth Vail reviewed experiments involving thinking about death, and assessments of how people who were not directly involved in catastrophes responded after learning about them.

Postmortem Life On-Line

Excerpt from AmericanBar.org: (click for entire article)

What happens to a client's on-line life when the client can no longer manage it? According to Entrustet, a digital estate planning site, an estimated 408,000 U.S. Facebook users will die in 2011; thousands of others will undoubtedly be disabled.  Estate planning attorneys are beginning to request, as part of their estate planning questionnaire, information about a client's on-line presence.  This means asking not just about the types of assets but also how they are protected.  This can be an extensive list with numerous different passwords on various sites.  This first step, of asking a client simply to inventory the range of assets, can be useful in itself, and it provides the basis for counseling a planning.  As this article discusses, relatively little law specifically addresses the inheritance of digital assets.  Although there are strong and persuasive arguments that on-line assets hould be treated in the same way as brick-and-morter assets, able to be marshaled by executors and personal representatives, these arguments are just beginning to be developed.

Key Finally Decides Not To Make Family Pay Dead Student's College Loans

Excerpt from The Consumerist: (click for entire article)

When a person dies and their estate is settled, any remaining debt dies with them, including student loans. But there's an exception: if a parent or other responsible grown-up co-signs a loan and the borrower dies a tragic young death, that co-signer is on the hook for the entire amount of the loan. That's how co-signing works, after all. But after a Rutgers student died in 2006 after two years in a coma, most of his lenders (credit cards and student loans) deferred, then forgave his debts. Key Bank was the holdout, since the student's father had co-signed his college loans at Key. Since 2006, the family has paid $20,000 of the $50,000 balance. It took an awful lot of negative publicity, but Key says that they will forgive the debt, and might not even put future families in the same terrible situation.

"Going forward, we will evaluate any similar situation involving a deceased student with outstanding loans - and we sincerely hope there are none - on a case-by-case basis," a Key representative told the Newark Star-Ledger.

The U.S. Government Wants To Make Sure You've Written Your Social Media Will

Excerpt from The Consumerist: (click for entire article)

The United States government is hip to social networking, and because it knows all about the Facebook and the Twittering, it wants you to be prepared with a social will in the event of your demise. After all, there have been reports of the families of deceased people having trouble gaining access to those kinds of accounts.

In a new post today on the USA.gov blog titled, "How and Why You Should Write a Social Media Will," the government lays it all out. It suggests creating a statement as to how you want your online identity to be handled, sort of like a traditional will.

Choosing a person you can trust as an online executor is the first step. That person will then close any accounts you designate — email addresses, social media profiles, blogs and whatever else.

See also What happens to your Blog after your death

The Elusive Insurable Interest Requirement

Excerpt from TaxProf Blog: (click for entire article)

Mary Ann Mancini & Caitlin L. Murphy (both of Bryan Cave, Washington, D.C.), The Elusive Insurable Interest Requirement: Are You Sure the Insured is Insured?, 46 Real Prop. Tr. & Est. L.J. 409 (Winter 2012):

    The existence of an insurable interest in the life of the insured is a basic prerequisite to the enforceability of any policy of life insurance.

Protecting Your Assets

Excerpt from Insurance News Net: (click for entire article)

ALZHEIMER'S AND DEMENTIA, AMONG OTHER illnesses of old age, are afflictions many think won't happen to them or those they love, but 42-year-old Jefrey Jones knows otherwise. His 80-year-old widowed, childless aunt, Joan Willis, suffers with dementia. As the primary steward for her estate Jones also knows how paying for eldercare can drain resources, both financially and emotionally.

Adding to the difficulty is the 2,000-mile distance between Jones and his aunt. She lives in Los Angels and he, in Atlanta. "It's a challenge to take care of two households simultaneous!«! he says, in spite of weekly conference calls with his aunt's case manager and quarterly visits to L.A.

Fortunately, before Willis became ill, she made provisions through attorneys and accountants, including a living trust. Jones asserts that trust are not just for the wealthy his aunt is far from that. What has helped him most was his aunt's sound money management, which relieved some of the financial strain that came with having to enlist the services of caregivers.

Hiring estate-planning attorney a smart idea for end-of-life care

Excerpt from Tulsa World: (click for entire article)

It's bad enough thinking about death or dying, but paying a lawyer to help you ponder the inevitable?  Ugh.

Still, you owe it to yourself and to your family to assemble the documents that will smooth your way at the end of life and secure the well-being of those you leave behind.  These documents include a will; a financial and a medical power of attorney, which let others make decisions for you when you cannot; an advance medical directive, which spells ot your preferred end-of-life care;and in some cases a revocable living trust, which lets your estate avoid probate.

What Happens to Your Blog After Your Death?

Excerpt from Legal News: (click for entire article)

The Internet is a fun way to share information," said Patricia E. Kefalas Dudek, "Twitter and Facebook are growing exponentially. People are using them both personally and professionally," but a problem arises when the user dies or becomes disabled.

Who can access the accounts and what can they do with them?

Dudek suggested answers to those questions to the members of the ICBA probate section at their meeting on April 17th.

To date Michigan has no statute dealing with these matters leaving the solution to the problem to the individual or the provider. Only Oklahoma and Idaho have passed laws dealing with the matter and Nebraska is considering a statute.

Spirit Airlines, Where "Dying Of Cancer" Equals "Not Following The Rules"

Excerpt from The Consumerist: (click for entire article)

Spirit Airlines once again proves that it was only pulling our legs when it called itself the "most consumer-friendly airline." This time, the fee-happy carrier isn't just telling a dying passenger he has to suck up the cost of his $197 ticket, but are somehow equating being near death as a form of rule-breaking.

Fox 13 in Tampa reports on a Spirit customer who has spent the last couple years battling esophageal cancer and who had planned to fly to New Jersey to visit his daughter when she undergoes surgery. Unfortunately, after a recent CT scan, the man's doctor told him he had only a short time to live and that he should not be flying anywhere.

Of course, when he went to see if he could get a refund on his $197 ticket, Spirit flat-out refused, as that is company policy.

He was offered a credit, but since he probably won't ever be flying again and he can't transfer that credit to anyone else to use, what's the point?

Investigation Finds 15% Of Funeral Homes Still Misleading Consumers

Excerpt from The Consumerist: (click for entire article)

Way back in 1984, the Federal Trade Commission established the Funeral Rule, which is actually a list of requirements for funeral homes to make sure that grieving consumers aren't hoodwinked into paying too much for services or paying for unnecessary items. Nearly 30 years on, an undercover investigation by the FTC found that a surprising number of funeral homes are not abiding by the Rule.

The investigators went undercover — presumably not as cadavers, though that would be awesome — to check out 102 funeral homes in nine states. The study found 16 businesses with "significant violations" of the Funeral Rule, with another 33 funeral homes with minor violations.