Adding Your Kids to Your Bank Accounts? A Very Bad Idea

Should you add your kids to your bank account? This is a discussion topic that frequently comes up during our Living Trustdiscussions. In many cases, parents have already added their kids to their bank accounts.

It’s hard to overstate the convenience of a shared banking account

Those acting as caregivers for their mother and/or father already have a full plate. In many cases, they’ve got demanding jobs and they’re raising their own families. The convenience of being able to manage all of their parents’ banking activity with their own set of debit and credit cards and checks is understandable. Having complete access to these accounts makes it easy to deposit checks, pay bills and purchase incidentals for the health and wellbeing of their parents.

The problem? How much do parents really know about their adult children?

Parents may see their adult children regularly, but how much do they really know about how they live their lives? Their values, their relationships, their work, their friends, how they spend their money and what they do in their down time? In my own case, my folks lived in Florida for 40 years, while I lived in the Bay Area. We saw each other once or maybe twice/year. Distance tends to make us strangers. As the years went by, we grew more remote in a number of ways.

How trustworthy is your son or daughter?

When your child is added to a bank account, that person becomes a joint owner of the account. That means access to all of your funds. Don’t think the bank is going to monitor how your son or daughter is using that account because that isn’t their job.

Does your child have creditor problems?

If your child has any creditor issues, your bank account well could be levied by a creditor and is in jeopardy. The creditor is not going to distinguish between what belongs to you and what belongs to your child. For an adult child with a mountain of credit card debt that will never get paid off, access to a mother and/or father’s well-funded bank account could be very tempting. One more thing: n

Is your child getting divorced?

During every divorce proceeding, it’s necessary to account for all assets. It’s not unlikely that this shared account could end up as an asset in the child’s Divorce proceeding. In this situation, the child would need to prove that the funds were, in fact, not theirs but belonged to the parent.

Setting the stage for sibling conflict

Upon the death of the parents, the surviving bank account holder is the legal owner of the account’s funds. Your child is now entitled to receive all of the funds from this account. Depending on the amount of money in the estate and other assets, this could create sibling chaos. The other siblings may or may not have known about the shared accounts prior to the parents’ death. There’s something about a death in the family that can bring out the worst in the family. The more instruction you provide, the less potential conflict for the family.

A better solution: Create a Living Trust

A much better, more comprehensive solution is to create a Living Trust, then retitle the bank account in the name of the Trust. By adding the account to the Trust, the Successor Trustee will be able to use the funds to care for the parents if they become incapacitated. The Trust will also include instructions on how the remaining funds will be distributed among the remaining family members. This solution will decrease or eliminate the potential sibling conflict.

Our Trust package includes a Power of Attorney and an Advance Healthcare Directive. We guide you through the process and prepare the legal documents. For most of our services, we charge one flat fee. We’re helpful, compassionate and affordable. Schedule an appointment today at one of our three Bay Area offices in Dublin, Walnut Creek or Oakland. 

We service the entire East Bay area

Berkeley, El Cerrito, Richmond, Pinole, Alameda, San Leandro, Castro Valley Newark, San Lorenzo, Concord, Alamo, Danville, Lafayette, Orinda, Moraga, Pleasant Hill, Martinez, Pittsburg, Antioch, Brentwood, Oakley, Discovery Bay, Pleasanton, San Ramon, Livermore, Tracy, Fremont.

COVID, Ventilators and Your Healthcare Directive

In April, 91-year old Minna Buck revised her Advance Healthcare Directive. She doesn’t want to be intubated if she becomes infected with COVID. Ms. Buck has done her research and knows she doesn’t want any part of intubation. She knows that even if she survived, the recovery would leave her weak and disoriented, a burden on others, with a negligible quality of life.

No Intubation for Ms. Buck

Buck is clearly in the high-risk group. “No intubation,” she wrote in large letters on the form, making sure to include the date and her initials. “I don’t want to put everybody through the anguish,” said Buck.

Ventilators represent a loss of personal control

For older adults contemplating what might happen to them during this pandemic, ventilators represent a terrifying lack of personal control. Ventilators pump oxygen into a patient’s body while he or she lies in bed, typically sedated, with a breathing tube snaked down the windpipe. This can be the greatest fear: helplessly being hooked to a machine with the end of life looming. Yet for others, there is the hope that the machine might pull them back from the brink, giving them another shot at life.

Who will care for these patients? Where?

“It’s a very long, uphill battle to recovery,” and many older patients may never regain full functioning, said Dr. Negin Hajizadeh, an associate professor of critical care medicine at the School of Medicine at Hofstra/Northwell on New York’s Long Island. “Who’s going to take care of these patients after a prolonged ventilator course ― and where?”

Quality of life issues motivated one single woman to change her healthcare directive

In St. Paul, Minnesota, Joyce Edwards is 61, unmarried and lives alone. In late April, Edwards revised her Advance Healthcare Directive to specify that “for COVID-19, I do not want to be placed on a ventilator. I have to think about what the quality of my life is going to be. Could I live independently and take care of myself — the things I value the most? There’s no spouse or adult children to take care of me. Who would step into the breach and look after me while I’m in recovery?”

End of life care discussions: Think about what’s important to you

COVID has created some immediacy around end of life decision-making. Experts advise older adults to discuss what’s most important to them–independence, time with family, mobility, living as long as possible. Think about what represents a good quality of life—this will provide context for the ventilator decision. For Minna Buck, quality of life and independence outweighed living as along as possible. At 91, she has lived a long, full life.

During this health crisis, many are feeling an urgency to create a Living Trust 

As the COVID crisis drags on, more clients are scheduling appointments to create or update their Living Trusts. Our Trust package includes a Pour Over Will, and for those families with children under 18, it means that they can name a Guardian. Creating a Trust helps provide some peace of mind during these uncertain times. Best of all, we guide you through it and we prepare the legal documents.

Our Trust package includes a Will, Power of Attorney, an Advance Healthcare Directive and Incapacity Planning. At California Document Preparers, for most of our services, we charge one flat fee. We’re helpful, compassionate and affordable.

Schedule an appointment today

Our offices are open and we’ve instituted stringent sanitation procedures. We can also provide our services virtually via Zoom or phone. Schedule an appointment today at one of our three Bay Area officesin Dublin, Walnut Creek or Oakland. Please wear your mask and stay safe.

We service the entire East Bay and North Bay areas

Berkeley, El Cerrito, Richmond, Pinole, Alameda, San Leandro, Castro Valley Newark, San Lorenzo, Concord, Alamo, Danville, Lafayette, Orinda, Moraga, Pleasant Hill, Martinez, Pittsburg, Antioch, Brentwood, Oakley, Discovery Bay, Pleasanton, San Ramon, Livermore, Tracy and Fremont. Our clients also live in the Napa Valley, Benicia, Vallejo, Martinez, Fairfield.

As Pandemic Evolves, New Symptoms Emerge

Does anyone else wake up in the morning, take a few deep breaths and cough to test for COVID? We’re now learning that fever, cough and shortness of breath are not the only warning signs of a coronavirus infection.

As doctors and virologists learn more this insidious disease, they’re also discovering new symptoms that can accompany the more obvious respiratory problems. These new symptoms reinforce what experts around the world are telling us: The coronavirus is still in charge, capable of causing a sustained and often prolonged attack. Even more frightening for those in a high-risk demographic, are the long-term effects of the virus. People who get the disease do not develop an immunity. COVID breaks down our immune systems, and we can catch it again. The virus can leave its patients weak and disoriented.

In the early days of the pandemic, the focus was on treating those who were the sickest

But we’ve become more knowledgeable. “It takes a while for the full range of symptoms to be known when you’re dealing with a new virus,” explains Lisa Winston, M.D., an epidemiologist and professor of clinical medicine at UCSF.

COVID patients are exhibiting a broader range of symptoms

• Some patients are reporting red or purple lesions on hands and feet.
• Doctors are treating people with diarrhea and loss of appetite, sense of taste and smell.
• Dermatologist Esther Freeman, M.D., has identified red- and purple-colored toes that swell, burn and itch. This unusual symptom has been dubbed “COVID toes.”
• Rashes similar to those from hives and chicken pox have also been reported on some coronavirus patients.
• According to the Journal of American Neurology, confusion, delirium, and other neurological symptoms have also been observed in those with COVID.
• There are early reports suggesting that COVID may raise the risk of abnormal blood clotting. Clots reaching the lungs, heart or brain can cause more serious complications, including pulmonary embolism, heart attack or stroke. If the virus enters cells in the heart, it also can cause a heart infection known as myocarditis. This infection may cause chest pain, abnormal heart rhythms and heart failure.
• Happy hypoxia. This is a dangerous condition where patients have dangerously low levels of oxygen in their blood, which could cause reduced consciousness. Patients with this condition have been unusually alert and comfortable—completely unaware that they’re manifesting a serious condition.

Response to COVID will be influenced by the strength of our own immune systems

Once COVID reaches the lungs and the bloodstream, it travels around pretty freely. More research will determine how it interacts with cells. Symptoms may be caused by inflammation that results from the body’s immune response to infection—and will vary widely depending on the strength of the individual immune system. While fewer people are dying from COVID, more people are becoming infected. We can minimize the risk by social distancing and wearing masks.

During this health crisis, many are feeling an urgency to create a Living Trust

We are scheduling appointments with clients to create or update the Trusts they created 15-20 years ago—there may be new grandchildren, property and/or investments. Think of those things that would change the inheritance for your beneficiaries.

Our Trust package includes a Will, Power of Attorney, an Advance Healthcare Directive and Incapacity Planning. We guide you through the process and prepare the legal documents. At California Document Preparers, for most of our services, we charge one flat fee.

Schedule a secure office visit or work virtually via Zoom

Our offices are open and we’ve instituted stringent sanitation procedures. We can also provide our services virtually using Zoom or phones. Schedule an appointment today at one of our three Bay Area offices in Dublin, Walnut Creek or Oakland. We’re helpful, compassionate and affordable. COVID is going to be with us for a while, so wear a mask and stay safe!

We service the entire East Bay and North Bay areas

Berkeley, El Cerrito, Richmond, Pinole, Alameda, San Leandro, Castro Valley Newark, San Lorenzo, Concord, Alamo, Danville, Lafayette, Orinda, Moraga, Pleasant Hill, Martinez, Pittsburg, Antioch, Brentwood, Oakley, Discovery Bay, Pleasanton, San Ramon, Livermore, Tracy and Fremont. Our clients also live in the Napa Valley, Benicia, Vallejo, Martinez, Fairfield.

This story is based on an article from the AARP, Unusual Symptoms of COVID-19 You Need to Know About, by Rachel Nania

Probate: A Tragic Consequence of the Pandemic

COVID is proving to be a very cunning adversary. Experts continue to learn about and respect COVID’s nuances because it’s still the one in control. While the disease is most dangerous for the elderly and those with preexisting conditions, it transcends demographics. It’s affecting those who are healthy, athletic, young and strong.

Probate has emerged as an unfortunate consequence of COVID

Tragically, thousands of people, including our health care workers, are dying from this disease every single day. Many never created a Will or Living Trust. Their families, still reeling from the shock of a tragic death, are now having to deal with Probate. They’re tackling the challenges of administering an estate during a pandemic when everything is infinitely more difficult.

California Document Preparers guides our clients through the entire Probate process

While Probate can seem overwhelming, it is actually a very methodical process. Best of all, we guide you through the entire process, and we prepare the legal documents.

As part of Probate, the Court appoints a personal representative, or Administrator, to settle the estate, so we work directly with that Administrator throughout the Probate process. The administrator is responsible for:

• Collecting all of the decedent’s property
• Paying all of the estate’s debts, claims and taxes
• Collecting all rights to income, dividends, etc.
• Settling all disputes
• Distributing or transferring the remaining property to the heirs

Access to the decedent’s accounts to determine the financial landscape 

The Administrator may meet with the financial advisor, insurance agent, accountant, etc. to acquire estate information. Gaining access to all of the decedent’s records–bank statements, savings accounts and income tax returns–will help determine the financial landscape. The Administrator is in charge of valuing and and selling assets, as necessary, to settle the estate’s debts or expenses.

During Probate, the deceased’s estate becomes a separate tax entity, so the Administrator must obtain a federal identification number and open a bank account in the name of the estate, from which to pay creditors. It is also necessary to file the estate’s tax return and a final individual tax return.

Distribution of remaining assets

Once all taxes and debts have been satisfied, the Court will then distribute any remaining assets according to state law. In California, the first priority is given to the deceased’s spouse, followed by the deceased’s children.

Working with California Document Preparers

The safety and wellbeing of our own team and our clients are important to us. For many of our clients, we are working completely virtually using ZOOM and phones. We’ve instituted stringent sanitation procedures in our offices, so our clients can feel comfortable about meeting with us. Everyone is wearing masks and gloves; hand sanitizers are distributed throughout the space. We limit the number of people in the office so that we can maintain proper social distancing.

For most of our services, we charge one flat fee. We’re helpful, compassionate and affordable. Schedule an appointment today at one of our three Bay Area offices in Dublin, Walnut Creek or Oakland.

We service the entire East Bay and North Bay areas

Berkeley, El Cerrito, Richmond, Pinole, Alameda, San Leandro, Castro Valley Newark, San Lorenzo, Concord, Alamo, Danville, Lafayette, Orinda, Moraga, Pleasant Hill, Martinez, Pittsburg, Antioch, Brentwood, Oakley, Discovery Bay, Pleasanton, San Ramon, Livermore, Tracy and Fremont. Our clients also live in the Napa Valley, Benicia, Vallejo, Martinez, Fairfield.