In your Mental Disability Planning inside your Living Trust you can be specific as to what particular care facility and what particular location you would like to reside, if necessary.
One of the top administrators at a large Retirement Community in the area (that includes independent housing, assisted living and Skilled or Nursing Home care), advised me that it “seemed” that about 50% of the residents 80 years old and up had some form of dementia. This could include Alzheimer’s disease or any of the other myriad types of dementia.
You can, and should, do Mental Disability Planning inside your Living Trust. You can design a mechanism stating who would decide and under what circumstance you were unable to “make and communicate important decisions concerning your person, family and property”. (That is one of North Carolina’s definitions of being Mentally Incompetent). If one does become Mentally Incompetent or they are unable to handle personal, financial and medical affairs, the mechanism is in place to plan for and handle that event.
You do want to avoid a Guardianship Lawsuit or Adult Incompetency Lawsuit through the Court system. That in essence is a “custody case” where the two questions are:
(1) Are you unable to handle your personal, medical and financial affairs?
and
(2) Who will be appointed your Guardian to handle where you personally reside and handle your financial affairs?
Most of us have specific people in mind for each role and whom we would trust for that role. We want to make that a part of our specific Estate Plan in the contingency that we do become Mentally Disabled. As in most Estate Planning, we want to be in control of Mentally Disability by placing “our” trusted people or institutions in control of our assets and possibly physical placement. We do not want the Court to inadvertently appoint someone who we may not trust all, but that may happen as we are not mentally competent to be our own advocate.
In your Estate Planning, specifically in your Revocable Living Trust a/k/a Living Trust, you should do Mental Disability Planning. That would include who would decide if you were unable to handle your affairs and whom you would want handling your personal, medical and financial affairs if you are unable to. (It can be different people for different roles). Also, you will want to specifically set out where you want to reside in the event you are mentally disabled. Do you want to stay at home as long as possible? If you cannot, is there a specific regional area you want to live in? If so, is there a particular care facility within that regional area you would like to reside in? These are questions that should be designed within your Estate Plan so that you are more in control in the event of Mental Disability. If there is a 50-50 chance that we might become mentally disabled, we definitely want to plan for it. There is a 100% chance that we are “not getting out of this world alive”, so we definitely want to plan what happens to our assets after we pass on.
At the Law Firm of Steven Andrew Jackson, Attorney and Counsellor at Law, we have helped hundreds of families protect themselves and their loved ones, avoid Estate Taxes and Probate Costs, and keep their Estate Plans current with the law through The Customized Protective Estate Planning Solution™.