We looked at an interesting contrast between two estates last week. This week, I want to touch on the use of the conservatorship, another tool in the estate planning toolbox.

Here’s the situation. A woman’s husband was medically incompetent with dementia and terminally ill, but had $16,000 in the bank. His children materialized out of the blue and started coming to him for money, so his bank account was being drained at an alarming rate.

The Solution?

His wife didn’t know how to handle the situation. She didn’t want to let her husband keep giving away money that she would need to handle his final affairs, but had no power to stop him.

It was possible for her to set up a conservatorship to take control over his financial affairs – it’s safe to say she could prove incompetence – but by this point, it would cost about half of the money they had left, and a lot of the damage had already been done. She didn’t want to spend all that money, but I had to point out that if she didn’t, she would likely be left with nothing.

This is another example of a bad situation that could have been avoided with better estate planning. Without good planning on the front end, you’re usually left with poor choices on the back end.

As soon as you get an inkling that a family member might start be losing their mental faculties or could otherwise become incompetent, it’s wise to take some steps.

Whether that’s with a conservatorship, a trust, a will, powers of attorney, or other estate planning tools, the planning you do early on will help you do right by your loved one in the future.

~ Ronald Morton