Speaker: Maritess Bott
Maritess:
Yeah, that’s a great question. Thank you so much for joining us here today on our podcast. We are—there’s several different concerns when it comes to same-sex couples. I will discuss seven of them—the top seven main concerns. Some of it is not specific to same-sex couples, but certainly, it can pertain also to regular heterosexual couples, of course.
But anyway, the top seven concerns.
Number one: a lot of couples worry about the government interfering. Okay, what does that mean? Well, sometimes—even when you’re, say, together but you’re not married legally—how does the government interfere? Well, it could be a court system, it could be tax situations, it could be health—of course, health care—whether you get that type of benefits when you’re a same-sex couple. So the government interference and government type of tax-type thing is something that same-sex couples are worried about. We certainly discuss that and how we can help with getting those benefits and alleviating some of those concerns.
Second is health care. I have same-sex couples who are worried that if one person has a heart attack—and now that person is going to the hospital—can his partner talk to the doctors? Can his partner get information about their vital signs and their health care records? Well, if you don’t do an estate plan, that is a challenge. If you don’t have a Healthcare Power of Attorney appointing your partner as the agent under a Healthcare Power of Attorney, you rush to the hospital thinking you have access to it—and you don’t. It’s quite common. I recently had that with a family member. I didn’t have access or didn’t have authority, and the nurse looked at me and said, “Nope, I can’t talk to you.” So I had to call the person—the family member that did have authority. I just experienced it two weeks ago. So when you do have documents in an estate plan, it’s important for you to appoint your partner, and then also appoint a backup. Important to tell—okay, what if my partner is not around or on vacation or doing something—and he’s not around? Then choose somebody else so they can be the point person at the hospital. That’s really important as well. Healthcare decisions have to be made by the people that you want—not somebody else.
Okay, on the other hand, if you don’t do the Healthcare Power of Attorney, we go through a guardianship. That’s a court process. So, similar to what I just said—number one, with the government being involved. Talk about the government being involved—a guardianship is full government involvement. Many of you have probably heard of the Britney Spears scenario. That was when the court was involved with her money decisions through a conservatorship. Similarly, a guardianship is necessary if we need to get authority for somebody to make decisions for you in a health care crisis—in a health care situation. So it’s similar, and pretty much the same court—it’s just that we’re talking about the guardian of the person versus the guardian of the estate. How to avoid it? Once again, do an estate plan with a Healthcare Power of Attorney. Very important.
Number three. Another concern for same-sex couples is: what if my family is fighting if something happens to me? Whether it’s a disability or upon death, if I have these assets, I wouldn’t want my family to be going after my partner for my assets. If I want to give everything to my partner, why should my family receive it? Okay, so if there is no formal marriage between a same-sex couple and you don’t have a will, what will happen is—we have to go to probate, a court process again, upon a person’s death. And if there’s no will, the statutes of your state will determine how the money is going to be distributed. And if you’re not legally married, basically the statutes say it has to go to family members. So the first layer is typically—if there are children—goes down to children. If there are siblings and parents, that’s the next layer. And if you don’t have either of those, we’re going to find other layers of family members, like cousins twice removed or—you know, people a little bit further out—and your partner won’t be getting anything. And that’s something you definitely don’t want to happen. Okay.
So number three—family feuds. If you don’t do an estate plan, then you have these family members fighting over the assets that you worked hard for. And again, you just don’t want that to happen for you. So write it down, create a will, create a trust—write down what you would prefer and that is what will be followed—not the statutes of that state, or statutes of Illinois here in our state.
Number four is something that concerns people: predators and creditors. What does that mean? Well, let’s just say I’m in a couple where I pass away, but I have $2 million. And that $2 million—I want to give it to my partner, but my partner happens to be getting sued at the time of my death. There’s a lawsuit against her and she’s already going through that lawsuit. If I say, “Okay partner, everything goes to you,” and I put her as the beneficiary, she gets all my money. Now that lawsuit is going to be part of that inheritance, essentially, because it’s her money. And anything that you own individually is now exposed to lawsuits.
How could I have planned better? I could have created a trust. I could have said, “Yes, she’s getting 100% of my assets—my $2 million—but it’s held in trust for her benefit.” And no creditor and no predator can get access to that money. If I don’t put it in writing, then essentially it’s fair game. The plaintiff in the lawsuit can get access to that money.
So I say creditors are very important—but predators are anybody who might just take advantage of a person receiving an inheritance, in this situation, my partner.
So that’s number four: predators and creditors.
Number five is concerning for people because we all are getting older. Nursing home costs—that is a big issue that everybody talks about. But for same-sex couples, it’s even more of a situation because, typically, a lot of same-sex couples don’t have children. Okay? And so they get older and one person now, all of a sudden, has Alzheimer’s. And now this person needs to have full-time care, and we have limited funds because it costs a lot of money for at-home or caregiver services.
Now what do they do? What are we going to do? Who’s going to take care of my partner? Right? And so what we would offer and suggest is: if that’s a concern for you, let’s do some planning so that we can protect some of the assets and possibly get on Medicaid sooner rather than later.
Medicare pays for your health care, right? And it does not pay for long-term care stays like in a nursing home. In Medicaid, you have to have a certain level of assets. If you’re single, it’s only $2,000—so it’s not much. That’s the only way you can get on Medicaid.
If we could protect that money and get you on Medicaid sooner rather than later, typically clients prefer that route, rather than spending down your money and then getting on Medicaid. That is an option, and it takes planning. It may not be the right fit for you today, but maybe down the road. It just depends on your age and on a lot of different factors.
Okay, so that’s number five.
Number six. Many same-sex couples—and many people—have pets. I have a wonderful dog myself. Pets are your family. So if you are very specific about the care for your pet in the event of death, make sure you write that down. In Illinois, we do allow what we call pet trusts. So you could actually set aside some money so that whoever does take care of your pet has some funds to take care of the dog, the cat, or whatever you have.
Important to write that all down because heaven forbid, the two of you are driving, some accident happens, and you’re not coming home. But nobody knows that you have that pet at home. Somebody has to take care of that pet—who’s going to? So all of that should be written down.
As far as the instructions—somebody should be contacted to make sure the pet is safe. All of those things are really, really important.
And you might think, well, how is anyone going to find out if I’m in a car accident or we’re both in a car accident and get rushed to the hospital?
We like to provide protection for all of our clients with a card called a DocuBank. It’s a card that you keep in your wallet, just like your healthcare card. If you’re ever in that situation—both of you are in a car accident, both of you are unconscious, and now you’re in the hospital—the healthcare professional hopefully will look for your driver’s license, your health card, and this card that will allow them to have access to all of the emergency people to call.
So hopefully you put some people on there. They’ll call these people. They’ll also have access to your Healthcare Power of Attorney, your HIPAA authorization form, and your living will. All of those documents will now be available for the nurse to use for your care. Nobody has to be called to say, “Hey, it’s in my drawer in this particular desk,” and try to find it. In an emergency, no one’s thinking of that.
This card will save lots of time, lots of grief, and we offer that to all of our clients. So that’s important. And certainly, we could even put instructions about pets—write down, “I have a pet at home, please, please, please go home and check on him or her.”
That is number six: pets.
Number seven is legacy. I always feel like everybody needs to leave—make a difference in the world, right? And leave behind a legacy. That could be monetary, but it also mostly means: are you leaving a legacy of your values and your wisdom? Write it all down.
If it is monetary, let’s make sure we put some parameters on: this is for children’s—grandchildren’s health, education needs. This is your education fund. And then I want the next generation to also benefit from this, and the next generation.
So you, as a parent and grandparent and great-grandparent, are leaving an impact for future generations. Let’s write that all down. Let’s remember great-great-great-grandmother who left me some money so I can attend any university that I want to.
Very important to just have that type of legacy written down. And it doesn’t have to be large, per se, in monetary value. It’s just your legacy—whatever that means to you.
Okay, to summarize, we have same-sex couples having seven major concerns:
One, no government interference of any sort—taxes or courts.
Number two, healthcare—making sure somebody is appointed properly to make healthcare decisions.
Number three, avoiding family feuds by writing what your wishes are, rather than them guessing or wondering if we have to use statutes to distribute.
Number four, predators and creditors—protecting the inheritance that they’re going to receive in the first place so they can have peace of mind that nobody’s going to take it away from them.
Number five, nursing home care. Let’s plan for that because we all get old and we don’t know what type of care we will need.
Pets, number six. Make sure we take care of our fur babies because they are family. Doesn’t matter what anyone says—pets are our family.
Number seven, leave a legacy. Write it down. Absolutely write it down. One day, your future generations—or even just any family members—you may not have children—will want to know: what did they stand for, and what type of legacy did they leave behind? What difference did they make?
And that’s about it. Thank you so much for watching or listening to our podcast today. We do have reports that we offer to anyone that wants it. This is called The Gay and Lesbian Couples: Special Challenges in Estate Planning. So if anybody wants this, feel free to call us. You see our website here. Call us or email us and ask for that report. It’ll give you a lot more detail about what I just discussed.
Once again, thank you, and you have a great day.
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