Jeff Fouts: This is Jeff Fouts, estate planning attorney.In this day and time of people living longer and longer, it is more important than ever that people have high-quality, up-to-date, incapacity documents. People have historically used financial power of attorney documents. That is a good thing to have, but financial power of attorney documents have a big flaw.The problem is that financial institutions don't like to honor them.It doesn't matter whether we believe that is the case or not. It doesn't matter whether we like it or agree with it. They do not have to honor them, and they aren't honoring them to the degree they used to. This is a very big deal. We've got to deal with it, but there's really only two ways to deal with it.The first way is to make sure that every three to five years you redo your financial power of attorney. I mean, like clockwork you must go to your attorney’s office and get the document updated. You've got to have it redone. If you don't, then when your kids go to help make financial decisions for you, they're going to have a big surprise waiting on them. The odds are getting greater and greater that your bank, credit union or brokerage house won't honor your financial power of attorney.Well, that sounds like a bunch of hooey, a big pain in the rear. Well, it is. What is your other option? There's really only one other option. That is to use something called a revocable living trust. That revocable living trust must have certain disability provisions inside it that allows your children to take control of your assets and begin to make financial decisions, once something happens to you cognitive ability.A lot of revocable trusts don’t have those disability provisions inside. Wills don't have the mat all because your will doesn't take effect, or have any legal authority,at all during your life. Wills only take effect after you die. They don't even take effect then. A will only takes effect after the probate process. Revocable trusts take effect during life and after death, but the revocable trust must have certain provisions in there to deal with this incapacity or it won’t be able to.If you have a revocable living trust with proper disability provisions, and you may not, but if you do have it, then you are good. The bank will honor that document and let your children make financial decisions for you, whether or not you have a financial power of attorney and whether or not your financial power of attorney is too old. Please, please pay attention to this. It is very serious business.If we could ever help you in any way, just give us a call, perhaps reviewing your estate plan. Thank you.