Basic Documents
Foundation
Your "Basic Documents" are the foundation of all your Estate Planning. This is where your planning begins. All the rest of your estate planning is built on this foundation. The details for your basic medical and legal emergency documents can be found on your diagram and in other communications between you and members of the Firm.
Purpose
In your Basic Documents, you designate emergency decision makers for:
- Legal and Financial Decisions (Durable General Power of Attorney)
- Medical Decisions (Medical Power of Attorney and Living Will)
- Custody of minor or incapacitated adult persons (children, grandchildren, and others)
At times or situations in which you are unable to communicate your wishes or handle your affairs, the decision makers that you have selected in advance will have the legal authority to act on your behalf. Implementing Basic Documents is a key element of "proactive law" - where solutions are put in place before trouble arises. With the exception of your Last Will and Testament, these documents will be used during your lifetime.
Need
With few exceptions, everyone over the age of 18 should implement these documents. If you have other family members who do not have such Basic Documents, it is strongly recommended that you encourage them to learn more and implement their own documents.
What is Included - Scope
The bundled documents and services in the Basic Documents minimum fixed fee package generally include:
- Data gather intake forms, and one round of courtesy emails and phone calls from the legal assistant. Additional time required to collect data will be invoiced at regular hourly rates.
- Last Will and Testament (Pour Over to Trust) [Avoid having your Will “go wrong”]
- Medical Power of Attorney: Durable General Power of Attorney For Health Care, Durable General Power of Attorney For Mental Health, Health Care Proxy, and Medical Directive
- Living Will (“End of Life Care”)
- Durable General Power of Attorney (Financial Decisions) + Custodial Letter
- Statement of Wishes Form & Workbook
- Tangible Personal Property Lists for Special Bequests
- Wallet Emergency Information Cards
- Emergency Custody for Minor Children or Grandchildren or Incapacitated Adult
- Records and Data Location Worksheet
- Confidential Certificate of After-Death Instructions
- The "Harmony Documents"
- Letters of Instruction and educational articles
- Hard Copies of Documents for your Estate Planning Notebook
- Electronic Copies of Documents in pdf format
- First Year Safe File Inventory Fee (this is a recurring annual fee)
- Signing ceremony (with witnesses and notary for in-office signings)
- One post-signing 30 minute review conference to answer questions and make nominal clerical edits
- Access to proprietary and exclusive on-line articles, educational materials and learning resources
This list is general in nature, and will be adjusted to suit your particular planning. It is subject to change without notice. The documents actually implemented as part of your plan will control over this list.
Individual documents are available at a per document fixed fee + hourly rate.
Your Action
- Build checklist from Loose Ends Letter
- Communicate with others:
It is important for you to make your wishes and concerns known to those persons you name in your documents. For example, you may wish to let your medical decision makers know whether you do or do not want heroic measures to be taken to keep you alive if you are terminally ill.
We provide you with both electronic and paper copies of these documents which you can provide to medical service providers.
- Updates
Basic Documents have a shelf life of roughly five years. While they may be effective for longer than that, it has been our experience that if they get stale it can cause problems. When our family is in transition, and the older we get, the more critical it is to have regular updates. The laws regarding Basic Documents are continually evolving. The more change we have in our lives and families, the more critical updates become.
Although we encourage and recommend that you update your documents periodically, ultimately the responsibility and the decision to do so is yours.
Basic Documents - Features © 2024 by Durfee Law Group is licensed under CC BY 4.0 
Basic Documents - FEATURES