Why Children Need an Assigned Legal Guardian

Transcript

hello everyone good afternoon welcome to pink mic legal confessions i'm stephanie garces donat and we are talking today about a really important topic that you may want to tune in for why do kids need and assign legal guardian now this topic is very near and dear to my heart because there's a lot of people that have young children a lot of my friends are having children where this really is an important topic that i think a lot of people do not talk about enough and quite frankly it might be because they just need a little bit of help in trying to figure out um what to do next so one of the things we're going to be touching on today is talking about legal guardians why do we care about this topic why is it important well parents should never really want to um maybe talk about this but it's certainly something that parents should consider and the reason is because parents never want to think about something happening to themselves to their spouse these are really sensitive topics of course nobody wants to just dive in start talking about it so if something ever unexpected happens the kids what happens to them who raises them um this is kind of the traumatic situation that a lot of people come across in their lives um and quite frankly it's always something you can prepare for um assuming that you've given this thought so one of the things i want to discuss about is is legal guardianship how we can help you with that and in the next episode um you know we're going to be talking a lot about families and all of this but this is specifically for why parents should designate a guardian um just as a matter of a fact and um why it's important why do people care about this so like i mentioned unfortunately unexpected things happen this is something that i don't have to tell you guys but we're going to be talking about a couple of things today what is a legal guardian uh what is a step for putting one in place especially um in place of a parent that is longer here uh when i say legal guardian i really am talking about children people that are under 18 and that's kind of what we're gonna be focusing on today um what rights does a guardian have that would be kind of serving um to the child and um how does the court address this how do they actually um handle this if case someone um parents pass away and there is no um estate plan in place how is that how is that figured out um a lot of questions about that and actually there's a whole process and legal guardianship process we won't touch too much about it today but there is a formal process that children go to in case they have to see a guardian or they have to have a guardian depending on their age the other thing we'll talk about is uh when a guardianship is temporary how do parents gain legal control and what to consider when choosing a legal garden guardian for your child so like i said uh we welcome you to join us here on tuesdays let's talk about pink mic legal confessions a lot of the stuff we talk about is stuff that's important to you guys and and quite frankly again they're topics that are tough but they're necessary to talk about so uh some of the questions that we get through the process and actually through guardianship and really just estate planning in general people always ask me can you designate more than one legal guardian um for your children typically uh you know you can but is it best in practice now you have to keep in mind that when you're talking about legal guardians and these are really big roles they're really big shoes to fill so uh depending on the situation and depending on you know the family dynamic you can certainly appoint more than one person you can also do it so uh like in an order so for example i always tell clients if you have like a first person or a second person in line that you rather pick that's a great thing to do too because you can actually put the first guardian in place and then if something happens to that guardian or perhaps maybe they aren't able to fulfill their role you can always put somebody else so that's just something to think about again these are all things that i discuss in the abstract so feel free to give us a call if any of this is kind of um confusing but um but just as like i said as a matter of practicality can you put more than one you can sometimes you can also put for example if you want to pick your aunts let's say your aunt's going to be the main person well the good thing about that is you know you have you have your aunt you've picked her she's the person that you've decided is the best candidate for this position but let's say that you have an uncle as well maybe your uncle's your second choice you can also put it in your documents so like if one person cannot do it the other person can so that's something to consider as well because people want to know that they have options in that regard so yes you do have an option it's everything is customizable so it's not a one size fits all so if you say to me hey i really really want to do it this way we still cater to what what the client wants so we will do it in the best of our ability um someone asked what if my ex spouse wants a different guardian for our children um you know this comes up a lot actually uh people will always have a ex or perhaps um you know some people are just not together with their significant other and that doesn't mean you shouldn't not have anything in place it doesn't mean that you have to um not consider putting an estate plan together i actually think those are really interesting topics because really what it comes down to is do you have something in place and of course if someone is an ex-spouse and they are the biological um parents of the child of the children they absolutely would have rights unless there is another reason again everyone is a little bit different but if there's a if there's been some sort of um you know arrangement with the custody of the children that might um impact who has more rights than others but let's just talk in the abstract if the parents um have a child that they split together yes you certainly can um put your you know your version of how you would want your children to be uh raised and and your version of a will so that that in the event your ex-spouse passes before you and then you pass after them while at that point um your estate plan will sort of take over um and i always say too even if you aren't with your significant other you can certainly have them consider getting an estate plan i know we talk a lot about doing it for yourselves and doing all of this but in reality this sort of thing is actually for children so it's always a good idea if possible to put together an estate plan um for you and for your ex-spouse um really just in the interests of the children making sure you have uh both chosen your own guardians that you you would want if they happen to be the same person that's even better but doesn't necessarily have to be so there is a way to do it uh you just have to make sure um that you sort of put it in place because it really if you don't put this stuff in place you guys you really don't have any legs to stand on so make sure you're protecting your children even if you have a next spouse it's still a good way to to pick the guardian uh the other question i get every off every so often about this sort of topic is um do young children young adult children um need legal guardians if we support them financially um well it depends on how that question is viewed i mean um a lot of times when we're talking about young adults young adults are you know adults as of 18. so uh there's no reason to have a legal guardian for someone that is already an adult unless this person has a reason they need a guardian so if someone uh maybe has had a special needs or has special needs that that would require them to have a guardian over them because they can make decisions on their own behalf that sort of is a whole other category and different direction that you would go in um so it's possible but the circumstances are very specific and why a young adult would need a legal guardian but yes plenty of people have their adult children living with them in their basement and whatever they just financially support them they don't necessarily need a guardian especially if they're they're um they're healthy they don't have any any specific needs not necessarily but again if your situation is a little bit different we may need to actually say yes to that question so it just depends on on the situation uh one other question that we get from the audience members that's really interesting is um how much does it cost to benefit to uh actually have a benefit of having this will in place so that my children have a legal guardian that is a really great question when we talk about costs and how that's designated for legal guardians really when we're talking about estate planning a will will put in place the legal guardian for your children so when we talk about the fees we're really talking about not not much because you know basic will depending on who you go to can range anywhere from 400 to 500 maybe 600 depending on who you go to again uh different prices vary but for us we do offer flexible pricing and it's pretty straightforward so i would say that's minimal investment for a long-term protection and that is really the the proper way to actually appoint the guardian um because you can't do it um you know when you're no longer conscious or you're you know someone is basically um maybe no longer here you can't really do it in that sense you have to deal while you're living i know that seems obvious but it's important to to say that because um every so often we get that question so it's always good to to talk about that um some other questions that we get that i think are relevant to some of the stuff we're discussing today is uh the documents need to be signed or notarized in person to be legal and this is a wonderful question because we get this often a lot of times people will say well i got something online well i got something from i don't know off the web because you can really get a lot of the stuff um at least forms template forms off the web but those are not necessarily the ones that would be valid that would be recognized and so really they're meaningless they may not have the value that you're looking for if they're not done properly so yes uh the short answer is you do have to get some documents notarized especially when we're talking about legal guardians and we're talking about putting the proper estate plan to assign those guardians these documents have to be notarized there has to be witnesses otherwise it really really isn't seen as valid and that could be a problem because if something ever happened to you or your family or your spouse unexpectedly or both at the same time these documents would not uphold and so it would be as if the children didn't have a guardian because the documents are not recognized they're not valid so yes there are a lot of nuances and a lot of requirements to make sure these documents are properly drafted which is why i always advocate coming to see an attorney make an appointment with us so that we can provide free consultations through 30 minutes they're free so we can actually just assess what is it that you're looking for here that here's the cost and that way you have peace of mind because that's really what it's about when you think about all these documents and these this type of law that we talk about a lot a lot of this is peace of mind and you know when the time comes if and when um there is an unexpected absence or there isn't you know a death in the family these documents actually do what they're supposed to do so that's really the benefit of having some of this stuff um sometimes people will ask me to um you know virtual or on-site appointments what do we offer i always offer both we offer in person if you're comfortable coming into the office of course you have to wear a mask because we do actually require that but um definitely can do the virtual appointments we've been doing so many virtual appointments i actually think more people prefer virtual than in person and i think the reason is because a lot of people know that it's really convenient you can just hop out of bed and we provide the links we provide everything that you need you just show up in the safety of your own home so that's just something to keep in mind because every so often people are looking for that i actually think it's here to stay i think actually virtual consultations people love because there's so much flexibility there's just so much you can do um kind of off topic too and and kind of going off the virtual uh some people will ask about virtual signings and whatnot so there are rules around that and we can certainly um try to address that and try to see if that's an option but just keep in mind that there are many options when it comes to estate planning and when it comes to consultation to the actual signing itself so you should not be deterred um if you can't leave your home uh for whatever reason to not sign up for a free consultation so that we can actually help you with everything and other things i wanted to talk about too when it comes to legal guardians you really want to think about the the how and the why when we think about how do we pick a legal guardian um one of the topics that we discuss a lot here is you know making sure you pick someone that you trust you'd be somebody that um would even perhaps raise your children in the way that you want them to be raised and when they say raising them uh you know to all the parents out there i really mean everything like what school would they go to what religion would they be brought up on or maybe non-religion um what are the things that they would be pursuing and what are the things that that the person believes that you would be um you know picking the legal guardian for where are they located is it somewhere where you would see your child growing up or not um every so often people will ask too can i have the guardian that's out of the country you could certainly pick someone of the country but from a matter of practicality i'm not sure that's the best option but nonetheless it's definitely doable i'm not sure it's the best option for someone that may need an immediate guardian in case you know you were to pass away in your particular state uh but it it's doable it just may not be the best idea but depending on your situation um it might make sense so like i said when we talk about estate planning everything is customizable everything is made to you it's catered and that's really the difference when we talk about what do you find on the web we can diy do it yourself as opposed to what an attorney can do well we really look at the whole picture i don't just create the estate plan and send you on your way we actually look at the family history we look at the goals we look at your finances we look at your insurance do you have life insurance do you not um we look at your real estate how much pieces of real estate do you have uh what retirement accounts do you have so all of this is always talked about um during our consultations and this is the type of thing that um online and and you know the things that we compete with that our robots do not offer so i just urge people um if you need the assistance even if you are curious about some of the stuff we talk about book a consultation it's free so there's nothing really to lose other than you know 30 minutes of your time so in my experience i think you can get really far if you really just prepare for the unexpected which is part of my job so like i was saying before if you're just joining us now my name is attorney stephanie garces donat i'm the owner of garces law firm where we help parents prepare for the unexpected and in the event of an unexpected absence so to keep in mind what we were discussing today and you can always play this back at the end if you're coming out at the very last second here but we were talking about legal guardians why children need to have designated guardians and really why is it important and how do you do it so we kind of touched on those topics today you can always feel free to check in and really watch this back and share it with your loved ones to make sure that they're really fully informed and by the way just because um you know you may not even have children and this isn't applicable to you you can certainly still put together a will to make sure that your state is taken care of in the event something happens to you and i say that because not everybody has children that doesn't necessarily discount you from having an estate plan or even needing one they always create value no matter your situation no matter how big or how small your assets are so i want to thank you all for watching as always always watching pink mic legal confessions and some of the stuff we discuss and always really gracious for all the opportunities we have to serve you so if you have any questions feel free to email or call at any point and we are happy to address any questions you may have in english or in spanish because we are fully bilingual so we'll see you here next week and thank you so much for your time i hope you have a wonderful holiday