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The Living Will or Advance Medical Directives as its name implies, is to convey to those in charge of your medical care ahead of time your wishes, especially important at a time when you are unable to verbally tell them. Many countries have a standard form of advance medical directive. They are often in a prescribed format, sometimes not very desirable to make your wishes known.
Technically, a Living Will does not carry the same legal status as an Advance Directive or a Last Will and Testament, but it states your wishes about your medical treatment if you’re caught in a medical crisis and cannot make yourself understood. This unfortunate state may occur because of stroke, brain damage, unconscious condition, or where sedation or pain relief forces you into a coma.
An Advance Medical Directive can also cover related personal wishes such as religious requirements or organ donation.
Advance Medical Directives by adult patients of sound mind have been accepted by the courts in a number of countries. There has been growing judicial control of decision-making regarding treatment and withdrawal of treatment at a time when patients are without capacity. This issue has attracted much controversy but two considerations have emerged as being sound and should prevent abusive or negligent implementation of an Advance Medical Directive:
So how do you go about drawing up your will? Our answer is 3Cs.
At HERITANCE WILLS, we make the will writing process simple and easy for you. Our preliminary steps shall ensure that you are sufficiently guided as to how to start and complete your wills within a week from receipt of full information from you, as some of our clients have attested to in our TESTIMONIALS page. We discourage prolonging the process for longer than necessary as we do recognize that drawing up a will may be an emotional exercise for some, hence getting it done fast and getting it done right is our assurance to you
You shall be furnished with our Checklist to start off. This Checklist contains questions about your personal information which you will find easy to prepare. Then, one of our team members shall get in touch with you, preferably via email to ensure that all questions from you on our Checklist are attended to. If you have any questions on our Checklist, it shall be addressed by our Legal Consultants or complex questions by our Principal Legal Consultant. Up to this point, our services are complimentary.
After receiving from you a completed Checklist, we offer a Consultation date in order for us to appreciate your personal circumstances in more detail which allows us to tailor made our advice accordingly. We charge a fixed fee for the consultation but this fee shall be set off with our retainer cost if you appoint us to proceed; hence the consultation fee is then part of the package.
Should you decide not to proceed after the consultation, we are happy to have provided you with the legal advice to plan your estate, and perhaps when the time is right for you, we hope to be of service later on. Should you decide to proceed, which more than 99% of our clients after consultation decide to do, you shall be asked to sign our Retainer to appoint HERITANCE WILLS. You have full control over what you decide to do after the consultation.
Our team gets down to drawing up your will or wills. On your approval of the will, we shall set an appointed date and time for you to execute your will. If this execution is at our office, then we shall provide the witnesses to your will. Once signed by all parties, and depending on the relevant jurisdiction, your will is then completed.
A final task is for you to decide where your original will is to be stored. Find out more about our WILLSAFE™ storage services here
HERITANCE WILLS INTERNATIONAL was founded by Ms Kim Khoo who has practised in succession law for 28 years, with focus on and specialisation in multi-jurisdictional estates. Our company vision is to protect legacies and ensure proper succession, thereby forging family ties and taking family businesses to the next generation. Our goal is to assist our clients to craft wills and other legal instruments in line with our vision.
HERITANCE WILLS INTERNATIONAL’s charitable arm, HEART & SOUL Private Fund aims to help meet the needs of the local community suffering the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic as part of its corporate social responsibility.