"Practical" Estate Planning Tips- 4

The estate planning process forces people to address many uncomfortable subjects. If you are already addressing the issues, you might as well hit for the cycle and cover burial and organ donation.

Burial wishes contained in a Will are legally binding. However, as a practical matter, an individual's Will is usually not reviewed until well after burial. If the family is reviewing the Will prior to your death, then there may be more important issues to address! Even if you include wishes in your Will, you should still discuss these wishes with your family. It is also a good idea to include these wishes in another document, such as a separate writing or an Advance Health Care Directive.

A person may also include his or her wishes regarding organ donation in several legal documents. Yet, it is still important to discuss these issues with the family. Regardless of your wishes, if a member of your family objects to your wish to be an organ donor, the local organ center will probably refuse to accept a donation. Although this may seem like an unfair result, the organ procurement organizations do not have time to fight, nor do they like any situation that might result in negative publicity.

The bottom-line: please discuss these issues with your family.