18-Early 20’s Young Adults: The Legal Docs and Planning You Need

6 Sept 2022 · 1 min

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1:00

In this concise informational video, the speaker addresses young adults aged 18 to early‑20s and outlines the essential legal documents they should have in place. The core recommendations are: (1) a durable power of attorney for healthcare, granting a trusted person the authority to make medical decisions if the adult becomes incapacitated; (2) a durable power of attorney for finances, allowing a designated individual to manage financial matters under the same circumstances; (3) payable‑on‑death (POD) beneficiaries for checking, savings, and retirement accounts so that assets transfer automatically upon death; and (4) a will to specify the distribution of any other assets. The speaker emphasizes that these documents empower the young adult rather than leaving decisions to parents by default, and promises a follow‑up video covering legal planning for marriage or serious relationships.

Chapters

All you young adults in the 18 to early 20s age bracket, these are the legal documents that you need to have in place. At this point in your lives, it's all about having powers of attorney in place so that your parents or someone else can make medical and financial decisions for you if you are unable to do so yourself. Now that you're an adult, your parents cannot make these decisions for you unless you give them the authority. We're talking about a durable power of attorney to make healthcare decisions and a durable power of attorney to make financial decisions. Durable means the power continues even if you become incapacitated. If you have an accident and you're in a coma, this gives someone else the authority to make these decisions on your behalf. If you've started working, you have a retirement account, you need to have beneficiaries on that account. If you have checking accounts or other banking accounts, you need to have someone named as the payable-on-death beneficiary for each account. If you have other assets at this point in your life, you need a will stating where you want those assets to go if something were to happen to you. Stay tuned, because tomorrow I'm going to move on to the getting married stage or into a serious relationship. This is stuff you need to know.