How Do You Know If Mom Can Still Sign

About this episode

Jill Mastroianni discusses the complexities of determining if someone with memory changes can still sign legal documents and the implications of competency in estate planning.

What happens when someone with memory changes needs to sign a will, trust, or power of attorney? Who actually decides whether they’re “competent” enough to sign, and what happens if people disagree? In this episode, Jill Mastroianni share personal stories involving her own mom, a deathbed signing that never happened, and what the law actually says about mental capacity and estate planning. We talk about why competency is not an all-or-nothing question, who acts as the initial gatekeepers during a signing, and why families often begin asking “Can Mom still sign?” when they’re already standing in the middle of a crisis. Most importantly, we talk about why estate planning works best when decisions are made from a place of choice, not urgency.

People in this episode

Host: Jill Mastroianni

Topics covered

• mental capacity
• estate planning
• competency
• power of attorney
• family crisis

Keywords

• memory changes
• signing documents
• competency
• wills
• trusts
• power of attorney
• estate planning

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