Life knowledge · nobody teaches a Soldier this

Legal papers every adult should set up now

This list gets handed out as a "before you turn 65" checklist. That framing is wrong, and it costs young veterans. There is no legal age trigger at 65 for any document on this list. A Soldier separating at 24 needs these papers as much as one at 65.

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Read this first — this is STATE law. Wills, trusts, probate, deeds, powers of attorney and Medicaid estate recovery are governed by state law, not federal law. There is no national answer. On most of what is below, the honest answer is it depends on your state. Everything here is written against Kansas law — K.S.A. 58-652 (durable power of attorney), 58-629 (healthcare power of attorney), 65-28,103 (living will), 59-502 (dying without a will), 59-3501 (transfer-on-death deed), 58-4807 (digital accounts) and 39-709 (Medicaid estate recovery). If you live somewhere else, check your own state's statutes and see an attorney licensed there. I am not a lawyer. This page is information, not legal advice.
Veterans Crisis Line — dial 988, then press 1. Text 838255. Chat at veteranscrisisline.net. TTY 711 then 988, or 1-800-799-4889. 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. You do not have to be enrolled in VA benefits or health care to connect. Sitting down with papers about dying and incapacity is heavy. If it gets heavy, that number is there.
Start here

1. Durable power of attorney

Names who pays your bills if you are in the hospital.

  • "Durable" means the person you name keeps that authority after you become incapacitated. That word is the whole point of the document.
  • Without one, a Family member — even your spouse — may have to go to court. In Kansas that court route is conservatorship, and the judge must find by clear and convincing evidence that the need cannot be met by a less restrictive alternative. A power of attorney is one of those alternatives.
The limit nobody tells you. A durable power of attorney does not reach your federal benefit checks. Social Security's own words: "Having power of attorney, being an authorized representative or having a joint bank account with the beneficiary is not the same thing as being a payee," and "The Treasury Department does not recognize power of attorney for negotiating federal payments, including Social Security or SSI checks. This means, if you have power of attorney for someone who is incapable of managing his or her own benefits, you must still apply to serve as his or her payee." VA works the same way: under 38 CFR part 13, VA appoints its own fiduciary for a beneficiary VA has rated unable to manage funds — a power of attorney, and even a court-appointed guardian, does not automatically take that place.
So do both. Sign the durable power of attorney for the bank, the house and the bills. Then apply separately to be SSA representative payee and, if VA benefits are in play, through the VA fiduciary program. Families find this out at the worst possible moment. Find it out today.
★ You cannot sign it after you need it.
Medical

2. Healthcare power of attorney

Names who can decide for you — not just who gets told.

  • It names who can decide for you — consent to treatment or refuse it — when you cannot.
  • Doctors may already talk to Family involved in your care without any paperwork. What they cannot do without this document is take orders from them. That is the gap this paper closes.
Kansas trap. Under K.S.A. 58-629 your agent's authority does not begin until the attending physician determines you are impaired — unless the document says otherwise. Ask whoever drafts it about that line, on purpose, out loud.
★ Name one person. Name a backup.
Medical

3. Living will

Says whether you want machines. In Kansas it does less than people think.

  • Kansas: "Any adult person may execute a declaration directing the withholding or withdrawal of life-sustaining procedures in a terminal condition" — K.S.A. 65-28,103.
Two Kansas limits. The declaration reaches a terminal condition only, and it has no effect while the declarant is pregnant. If you want your wishes to govern a coma or advanced dementia that is not "terminal," say so in your healthcare power of attorney — the living will alone may not reach it.
★ One page does not cover it. Use both.
Property

4. Will or trust

Die without one and your state writes it for you.

  • If you die without a will, Kansas law decides who gets what, under K.S.A. 59-502, "Descent of property of intestate resident." A statute divides your property, not you.
  • Every state has its own version of that statute, and they do not match. If you move, your plan moves with you and should be re-checked.
★ Somebody writes it. Make it you.
Money

5. Beneficiary forms

401(k), IRA, TSP, SGLI, life insurance. Check every one.

  • These forms usually control instead of your will — but not always, and the rule is different for each account type.
  • Private 401(k)-type plans. Labor Department: "In most defined contribution plans, if you should die before you receive your benefits, your surviving spouse will automatically receive them. If you wish to select a different beneficiary, your spouse must consent by signing a waiver, witnessed by a notary or plan representative." Naming your kids on the form without that signed spousal consent does not work. For defined benefit and money purchase plans the default is a joint and survivor annuity that takes both a written waiver and written spousal consent to give up.
  • TSP. TSP's own words: "A will, prenuptial agreement, separation agreement, property settlement agreement, or court order will not override either a beneficiary designation or the order of precedence."
  • SGLI. Runs the same way under 38 CFR part 9 — a designation on file controls, and with none on file the money goes down a statutory order of precedence: spouse, children, parents, executor, next of kin. Not by your will.
  • That federal spousal-consent rule the Labor Department describes applies to ERISA plans — not to IRAs, and not to TSP.
A stale TSP or SGLI designation cannot be fixed by a will, a divorce decree, or a spouse's signature. It is fixed by filing a new designation. Do it the month the Family changes.
★ Pull every form. Read who is on it.
Property

6. Transfer-on-death deed

Kansas allows it. It has to be recorded, and it does not do everything.

  • K.S.A. 59-3501: "An interest in real estate may be titled in transfer-on-death, TOD, form by recording a deed signed by the record owner of such interest, designating a grantee beneficiary or beneficiaries of the interest."
  • Recording is the act. A signed but unrecorded TOD deed does nothing. Record it with the register of deeds in the county where the real estate sits.
  • You cannot revoke it with your will. Revocation is K.S.A. 59-3503: the designation is revoked by "executing, acknowledging and recording in the office of the register of deeds in the county where the real estate is located an instrument describing the interest revoking the designation." Recording a new TOD deed also revokes prior designations for that interest (K.S.A. 59-3502).
  • Whether your state has this deed at all is a state-law question. Check your own statutes.
It keeps the house out of probate. It does not keep it away from Kansas Medicaid estate recovery. See the next panel before you count on it.
★ Signed is not done. Recorded is done.
Read this one

7. Medicaid estate recovery — Kansas is not Texas

This is where Kansas families lose the house they thought was saved.

  • Federal law lets each state choose. Social Security Act sec. 1917(b) permits a state to define "estate" as the probate estate or to expand it to "any other real and personal property and other assets in which the individual had any legal title or interest at the time of death ... including such assets conveyed to a survivor, heir, or assign of the deceased individual through joint tenancy, tenancy in common, survivorship, life estate, living trust, or other arrangement."
  • Texas took the narrow road — its program reaches property subject to probate. Kansas took the wide one. K.S.A. 39-709(k)(3)(B) includes, without limitation, property passing by "joint tenancy, tenancy in common, survivorship, transfer-on-death deed, payable-on-death contract, life estate, trust, annuities or similar arrangement."
  • Kansas reaches further than that short list. KDHE's own eligibility manual (KEESM 1725) includes assets conveyed "through joint tenancy, tenancy-in-common, survivorship, transfer-on-death deed, pay-on-death contract, life estate, trust, annuity, life insurance policy (whole or term life) or similar arrangement." Naming a beneficiary on a life insurance policy does not by itself put the proceeds beyond Kansas estate recovery.
  • "Lady Bird" deeds. Enhanced life-estate deeds are recognized in only a handful of states, and they do not exist in Kansas. Whether such a deed shields a home from Medicaid depends entirely on how that state defines the estate it recovers from. A Kansas veteran who assumes a deed protects the house is being misled. See an attorney licensed in your state.
If you are the survivor, do not assume they can take it. Medicaid.gov: states may not recover from the estate of an enrollee survived by a spouse, by a child under 21, or by a blind or disabled child of any age — and every state must have an undue-hardship waiver procedure. If a recovery notice arrives, ask for the hardship waiver in writing and ask what the deadline to request it is. medicaid.gov estate recovery
★ Ask before you plan. Ask again before you pay.
Medical

8. HIPAA authorization

Useful. But the law already allows more than hospitals tell you.

  • A HIPAA authorization removes all doubt and lets you name exactly who may receive your records. Sign one. It is worth the ten minutes.
  • Know what the rule already allows. HHS: the Privacy Rule permits a provider to talk with family or friends involved in your care when you do not object — permission can be obtained by asking, by telling you and letting you object, or by reasonably inferring it from the circumstances. No writing is required. Under 45 CFR 164.510(b), "The covered entity may orally inform the individual of and obtain the individual's oral agreement or objection."
  • If you are unconscious, a provider may share what it determines is in your best interests — and "only the protected health information that is directly relevant" to that person's involvement in your care.
A hospital that flatly says "HIPAA won't let us tell you anything" is overstating the rule. Stay polite and ask for the facility's privacy officer, and point to HHS FAQ 2087 and 45 CFR 164.510(b).
★ Sign it anyway. Then know the rule.
Property

9. Your digital accounts

Phone code, email, the photos. Nothing is locked forever — but the paperwork is long.

  • Without a written direction, your Family may face months of paperwork or a court order to reach your accounts.
  • Kansas gives them a path. Under K.S.A. 58-4807, if you consented or a court directs it, the provider must disclose the contents of your electronic communications to the personal representative of your estate, on proof of death and appointment.
  • The fastest fix is to use the provider's own online tool — Kansas law defines it as "an electronic service provided by a custodian that allows the user, in an agreement distinct from the terms-of-service agreement, to provide directions for disclosure or nondisclosure of digital assets to a third person" (K.S.A. 58-4802) — and say what you want in your will, trust or power of attorney.
  • Do not plan on handing over passwords. That can violate the provider's terms of service.
★ Set the legacy contact. Then write it down.
Veteran only

10. The papers only a veteran has

These belong in the same folder as the will.

  • DD-214. Put a copy where your Family can actually find it — with the estate papers. Many counties will also record it in the deed records so a certified copy can be pulled later. Ask your county.
  • SGLI, VGLI and VA life insurance. Check who is named on the beneficiary of record. That designation controls the money — your will does not.
  • Burial in a national cemetery. Write your wishes down and tell the Family out loud. A wish nobody knows about is not a plan.
  • Your VA benefits are not controlled by your will. VA runs by VA's own designations and rules. Handle them where they live, not in the estate papers.
  • VA fiduciary. If VA rates a veteran unable to manage funds, VA appoints its own fiduciary under 38 CFR part 13. Start at benefits.va.gov/fiduciary.
★ One folder. Tell somebody where it is.
Make it stick

11. A paper that fails its formalities is worth zero

Signed wrong is the same as never signed — and you find out on the worst day.

  • Kansas durable power of attorney. K.S.A. 58-652 requires words such as "This is a durable power of attorney and the authority of my attorney in fact shall not terminate if I become disabled," and the document must be "signed by the principal, and dated and acknowledged in the manner prescribed by the revised uniform law on notarial acts."
  • TOD deed: record it (K.S.A. 59-3501). Unrecorded does nothing.
  • This is not a one-time checklist. Re-read every document and every beneficiary form after a marriage, a divorce, a birth, a death, a move to another state, or a new account.
  • Move states, re-check everything. The deed that worked in one state may not exist in the next one.
See an attorney licensed in your state. This page is written against Kansas law and it is information, not legal advice. If money is tight, ask the nearest legal assistance office, your county bar's lawyer referral line, or a legal aid organization what they offer veterans — and ask a veterans service organization service officer who they send people to. There is almost always a next door.
★ Get it right once. Then keep it current.
Related: Wills, powers of attorney and the VA advance directive, paper by paper: wills, powers of attorney and advance directives. Free help preparing them: free legal help for veterans.