End of life planning
End of life planning is a type of worst-case contingency planning that involves documenting what should happen when you die. Planning for your own death can be difficult, but will help ensure that your wishes and values are respected and reduce the number of difficult decisions that your loved ones need to make while grieving.
Questions to consider
- Who has ultimate decision making authority? A decision making committee is possible, but consider how they will be behaving in the event of death.
- What level of detail is shared, with who, and when? Contact information for a family member, context of their relation with regards to kink, and what level to inform them.
- What happens to the person's possessions?
- This can be as general as "Person A will receive everything and decide how to distribute it", or as specific as "Person A receives Item A, Person B receives Item B, ..." Any amount of detail is better than none. This is especially important for kink possessions, which are often highly personal items.
- Note that legal requirements may affect how these instructions can be carried out.
- What happens to the person's online presence?
- Many people have tens (even hundreds) of accounts on messaging platforms, social media platforms, dating apps, and other websites. Some of these websites have automatic systems in place that will automatically deactivate or delete accounts if there is no activity for a specific amount of time. Is this the desired behavior? Should these accounts live on after the subject's death, or also be deleted? If the person wants their accounts to live on, who is responsible for maintaining the accounts? How will others gain access to these accounts?
- Is it acceptable for people to post media generated before the subject's death? What should be done about the media that already exists?
- What kind of memorial is desired? Should it be a one time gathering, a recurring event, or a physical memorial?
Types of documents
The presence of a legal will and testament (or lack thereof) will drastically how these instructions are carried out. Additionally, estate law differs drastically between regions of the world. Consider consulting an estate planning attorney for legal advice.
Informal written plan
An informal document distributed among friends. In some jurisdictions, an informal written plan may not be legally valid, and the person will be considered to have died without a will (intestate).
Advance directive
An advance directive is a legal document that takes effect in the event of illness or incapacitation.[1]
Power of attorney
A power of attorney is an agreement between the principal and a trusted party (attorney in fact). The trusted party may act on the principal's behalf and does not need to be an attorney. Typically this agreement is only valid as long as the principal are alive and able to make decisions, but a durable power of attorney can maintain effect after the principal is unable to make their own decisions. Specifics on how and what power of attorney can do depends on the jurisdiction.[2]
Will
A will is a legal document that describes wishes and instructions for managing property (estate) after death.[3] If there is no will, property will be distributed according to the laws of intestacy of the state or country that the death occurred in.[4]