Suze Orman

Okay.

So here you have your home.

Both of you own it.

However you own it, fine.

And

But while you're living in it, one of you becomes incapacitated and the other one needs to sell the house because maybe it's two stories and you have to go to a one-story house.

The question is, can they sell it?

And the answer to that question is, no, they cannot because

Because if you own it in both your names, it takes both signatures to be able to sell it.

So what's going to have to happen?

One of you, whoever it's incapacitated, gets declared incompetent.

They get a conservatorship for that person.

And from that point on, they have to continuously report back about what's happening with that half of the money.

Oh, you say that's not a problem.

Because you have a power of attorney.

Do you know that most power of attorneys become null and void the day that there's an incapacity?

You become incapacitated and you have an account just in your name and somebody says, I'm power of attorney.

I want to take money out of this person's account.

The bank isn't going to let that happen because you can revoke a power of attorney anytime you want.

and the bank is going to be afraid that maybe you revoked it.