Single, ageing and struggling to lind the nght donees fbr my LPA

When you can no longer handle your own flnancial and healthcare issues, you need someone to do it for you. It's not easy to flnd such a person.

- Grace Leong

I have known for several years that I should get my Lasting Power of Attorney (LPA) and Last Will and Testament done, but this important task took a backseat to chasing stories and meeting work deadlines.

That is, until I hit 50, and could no longer postpone the need to get my legacy planning done and cross that off the bucket list.

The LPA is a legal document or deed that allows the applicant to appoint one or more trusted people or donees to help make key decisions in the event he or she loses mental capacity due to conditions such as dementia, severe illness or a coma. This document is valid only if the donor is certified by a doctor to have lost mental capacity. Anyone who is at least 21 years of age can apply.

In fact, I suspect I've started legacy planning a tad late, but therein lies the rub.

I am single, with few family members that I can entrust the responsibility of being donees and replacement donees for my LPA. Quite simply, I do not wish to burden them. While I have friends who have offered to be donees, most of them are my age or slightly older.

While I appreciate their kindness, I cannot help but wonder - what if they cannot fulfil their duties as donees, for whatever reason, when the time comes? Or worse, what if they do not outlive me?

I understand what it means to be literally left holding the bag. When my mother passed on, the appointed executors of her will, my uncle and one of her best friends, relinquished their executorship because of age and poor health, and also because they felt my sister and I were old enough to undertake the task.

But because my sister was busy preparing for her wedding at the time and was also burnt out from being a caregiver to our mother, the task of being executor of my mother's estate fell on me.