My MIL was just in the hospital for something scary that we didn’t know if she was going to make it out of or not. Upon her wishes, she didn’t want life support treatment. Her husband had to have two witnesses unrelated to them sign the document. Why do they have to sign when they are unrelated? Why does this have to be signed by anyone else at all?
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Like /u/Ansuz07 said, the “of sound mind” part is probably the most important.
Inheritance is the big thing. Many, many families are torn apart because of disagreements over inheritance. If Grandma Marge has been very sick and suffering from dementia for a long time, she can often be easily manipulated into signing things she doesn’t really understand.
As sad as it sounds, it’s not uncommon for one sibling to convince a vulnerable senior to both sign over a large part of their estate, and then to sign a living will to ensure Grandma Marge won’t stick around incapacitated for long enough to any other sibling to notice and start questioning the inheritance plans.
So it’s really important that multiple unrelated people, who have no possible self-interest in the family inheritance, be there to verify that this is what Grandma Marge actually wants.
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