Under California law, there are certain basic rules that you must follow to create a valid health care directive and living will:

• You must be an adult
• You must have the mental capacity to give health care instructions
• You must sign and date the document
• There should be two witnesses present when you sign, or you should acknowledge your signature to a notary public.

The restrictions on witness choices are covered in more detail in the steps above. Generally, your health care agent and anyone who is involved with your health care may not witness your health care directive and living will. Further, one of the witnesses must sign a statement acknowledging that they are not related to you and will not inherit from you.

Finally, if you are a patient in a skilled nursing facility, California law requires that a patient advocate or ombudsman must sign your health care directive and living will as a witness. This is true even if your document is notarized.

Yes, an out-of-state advance directive is valid if it was created in accordance with the laws of that state or is in compliance with California laws. However, if you have recently completed a permanent move to California, it may be a good time to update your estate plan and make sure it complies with California law. You can create an attorney-approved California health care directive and living will through FindLaw for $35 without needing to visit an attorney’s office.

Yes. Through a durable health care power of attorney (a “POA”), you can name a health care agent. This person will make medical choices for you if you ever become incapacitated and unable to make them for yourself. According to California’s health care laws, your health care agent’s legal authority to make medical decisions for you would terminate if you recover the capacity to make decisions for yourself.

Your health care agent’s legal duty is to carry out the terms of your health care directive and living will and to make medical decisions that are in your best interest. When you choose someone for this role, you should make sure to discuss your treatment preferences with them. You should also talk to them to make sure that they are willing to take on this role. This person may need to be assertive to advocate for your health care wishes with medical staff and family members.

Technically, yes. California law permits electronic advance directives. But there are special rules associated with them. Just as with any advance directive, you must sign electronic versions. Further, your digital signature must comply with California’s digital signatures law or it must use technology approved by the National Institute of Standards and Technology.

If you are not fully confident that the system you are using complies with these standards, it is a better idea to sign a health care directive and living will on a hard copy. With FindLaw, you can create a health care directive and living will to print and sign in about an hour.

A divorce does not revoke the directions in your health care directive and living will. But if you named your spouse as your health care agent, a divorce legally revokes this designation. If you should happen to remarry your former spouse, this would reinstate their designation as your health care agent.

If you have gone through a divorce, it is a good time to review your estate plan. This includes your advance directives. After a divorce, you may wish to add or remove beneficiaries from your will. Of course, you may also want to name a new health care agent if you had previously chosen your spouse for that role.

California’s health care laws allow you to revoke your health care directive and living will in any manner and at any time. An effective way to revoke a health care directive and living will is by creating a new one that explicitly revokes all prior documents. FindLaw can help you create a new health care directive and living will in about 30 minutes to an hour without even needing to leave the comfort of home.

If you named a health care agent through a POA, you can only revoke this designation through another signed writing or by notifying your supervising health care provider.

Whether you simply revoke your advance directives or create new ones, you should make sure to inform the right people of this change. Your health care agent should know when they have been replaced, first of all. You should then let your loved ones and health care providers know that you have changed your advance directives. This will ensure that they have your most current preferences at hand if they should need to use them. Finally, if you stored your advance directives with California’s advance health care directive registry, you should contact them to update your records.