Legal Question in Wills and Trusts in California

She needs to execute an Advance Health Care Directive naming an agent other than her husband and state her wishes. The document can be notarized or witnessed. A copy should be on file with her doctor and her agent should have a copy. It can be attorney drafted or she can find one online or at a bookstore. She could also consider buying a cremation plan.

She probably should also look into a legal separation. Depending on the nature of their religious compunction against divorce, it may provide her or both of them a way out. Remaining married for religious reasons, while legally and personally separating in all other ways, is the most common reason people use a legal separation over a divorce.

Burial wishes can be made known in a will.

Dead bodies are referred to in Health & Safety Code section 7001 as �human remains� or �remains.� These remains are defined as the body of a deceased person, including the body in any state of decomposition as well as cremated remains. (Health & Saf. Code, �. 7001.)

There is a quasi-property right in the possession of a dead body, recognized for the limited purpose of determining who may have its custody for burial. (Sinai Temple v. Kaplan (1976) 54 Cal.App.3d 1103, 1110 fn. 13.) Custody of the remains may be determined by testamentary disposition. (Health & Saf. Code, � 7150 et seq.)

I suggest having her talk to a competent and experienced estate planning attorney, who can draft the documents that she needs.