How to access assets when breadwinner is incapacitated

We work hard to ensure that our family lives in comfort in the present and in the future. We earn money and invest it. But what if we fail to ensure its smooth transition to our legal heirs? Wealth transmission post-death is a challenging process. What does not gain much attention is accessing a breadwinner’s investments while she is alive but incapacitated, that is, physically or mentally unfit to manage one’s financial affairs.

Niranjan Vemulkar, co-founder and chief executive officer of Yellow, a digital will-making platform, shares an example. “We know of a case where the breadwinner went into a coma. His assets were frozen and a good amount of money was needed to pay the hospital bill. The family had to move court to release some of these assets. But the court cannot allow transferring or withdrawing all assets in one go. They open the tap in a controlled manner only for specific purposes,” Vemulkar says. To be sure, an incapacitated person may get better in the future, and a court cannot allow transferring assets of a living person.