APRIL 26, 2010 VOLUME 17, NUMBER 14
A power of attorney is one of the most important, powerful and dangerous documents you will ever sign. Why is it important? Because your family has no inherent right or power to handle your finances in the event that you become incapacitated. Why is it dangerous? Because it is literally a license to steal.
Of course the agent named in your durable power of attorney is not supposed to steal from you. In fact, he or she can go to jail for doing so. But the whole point of the power of attorney is to make it easier for someone to handle your finances without court oversight, and without having to answer to banks or others. Too often agents abuse those powers of attorney.
So why is it important for you to sign a power of attorney? Because the alternative is, for most people, even more disturbing. Your family members and even your most trusted advisers are not able to handle your bank accounts, pay your bills, buy or sell property or protect against abuses by others — unless you have given them authority to do so in an appropriate document. That usually means a power of attorney.
There are alternatives, of course. You could create a living trust, name a successor trustee and transfer your assets into the trust. That may make it a little bit easier for your successor to handle your assets, but it does not provide any additional protection. You could simply add a trusted person to the title on each of your accounts — but that provides even fewer safeguards, and exposes your property to claims leveled against the now-joint owner of your assets.
Or you could simply hope never to need anyone to act on your behalf. Then when someone needs to act they will have to go through the process of securing a conservatorship over your estate (what some states call a guardianship of your estate). That provides better protection, but perhaps at a greater cost than you want to incur — and it means the court, rather than your family member or trusted adviser, having the ultimate authority.
That is why almost everyone we counsel ends up signing a durable power of attorney. That is also why it is so critical to make sure you have selected your agent carefully, warned them about the limitations on their authority, and provided them enough information so that they can act appropriately.
Want to know more about durable powers of attorney? Check out our new White Paper on durable powers, prepared by us for our friend and colleague Slade V. Dukes, Program Fellow for the Stetson University College of Law‘s Elder Consumer Protection Program. While there look at our White Papers on other topics, too, including Estate Planning, Guardianship and Long Term Care Planning.
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