If you’re anything like me, you would do anything to avoid talking about your death or possible illness or becoming incapacitated. You put it off until tomorrow, or next week, or next month. As long as your health is okay, you see no reason to rush things, to finalize those details that confirm that yes, you may become ill someday, and yes, you, like the rest of humanity, will eventually die.
I didn’t ignore this entirely. I gave it some thought, writing my will, deciding on an executor, and ensuring my personal documents were easy to locate, But when it came to taking that final step, arranging my power of attorney, I stalled.
But this fall, my husband developed a medical condition that didn’t respond to the medication prescribed, and within days, our lives were up-ended. After a three-hour wait in Emergency, we started a month-long odyssey of doctors’ appointments, tests, and waiting for test results.
The issue is now resolved, but it was a wake-up call. As soon as the crisis was over, I broached the subject with my husband—how would we manage our day-to-day lives if one of us became too ill to participate in the everyday duties of living—paying bills, maintaining the home and tending to official business?
It seemed imminent that we needed to attend to the task of assigning someone to be our Power of Attorney.
What is a Power of Attorney?
Simply put, a Power of Attorney can be explained as follows:
“A power of attorney is a legal document which allows you to appoint another person to act as your agent to manage your health, property, financial and other affairs. A power of attorney can begin immediately or go into effect at some time in the future such as if you become incapacitated and can no longer make decisions over your affairs.”
When you are creating this document, you should be considering an Enduring Power of Attorney, rather than an Ordinary Power of Attorney. The two types are outlined below, courtesy of the Law Depot, a site which provides free forms to help people in my province:
“An Enduring Power of Attorney remains valid even if the donor later becomes mentally incompetent. The donor must be competent at the time an enduring Power of Attorney is made.
An Ordinary Power of Attorney is only valid as long as the donor is capable of acting for him or herself. If the donor becomes mentally incompetent (loses capacity), the ordinary Power of Attorney ends.”
In setting up your Power of Attorney document, you may wish to specify duties, powers, limits of authority, accounting obligations, and so on directly in the body of the document, or you might simply refer to the Power of Attorney Act relevant in your country or state, as in:
I appoint the following person to be my attorney pursuant to The Power of Attorney Act, and to do on my behalf anything that I can lawfully do by an Attorney.
Who should you appoint?
Who you choose to act on your behalf when you no longer have the capacity to manage your financial life and medical care is enormously important—he or she will be charged with carrying out your explicit wishes.
-It must be someone you trust completely and who you are sure has your best interests at heart.
-It must be someone who has a level of financial literacy relevant to your financial needs .
-The person you choose should be accessible, and preferably live close by. It is desirable that the attorney at least be a resident of your country.
-Avoid selecting someone whose health is fragile, or who is much older than you are, and who may predecease you,
-It is a good idea to appoint more than one attorney, acting jointly so they can keep each other in check and to have a reserve just in case something happens to one of them.
-Consider family dynamics. If some of your children or other family members do not agree with one another, a neutral person outside the family, such as a lawyer or accountant could be appointed.
What else should you know?
-You must be mentally capable at the time you sign any type of Power of Attorney for it to be valid.
-The Power of Attorney document becomes invalid when you die. A Power of Attorney, unlike a Will, cannot be used to bequeath property upon your death.
-Because laws vary from country to country, and state to state, you cannot, if you move, assume that a power of attorney signed in one location will be honored in another.
-A Power of Attorney document is not a Living Will, which is an advance written directive to physicians making your wishes about end-of-life care known. Unlike an Enduring Power of Attorney, it does not appoint a person to act on your behalf and make financial and estate-related decisions.
I can’t say enough about how important this process has been to my peace of mind. Once this was accomplished, I put to rest any concerns I had about what will happen to us, and how our state of health in our final days would affect us and our families. Addressing concerns about our future well-being by creating an Enduring Power of Attorney document was a big step, and I strongly recommend it.
“Always do what you are afraid to do.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson
I have drawn up my power of attorney in favour of my son and he in my favour immediately after my wife died nine years ago. All our bank affairs are in our joint names though now that he is married, he has separate joint accounts with his wife too. I think that about covers our needs.
Incidentally, I have also drawn up my living will.
Wish I’d been as organized as you are! It might have saved me some fretting over the past few years—I think I would qualify as a procrastinator!
Glad things turned out okay for your husband. This is crucial advice, and like rummuser says we should all have a will and also a health care proxy.
It depends on your age, though, and I suspect you are a few years younger than I am! It felt right for me to address this at last, and now, I’m so glad I did! Thanks, Tom!
Good advice. Having worked in the legal field for more than 40 years, I’ve had my will, power of attorney, and health care proxy (living will) in place all along, and I update them periodically even if the parties don’t change. But it’s shocking how many people don’t do this for whatever reason. Even when I was buying my house (from an estate), it came into play. The executor had to go for emergency brain surgery and couldn’t sign the closing documents. If he had a power of attorney, we maybe could have arranged for signing of the closing documents by his agent, although it’s likely the court would have insisted on appointment of a successor executor if he didn’t get better. In either event, the closing was delayed, and it became a nightmare since the house I was selling was ready to close and the buyer wanted to get in. I don’t ever want to go through that again.
What a story involving your house closing! Nobody wants to go through that kind of a nightmare! But it seems that you are prepared for everything, and I commend you for it! Thanks, Cordelia. Glad the house closing finally went ahead, and all was well!
This is very helpful information, explained clearly so everyone can understand. We older people should not put this off. It should be done immediately.
As you can see, I finally listened to my own advice—but I’ve yet to arrange a Living Will!
Hubby and I did our wills, powers of attorney and medical powers of attorney a year ago. It was a lot easier conversation for us and our family than I thought it would be. Now that we’ve moved to a new state, we’ll need to update them. Thanks for providing a valuable and informative post.
Updating will probably be a formality, with not much time and expense involved. Our wills are set up to be updated every five years, which seems a nuisance, but probably a good idea!
My husband and I have done all this (thank goodness) but it was made more difficult since we don’t have kids. We have a friend as our designated POA but we may have to adjust this as time goes on because of his age. Perhaps an outside lawyer or accountant is the way to go.
This is a dilemma as families become smaller, with fewer younger members to do tasks related to the future. I agree, you would be wise to choose someone outside of the family to assume the responsibility of becoming your Power of Attorney. Hopefully you know someone in your circle of professionals who can be trusted to take on this very important position.
Hi, Diane – I agree that this is essential information that none of us should put off. (Of course I do live with a lawyer who has repeatedly reinforced the importance of this over the years)!
This made me chuckle—reminds me of the fable about the shoemaker’s children who wore shoes with holes in them! I hope my article gave you the nudge to do this as soon as you can!
We did our wills, advanced directives, and medical powers of attorney years ago. All of our assets are jointly owned, so no trouble there. We obviously think it’s a good idea to do them.
Owning everything jointly makes the process easier, but if there are previous families involved (step-children) if becomes a lot more complicated. It’s important to make sure everything is fair and equitable.
How much is a Power of Attorney person paid?
It depends on whether you do it yourself, using free forms you can get online, or have a lawyer write it up. My experience is every time you engage a lawyer, it is expensive, And of course, cost varies depending on the lawyer and the location. Your best bet is to phone one or two lawyers in your area and ask. With all of these variables to consider, I’d hesitate to quote a number.
What is set up with a living spouse is one thing, though age differences can add a different perspective to expected longevity, too. We tend to think we won’t go at the same time, but accidents happen and at any age, so waiting until we’re “old” as we often do is a gamble. Then, what about a widowed or widower spouse? I’ve been long overdue for acting on that scenario and finally did earlier this year. Ever so important to have someone to take over when we’re unable to function — with or without our minds. Valuable information you’re providing. In the U.S. it’s important for us to review our State’s laws on the matter as some aspects differ.
I’m glad you addressed this earlier—now you can relax about it. “Waiting until we are old”, is a human response, especially when we are feeling well, and can reasonably expect many more years. Thanks for bringing up State laws—it’s critical to be up to date on them.
Wonderfully written and great advice. My guy and I had a will done in 1989 – when our kids were little, until about a year ago. We realized we had to bite the bullet and get an updated one – with new power of attorney and etc etc. It was expensive, and it was hard (all the questions we had to answer to make the right decisions). But it was the right thing to do for our kids and grandkids.
We have a built-in clause that requires us to update our Power of Attorney every five years. That’s quite necessary, given that health can change radically in our later years.It is expensive, but well worth knowing that we will leave things in order for our children and grandchildren. Thanks, Pam!
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