Do you have one?
Are you a representative on someone else's behalf?
Over the last few months I have been working with my great aunt and her lawyers to make some changes to her current POA over to me. It's right around the corner now, so I thought I would share that with all of you....I'm not going to be renaming my blog, Jessie, Jordan, and Jessie's Great Aunts money - but I might have some new things to write about.
Some topics that I expect will come up will be managing other peoples money, financial planning in retirement, and even elder abuse.
Does anyone have any other topics they might find interesting around POA and the responsibilities or the risks involved? Drop me a line to let me know!
Power of Attorney
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I don't really have any questions on the technicalities of managing other people's money, but rather the personal side of it, which I understand if you don't want to go into too much because of privacy issues.
ReplyDeleteFor example, the family dynamics of it. I have elderly parents who have blindly chosen the oldest sibling for financial things, just because the oldest = the most responsible, right? Wrong. An outsider can view our family and the family history and can immediately see who would be the right person, and who would be the wrong person.
If your family members all get along and all are happy with how things are proceeding with you assuming PofA, that's awesome and not much to write about. However, if that's not the case I assume it would be breaching you and your family's privacy so I wouldn't ask you to write about it .... but that's the conundrum I'm facing, rather than the nuts and bolts of the paperwork. *Sigh*.
I'll tread carefully here - but there absolutely some topics around this that I could write about. Part of me assuming POA, is removing it from another family member...
DeleteI have PoA on my Mom but we don't need to invoke it right now (or anytime soon, hopefully). I work in pensions and I see lots of PoAs (and executors for that matter) who don't take their responsibilities seriously or abuse their powers. It can be really sad to see seniors being taken advantage of.
ReplyDeleteIt's just so completely heartbreaking!
DeleteIn Australia we call it Enduring Power of Attorney, I have one and so does my soon to be Husband. He and my two brothers are my Enduring Power of Attorneys. I've arranged it so that my partner is number 1, and my brothers would only be involved if my partner were deceased or unable to participate in decision making. He made me his Enduring Power of Attorney, but if I were unavailable/incompetent etc then he has his parents listed as 2 and 3. Ours only takes affect if we were to have impaired decision making capacity. There are two sections, one for lifestyle, health and accommodation decisions, and one section for financial management. It will be helpful if we ever need it, I hope we don't need it until we are very old. In my job as a hospital social worker, I see a lot of people who are appointed as and Enduring Power of Attorney assuming that it takes effect immediately, even when the person has stipulated that it is ONLY for if they lose decision making capacity. We often have to remind people of this, that no, you can't put Aunt Grace into a nursing home against her will, she can make that decision for herself.
ReplyDeleteHey Lauren!
DeleteWe have both here - POA while someone has mental capacity, and enduring for when they don't. There are so many ways the documents can be written, it's very interesting stuff! My husband and I don't have them yet, but will once I get through the process with my great-aunt.
Thanks for sharing your experiences with us!