General Power of Attorney

A General POA is provided by the Donor to an Attorney or Attorneys and gives them the authority to perform certain tasks on behalf of the Donor. The authority can be limited to specific tasks such as accessing your bank account, or it can provide the Attorney(s) with the authority to handle all your affairs in the event that something unexpected happens to you. A typical example of the use of a General POA would be when people travelled overseas.

You may wish to consider including an expiry date in this type of POA.

Enduring Power of Attorney

As in the case of a General POA, an Enduring POA gives the Attorney(s) the authority to perform certain tasks on behalf of the Donor. An Enduring POA can also be limited to specific situations. Whereas a General POA would cease to be effective if the Donor loses mental capacity, an Enduring POA, as the name suggests, would continue to be effective in this event. This is the most important distinction between the two types of POAs and careful consideration should be given to which type best suits your particular situation.

A typical example of the use of an Enduring POA is where the Donor is an elderly person who wishes to have a relative or close friend look after their affairs in the event that they suffer a stroke or other potentially mentally debilitating event. Under an enduring POA, you may also wish to give your attorney or attorneys the power to consent to medical treatment or to medical donations on your behalf while you are incapacitated. As well as the obvious advantage of having your attorney take care of paying bills and handling your affairs, it can also help avoid the expense of applications to the Protective jurisdiction of the Supreme Court and the ongoing cost of administration when dealing with the Court.

Advantages of having a Power of Attorney

Knowing that you have a properly appointed attorney can give you peace of mind when you:

• go interstate or overseas for an extended period of time;
• suffer poor physical and / or mental health; or
• reach an age when you anticipate you will need greater assistance.

Who Should I choose as my Attorney and can I have more than one?

It is important to choose someone you trust who is capable of looking after your affairs – this may be a relative or a friend. Depending on the circumstances, you may wish to appoint more than one attorney. If you appoint more than one Attorney, you should decide if you want them to be able to act together (Jointly) or act alone and together (Jointly and Severally). Having your Attorneys restricted to acting Jointly is usually safer, but it can also introduce potential problems in situations where something requires urgent attention and one or more of the Attorneys cannot be contacted.

Joint Attorneys must all act together and cannot act separately. A Joint appointment will terminate if the appointment of one of the Attorneys is revoked or any one of the Attorneys is dies, disclaims, goes bankrupt, becomes physically or mentally incapable of acting as an attorney.

If the Donor has Joint and Several Attorneys, then the Attorneys can all act together or they can act separately if they wish. The death, disclaim, bankruptcy, mental or physical incapacity of on Attorney will not automatically terminate the power.