Powers of Attorney

• General Power of Attorney

A General Power of Attorney gives authority to the attorney to deal with your assets, including for example bank accounts, property and shares. An attorney should be someone who you trust and who is over 18 years old. A General Power of Attorney ceases to operate if you pass away or lose the mental capacity to make your own decisions and it does not authorise the attorney to make health decisions for you.

• Enduring Power of Attorney

An Enduring Power of Attorney is used to appoint a trusted person or people (over the age of 18) to make financial and/or personal decisions on your behalf. It differs to a General Power of Attorney as it continues to operate after you have lost the mental capacity to make your own decisions. An Enduring Power of Attorney ceases if you pass away.

An attorney can make decisions about:

• Personal (including health) matters, which relate to personal or lifestyle decisions which can include support services, where and with whom you live or health care and legal matters that do not relate to your financial or property matters;
• Financial matters which relate to decisions about your financial or property affairs including paying expenses, making investments, selling property (including your home) and carrying on a business.

To be eligible to be an attorney, a person must:

• have capacity to make decisions;
• be 18 or older;
• not be a paid carer or your paid carer in the past 3 years, your health provider, a service provider for a residential service where you live, be bankrupt or taking advantage of laws of bankruptcy (if appointed for financial matters).

You should choose your attorney(s) carefully.

Before you prepare an Enduring Power of Attorney you should read through the Form 9 – Enduring Power of Attorney Explanatory Guide and consider who you want to appoint as an Attorney and talk to them about it. An Enduring Power of Attorney is a legal document and can significantly affect your legal rights, ensure you seek legal advice before completing an Enduring Power of Attorney.

A person who has appointed another person to act as their attorney can cancel or revoke a Power of Attorney so that the person authorised can no longer act on their behalf, provided that they have capacity. It is important to revoke a Power of Attorney in writing by having your Solicitor complete a Revocation of Power of Attorney and providing a copy of it to the attorney. After a Power of Attorney is revoked all copies of the Power of Attorney in the attorney’s possession should be returned to you or your Solicitor.