Everyone should have a Power of Attorney document. They appoint someone to act if you are not able to make financial and property decisions for yourself. Other incarnations may include medical and personal care decisions as well. However, the ones dealing with money and property are the most widely used, powerful and dangerous.
If you become incapacitated, unconscious or are absent the country for long periods of time, you need someone to manage your finances for you. They need to pay your bills, file your taxes and manage your property. The best way to do this is appoint someone to do these tasks is by way of a Power of Attorney. Absent a Power of Attorney it usually requires a court order to have someone appointed to make these kinds of decisions. That is time consuming and expensive.
Problems arise when an Attorney gains access to banking and for someone else and realizes there is nobody watching. There are legal duties for everyone who acts as Attorney for someone else. However, most Attorneys don’t know or don’t care.
Unfettered access to another person’s finances is just too tempting for some people and they treat the other person’s money as their own. In most cases, the only way to check an Attorney is if someone finds out by looking into the bank account documents and discovers irregular or self-serving withdrawals in made by the Attorney. It usually takes someone bringing an Attorney to court for an accounting to discover this. Alternatively, these transaction may only be discovered after the person dies. In either case, accountability requires somebody finding out and having the desire and money to start a court proceeding.
It is so very important for everyone to have a Power of Attorney document in place, and hope it never needs to be used. But the person or people appointed must be trustworthy. Finding out about abuse and correcting it is much less common than abuse taking place. However, there are remedies available to people subject to abuse and their Estate’s after they die.
For advice on how to stop someone abusing a Power of Attorney, one of our lawyers would be happy to talk to you.
Published by Jonathan Hooper – jonathan@tupmanbloom.com