Enduring Power of Attorney essential to act on your behalf

IF you become incapacitated and are unable to look after your own affairs but you don’t have an Enduring Power of Attorney, the office of the Public Trustee will become responsible for your finances.

The office of the Public Guardian could also become responsible for making decisions about your personal affairs, including where you live.

Neither office will usually interfere where an incapacitated person is being properly looked after by their family, but sometimes, often as a result of family disputes, they will get involved and override the wishes of carers.

The only way to ensure that does not occur, is to have an Enduring Power of Attorney. is the principal at Conrad Law in Townsville, specialising in business and succession law

You can appoint an Enduring Attorney to make financial, health and personal decisions on your behalf and attend to your affairs if you are incapacitated and unable to do so yourself. You can also authorise that lawyer to sign documents and make decisions for you while you remain able, but are travelling or uncontactable.

If you lose the capacity to make decisions for yourself, your carer is likely to face difficulties if they have not been appointed as your Enduring Attorney. For example, an insurance company may only be willing to pay out the proceeds of a Total and Permanent Disability policy to the Public Trustee. Significant difficulties will also arise in selling a house or other assets to fund a place in a nursing home or other care facility.

A person who is appointed as an Enduring Attorney must not make decisions to favour their own interests over the person who granted them that power. This can cause problems if the person with Power of Attorney of someone with dementia will receive property under their will. If that Attorney receives a house under the will the nursing home may want that house sold to fund a place in the home. As dementia sufferers can survive for decades, careful planning may be required to ensure that the intended result is achieved.

Having an appropriate Enduring Power of Attorney may be more important to you than the terms of your will. Imagine appointing the wrong person and waking up from a coma to see what decisions they have made about your financial affairs.

Or worse, you had no Enduring Attorney.