POWERS OF ATTORNEY
One of my friends, who lives close to me, has just flown out to Florida. It seems the wife, her stepmother, has placed her father with dementia into a care/nursing home - I'm not sure what care or nursing homes are called in America. Care homes here are residential homes for those who cannot live in their homes even with carers going in; nursing homes are similar but are for those who require routine and ongoing medical treatment.
Back to my friend, it seems that her father has given powers of attorney to his wife. Again I don't what Americans call powers of attorney where someone is given legal powers to make decisions on behalf of someone else because they lack mental capacity to make such decisions in their best interests. Here, there are different types of powers of attorney - mainly, lasting (covering health and welfare and property and financial affairs), and enduring power of attorney (covering only property and financial affairs). I know until a couple of years ago, Britney Spears' father acted as her conservator. Perhaps a conservatorship an America is the same as powers of attorney here?
Back to my friend again - I do digress! It seems her father handed over powers of attorney to his wife and she is now spending lots of his money while he's in a care home. Furthermore, my friend's sister, who lives in Manhattan, was refused access, on orders of their father's wife, to her father when she visited his care home. It doesn't sound at all good, which is why my friend has hurriedly flown over to Florida.
Have you ever exercised powers of attorney (or equivalent) over someone else?
After my Mum was diagnosed with motor neurone disease, I was given lasting powers of attorney over both my Mum and Dad. My brother and wife jointly shared these powers of attorney. We had to draw up a non-legally binding memorandum of understanding to add to the legal powers of attorney agreement and to outline roughly how these wide-ranging powers should be exercise over my parents, not least to minimise the chances of conflict between me and my brother.
Our first decision we had to make was whether the powers of attorney were to be exercised jointly (in that all three of us had to agree before exercising such powers) or whether the powers could be exercised independently (in that one of us without the agreement of the other two could exercise such powers). We decided to go down the independent exercising of attorney powers.
The key issue at the time was that there there different scenarios in which the powers of attorney could be used. Because I lived far away from my parents, unlike my brother and his wife, they tended to draw cash out of my parents' bank accounts to pay for shopping etc. I needn't get involved in these relatively low-level decisions.
But I did want to be involved in higher-level decisions regarding their health and welfare, plus their property affairs. Also I didn't want my brother's wife to be involved in these higher-level decisions; she was not my parents' daughter and, furthermore, I didn't want to be in an automatic minority of one if we all couldn't agree what to do.
Though my brother and I did fall out, our estrangement had nothing to do with the powers of attorney agreement we signed. In fact, there were no occasions we had to exercise powers of attorney over my parents because they had mental capacity to make such decisions up to the moments before they died.
The labels are similar here, I think. One of my nieces who is good with money has financial power of attorney for me, in case I ever "go dotty" lol. I hope that doesn't happen because it seems like it would be a lot of work for her. She has extra money coming to her in my will - I had to just make a wild guess on what would be a reasonable amount for that. It certainly depends on whether she hs to manage my affairs for years and years, or just do the executor duties after I die.
ReplyDeleteMy two best friends have medical power of attorney to make end of life decisions if I'm not capable of doing so.
It definitely can get complicated with parents and children. I feel very fortunate that my siblings and I were able to come to a mutual decision about what to do at the end of my mom's life. And the financial stuff never got very complicated. My older brother had the financial power of attorney I think - I never felt like he was taking advantage and after she died her estate was split evenly between the four siblings. I've heard about other situations where it broke up the family, very sad.
It sounds as if you've got your affairs in good order.
DeleteIt's interesting that you have both a financial and a medical power of attorney. It makes a lot of sense.
Basically I didn't want family to have to make a decision to pull the plug on me - more because it would be emotionally difficult, rather than me being worried that they might have a conflict of interest. As it happens, one of my medical power of attorney friends has been helping another close friend who developed early onset dementia. Seeing how helpful and caring she's being with Barb gives me confidence that I picked the right person.
DeleteI can well understand your logic regarding medical power of attorney not being held by a family member.
DeleteAbsolutely do not give Zelensky power of attorney for you. Here there is also limited variant: A Limited Power of Attorney gives someone temporary authority to take make defined legal actions for a specific period of time. For example, parents could be out of the country for an extended period of time and authorize someone to make medical and care decisions on behalf of their young children while they are away.
ReplyDeleteYour limited power of attorney is our ordinary power of attorney.
DeleteI will never ask Zelensky to be my attorney, he's got better things to do at the moment! Though Zelensky may need an attorney if he was ever to be captured!
Not sure, but I think other is generally called durable power of attorney. Harassing raccoons? Likely.
ReplyDeleteZelensky needs to stop harassing raccoons. Surely he has better things to do!
DeleteA power of attorney is called ininjou (委任状) in Japanese. I don't know if there are more than one kind like in the West.
ReplyDeleteZelensky takes his job of harassing raccoons seriously, since he keeps the raccoons out of Debbi's garden.
Zelensky needs to be focussing on invading Russians rather than invading raccoons!
DeleteHe's honing his skills LOL
DeleteZelensky wants me to tell you both that the raccoons are Russian, so you're both right. 😂
DeleteZelensky should quite rightly keep those invading Russian raccoons at bay.
DeleteMy parents have everything all set up for the POA for healthcare and financial care, but named my sister as the primary person verses me. I am the one who has been there to do everything for both. I literally sat down with my Dad and had them re-write it with my sister present so it was a limited one with all of their wishes written down. We had it redrawn up and resigned.
ReplyDeleteGranted it is still my sister as being the primary person but she has to go through me for anything with the healthcare as I work in healthcare.
I will be fine if she ever moves back here but I have my doubts that she will.
It's strange that both you and your sister aren't involved for everything but at least you're involved on health issues.
DeleteMy mother feels that since my sister is the eldest she should have the decisions. Yet I do everything since I live here. My dad gets it but not my mom.
DeleteI am sorry for what your friend is going through.
I understand though it still seems a little strange. I was the eldest but still my younger brother was involved with the powers of attorney, as I would have expected.
DeleteI have no powers of attorney nor have I ever. My parents died young, there was no need. I’m sorry for your friends.
ReplyDeleteI don't have any powers of attorney bar for a very limited one regarding my parents' inheritance given to my solicitor. It's not going well, but that's a long story!
DeleteBoth myself and my oldest sister had co power of attorney for my Dad. I have three other older siblings also and my oldest brother got his nose out of joint for not being given the power. He became a nightmare but he is and always was a greedy bugger. My Dad though had everything all mapped out in fine details and everything when all said and done was settled. It is a big responsibility and time consuming job being given power of attorney. Sorry to hear about your friends troubles..
ReplyDeleteI suspect my friend is being shafted. Even if it's challenged in the courts, it will take a long time to resolve things by which time many things could happen.
DeleteSo heartbreaking it is especially when the heartbreak should all strictly be about your parent dying..
DeleteI think my friend's options are very limited unless there's evidence that her stepmother is abusing her powers of attorney but that won't be easy as she's on the outside not really being able to look in.
DeleteSad when one has no trust in family members. My sis and I had everything itemized from bank statements down to the penny and gave the other siblings copies, which helped big time. It let them see precisely where and how Dad's finances were handled by both of us as my sis and I had to co-sign everything..
DeleteIt's invariably always best to be fair and open in these things.
DeleteHonesty is always the best policy..
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