Estate Planning
At the same time as considering your Will we strongly recommend that you also put in place plans for any future incapacity through an Enduring Power of Attorney. This will ensure that if you somehow become unable to make decisions about your finances, your medical treatment or living arrangements then the person or persons who you trust to make these decisions can do so unhindered.
An Enduring Power of Attorney is a document which allows you to choose who will make decisions for you. Don’t leave the public trustee or Public Guardian determine your decisions which is what will likely happen if you lose capacity and have not made an Enduring Power of Attorney.
Enduring Powers of Attorney are crucial estate planning tools. They give attorneys the ability to make decisions that you could have made yourself. You must trust your attorneys. Certain persons cannot be your attorney, for example, a paid carer cannot be your attorney.
You can appoint different attorneys for financial matters to those that you appoint for personal/health decisions or you can appoint the same attorneys for both. Why would you appoint different attorneys? You may know someone who is very good at managing finances and they would make an ideal attorney for your financial decisions. On the other hand, that person may not be as close to you as say your brother or sister and you would rather someone closer to you manage your personal decisions. That is just one reason why you may appoint different attorneys.
We can help explain an Enduring Power of Attorney as well as assist you with preparing and executing the document. An Enduring Power of Attorney must be prepared in a certain way to ensure it is valid. This includes signing it in the presence of a qualified witness.
Also we can assist you with advising on your rights if you believe an attorney has acted outside the scope of their authority. Attorneys do have obligations to act honestly and with care and can be held accountable for their decisions, particularly if those decisions have been made without due regard to your interests or conflict with the Attorney’s own interests.
We can also assist you with revoking an Enduring Power of Attorney. They can be revoked provided you have capacity to do so.
Contact our Wills & Estates Lawyers
Contact us today to arrange a consultation with an experienced Townsville Lawyer and assist you with preparing and executing the EPOA document.
