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No – a Power of Attorney can only be given by a person who understands what they are signing. If she has lost the ability to understand what is going on then she can not sign a Power of Attorney. Your only solution is to make an application to the Guardianship Tribunal to be appointed Financial Manager of her affairs.

Anyone over 18 years can be your attorney. It should only be given to a person who can be completely trusted as they can do anything you can do financially such as sell or mortgage your house or operate on your bank account (unless there are limitations against this in the document). Of course, if they acted illegally by stealing your money, they could go to prison but that may not get you your money back.

• A Power of Attorney can be registered at the Land and Property Information Office. The cost is about $130 to have it registered. The registration process does not require the signature of the person giving the power so it can be done at any time, even after they have lost capacity

• It must be registered to deal with real estate and registration is sometimes required to deal with shares or banks.

It lasts until you either:

• Cancel it. This is called ‘revoking’ – see above.
• Pass away. A power of attorney ceases to have any effect after your death.

• Yes, at any time (provided you have capacity)

• The procedure is to advise the Attorney that their authority is cancelled. To avoid claims that this was not done, it is best to serve a formal “Notice of Revocation” and register it at the Land and Property Information Office.

• If the Attorney does something under the Power of Attorney after notice of its revocation, this is fraud and they have committed a criminal offence.

• Of course, if you are unable to manage your own affairs through mental incapacity, you will not be able to cancel the power of attorney.

If the signing of the power of attorney is witnessed by a prescribed witness (solicitor, barrister , clerk of a local court etc) and they certify they have explained it to you, the power of attorney ‘endures’ through any period where you loose capacity to understand what you are doing. Without that certificate, the document ceases to be valid if you can’t understand your affairs. An ‘enduring’ power of attorney is the usual type.

Yes, you can have any number, although more than 2 can become unmanageable. They can be authorised either:

• ‘Jointly’ which means they must both sign any document on your behalf.

• ‘Severally’ which means that any one can sign – without necessarily having the consent of the others.

• This is a common request but not easy to fully accommodate. Debate rages among lawyers as to how to deal with this. It is possible to put a condition in the Power of Attorney that says something like ‘this Power shall only be valid if I am unable to manage my affairs’ or ‘only to commence when my incapacity is certified by a medical practitioner’. However in practice this may be impracticable as it would mean that anyone dealing with your attorney such as a bank would have to make a judgment as to whether you were capable or the condition had been complied with. Past experience shows that they might refuse to honour the Power of Attorney for fear you would later claim you were alright and didn’t authorise the use of the document. In such cases, there would be no point in having the Power of Attorney.

• In my experience, most people accept the difficulty of limiting the use of the power of attorney by reference to their mental capacity. Other lawyers may disagree with the problems I foresee in trying to make it conditional upon such mental health. The difficulty is that the question won’t be tested until you have lost capacity and then won’t be able to sign another document to fix the problem. The best advice is to appoint more than one attorney and only people you trust.

• A power of attorney is created by signing a document that is usually prepared by a lawyer. It authorizes the person(s) named to act on your behalf. It does not need their signature. It can only be given by a person who understands the meaning of the document at the time.

• The attorney(s) is legally obliged to act on your directions if you are able to give any and they would be guilty of a crime if they just took your money and spent it without your authority (if you were able to understand and give that authority).

• A document you sign that authorizes others to sign financial documents in your name and on your behalf. (They act as your agent)
• This means you can be legally bound by a document they have signed even though you have not seen or signed it.
• The document generally authorizes the attorney to manage your financial affairs (subject to any restrictions you have stated in the document).
• The Power of Attorney can be limited to only doing certain things (ie. Only dealing with the sale of a property) or limited to not authorising the sale of a property or limited
  
  in time (ie. Only while you are on holidays etc)
• The Power of Attorney is signed by you and (since 16.2.04) your attorney. Powers of Attorney entered into before 16th February 2004 were not signed by the attorney but are still valid despite this change.
• The person who gives a power of attorney is called a donor and the person(s) who receive it are called the donee(s).