The Power of Attorney document allows someone to legally act on your behalf while you’re still alive, making it one of the most important documents you’ll ever sign! If you have not created a Power of Attorney, the only way for another person to gain the authority to act on your behalf is by going to court to obtain a conservatorship, not the best option if you are temporarily incapacitated during an accident, and have children, a business, or other affairs that might need your attention.

While a Power of Attorney is a straightforward document for your estate planner to create, we have found that many institutions, especially banks, change their own Power of Attorney rules frequently, and are usually inconsistent when applying those rules. TIAA CREF, Fidelity, Schwab and others, actually “require” the Power of Attorney be written on their own forms, even if your existing Power of Attorney conforms to Massachusetts statutory law! Ultimately, these conforming non-institutional Powers of Attorney are accepted by these financial institutions after their legal department reviews them and provides an opinion. But this is often a long process and the outcome is not guaranteed.

We HIGHLY recommend that you “test drive” your Power of Attorney before it actually needs to be used.  How do you do this?  Ask your designated Attorney in Fact take your executed document (original and/or copy) to your financial institution to make sure the institution accepts it without issue. If it does not, be sure to get the institution to outline exactly what is missing or insufficient with your document, and contact us as soon as possible to get everything in order! We know you would rather find out now, than when there is a crisis.