Power of Attorney
Power of Attorney Lawyers in Roseville
Place Your Financial & Healthcare Decisions In
Trusted Hands
What is a Power of Attorney?
Granting someone power of attorney in your life means that the person now has the legal authority to act on your behalf. This document can legally impact your finances, property, and medical care. There are powers of attorney that range from general control over someone’s financial matters to control over enforcing their advance directives and making other healthcare decisions to powers that can only be exercised in a limited capacity or under certain circumstances.
How Does a Power of Attorney Work?
A power of attorney involves the person who creates the document (the principal) and the agent or “attorney-in-fact”. The POA will be used when the principal cannot sign necessary documents if the principal temporarily or permanently falls ill or cannot sign due to a temporary or permanent disability.
The principal must choose who to give the POA to, and both parties must sign the documents, which typically must be witnessed by a third party. The POA allows the agent or attorney-in-fact to represent the principal in matters involving property, finances, and medical care as long as the principal is conscious and of sound mind. If the principal can no longer make decisions for themselves, then the agent can no longer perform their duties, and the agreement ends.
How to
Grant
Someone Power of Attorney
If you want a loved one to handle your financial or medical affairs, the first step is to speak with a power of attorney lawyer in Roseville and learn how to establish this crucial part of your estate plan. No matter the extent of control you wish to grant someone over your life, a skilled estate planning attorney can help you establish these critically important levels of legal authority over your life.
Typical
Roles
Powers of attorney are typically granted to trusted people in someone’s life in the following roles:
- Durable financial powers of attorney give someone else the power to manage your financial affairs while you are incapacitated or otherwise unable to make such decisions while you are alive. Someone with this responsibility will use your assets to pay your bills, taxes, and medical expenses, as well as buy, sell, transfer, or invest assets on your behalf.
- Durable powers of attorney for health care give someone you trust the power to carry out your wishes for medical care in your advance directive. This person is also typically the person to whom doctors deliver updates about your health and turn to when decisions not outlined by your advance directive need to be made while you are incapacitated.
- Limited powers of attorney give someone authority over your financial life for specific reasons or during specific circumstances. Situations where this may be used, include extended absences for business or personal reasons or simply because you want someone else to handle a specific matter that necessitates a power of attorney.
The people you grant any powers of attorney during life lose them upon your death. Proper estate planning would mean you’ve decided if someone with this authority, or someone else, will gain executorship over your estate after death.
Importantly, you can revoke your power of attorney at any time as long as you are not considered incapacitated. As with granting powers of attorney, revoking them requires two witnesses or a witness from a public notary.
How to Get Power of Attorney
Over A Parent
- Talk To Your Parent: Your parent must be mentally competent to make their own decisions. You will need to explain the different types of POAs available in California in order to pick the best one for your situation. You may consult an attorney for help deciding as well
- Gather The Paperwork: After deciding on which POA to go with, you will need to compile the required paperwork.
- Fill Out the Paperwork: All the forms should come with printed instructions on how to specify powers. Do not sign the paperwork just yet.
- Meet with a Notary to Sign: Find a local notary and bring your parent(s) with the proper form of ID to sign the paperwork under witness.
