A Power of Attorney is an instrument in which the Donor (person making the document) grants his or her Attorney certain powers to act on their behalf. A POA is most commonly used for the management of financial affairs while the donor is away or is unable to act for themselves. They may be in the hospital suffering from an illness, travelling abroad or are recovering from an accident and immobile. POAs can not be used to make health decisions for the donor.

A POA can either be general or specific. With a specific POA, the Attorney can only act on behalf of the donor for a specific task or in relation to a specific thing. For example, I can grant a POA to my Attorney over a bank account 12234 at “A Certain Bank”. This will allow my Attorney to act on my behalf only with respect to that bank account and nothing else.  One the other hand, a general POA is very broad and will allow your Attorney to act on your behalf for anything. It allows your Attorney to do everything and anything that you could personally do.

Our office can prepare a Power of Attorney for you, or if you already have one drafted, we can notarize that document for you. As well, we can prepare Powers of Attorneys to be used in foreign countries. We are also available to make outcalls or hospital visits. 

Executing a  POA, however, requires the highest level of mental capacity of the donor.  If the donor is already suffering from mental infirmity, unfortunately its too late to have a POA executed.  We would be happy to refer you to a lawyer to speak about other alternatives.