Power of Attorney

welden

My wife has early-mid stage Alzheimer’s and anosognosia. I’ve been told I need power of attorney, but I have questions about that.

1. Do I really need this, given that all our assets are held jointly?
2. Is there a way to set up power of attorney without confronting her with her condition? She gets upset when that happens and I’d like to avoid that.
3. I have thought about us each getting power of attorney for the other, to be invoked only if needed. Would that work?

Any ideas or suggestions are welcome, and thanks in advance.

Dio

My advice is to establish power of attorney, or rather, durable power of attorney (DPOA), even if all assests are held jointly. A DPOA can be invoked immediately without cause. It's a declaration that the designated person(s) can act on your behalf on such matters as noted in the document. I thought I didn't need one at first as everything was jointly owned, but there were so many other non-cash assets that can be covered in a DPOA I wasn't even aware of, e.g. with a DPOA I was able to talk to his employer's benefits center. It saved quite a bit of hassles, although some financial institutions may still require their own version. So beware of these.

I don't know what state you live in, but you may want to have a advanced healthcare POA in place as well. I got a friend whom DH trusted to help, and that we both had one done, designating each other as the agents (with secondary agents if you so choose) so DH didn't feel it was only him who was granting the POA. Once it was done, then shortly after I updated my own DPOA and renamed my agent. I strongly suggest discussing it over with an attorney to cover your needs.

housefinch

I don’t know the answer to everything, but my spouse and I are in our 50s, no dementia, and are updating our estate planning now. We have used a specialist attorney who does special needs families but also elder law. We have done durable POAs (regular eg for legal/finances and healthcare, so 2 POA documents each) for each other already at the recommendation of our attorney. The durable POA takes effect immediately in case of inability to make decisions and doesn’t require any healthcare provider to attest to our capacity. We are both healthy and all our accounts are held jointly. I hope this helps.

M1

Welcome to the forum. Short answer is yes, you need it, both medical and financial. I have needed for everything from discontinuing her cell phone to hospitalizing her and placing her in memory care.

A good certified elder law attorney will know how to finesse this without upsetting her. You should make an appointment by yourself first, and then can present it as updating your papers for the both of you. Your documents will need to name someone besides her (both as poa and executor), but she doesn't need to know that. Or as Dio did, you sign one set of documents in her presence and then immediately change them without telling her.

Do NOT get a "springing" poa that requires a declaration of incompetence to be activated, those are nothing but trouble. This forum is replete with stories of these that have proven difficult to invoke when needed. Especially if yourcwife (like most with dementia) has anosognosia and thinks she's fine.

midge333

@welden: Your wife should not have your regular POA or medical POA. She has dementia. I am not being a smartass. I actually had my wife as my medical POA. One day I thought about it and realized I made a big mistake. A quick visit to our attorney and we got it fixed.

You need a durable POA and medical POA for your wife.

SDianeL

ditto on telling your LO that you both are just updating your documents in case anything happens to either of us. My husband never questioned it. I used the DPOA to sell our RV, rent an apartment, buy a car & much more. Do it now. Within a few months he could no longer read and understand documents or sign his name.

JJ401

Echoing everyone. Get a durable power of attorney for finances and health (not springing). You will need it. If you don’t have a will, get that done too.

If you need a will too, use that as the pretext for the POAs. Lawyer recommends all three at once. If you have a will, say the lawyer wants to be sure it is up to date, and recommends adding POAs.

You don’t have to say anything to your wife about her condition. Just make sound like the usual thing to do at this age. Clue in the lawyer before you take her.
I’d go by myself first and talk to the lawyer. Talk about both your and your wife’s documents. You should not put your wife as agent on any of your documents. And think carefully about who you want as secondary on both.

Another thing you should do is to be authorized to talk to Medicare and her supplemental health insurance. Medicare has its own form for this. Each insurance is different and you have to call to ask. Do it now before you need it.

charley0419

I went to attorney and did without wife knowing

Nowhere

Yes, you will need DPOA, especially as your accounts are jointly connected. You cannot sell or make changes to your house, car, stocks, insurance, or medical doctors without her written consent. And that can get tricky moving forward.

To make the process easier for him, I told him we would be each others DPOA, but I named my daughter (having cued in our attorney prior). My husband was well into Alzheimer’s when we had this done. Our attorney noted his sense of humor to the situation, and said that demonstrated a level of understanding and competency high enough for him to legally sign. The attorney videotaped his signing, clearly explaining what each section meant and asked if he agreed Just in case anyone would later question. No one has. We kept it light and fun. It all went fine. It’s wonderful feeling to have some control with this out of bound’s disease!

harshedbuzz

Hi and welcome. I am sorry for the reason for you to be here, but glad you found this place.

To answer your question— Do you need it? Ab-so-freakin'-lutely.

Do I really need this, given that all our assets are held jointly? If you own as joint tenets in common, you will need her signature or death certificate to access them. In dementia, you can count on her understanding the need to make certain financial decisions like downsizing to single level home that easier to maintain, taking out a HELC to remodel a bath in your existing home or sell/trade-in a care for a newer model down the road.

Many PWD develop anosognosia where they are incapable of appreciating their impairments meaning suggesting otherwise will result in a battle and non-cooperation. She will likely lose the ability to reason, empathy for what you want and the ability to understand she has undergone these losses.

Is there a way to set up power of attorney without confronting her with her condition? She gets upset when that happens and I’d like to avoid that. A good attorney who specializes in this sort of work will have a way of finessing this task as a routine bit of adulting everyone should do to make their LO's life easier.

I have thought about us each getting power of attorney for the other, to be invoked only if needed. Would that work? I would go for a durable POA for your wife. Durable means it survives your wife's incapacity. A springing POA, "invoked as needed", is a terrible idea for your wife. Most often these require one or two physicians to sign off that the individual lacks capacity to make their own decisions. You don't want to find yourself in a medical or financial jam with a wife fighting you and a legal document that's unsigned. FWIW, many PCP don't sign these documents as a matter of being out of their area of expertise and getting an assessment elsewhere could take a year. You could do springing for yourself, but that could make life more difficult and potentially dangerous for you in the future.

Your wife is cognitively impaired, she doesn't have the capacity to make medical or financial decisions on your behalf. You'll need to choose someone else. I am of the opinion that POAs shared among siblings is a good way to destroy relationships. Also, ideally the medical decision-maker has access to the assets as well. A good lawyer sometimes creates a sham document for you to sign performatively (which is destroyed when you leave) giving the impression that you've designated each other. You also need to select a successor agent for your wife in the event you are unable to fulfill your responsibilities due to illness, injury or death. You will need to keep this person abreast of your wife's current condition and what you'd opt for in terms of care. This is important— it's really difficult when an adult child, sibling or niece/nephew "inherits" a PWD with no notice or idea of what they/their spouse would have wanted going forward.

HB

sandwichone123

Anytime she needs to sign something, you need a durable POA. And remember, it's not for some hazy future. POAs are used throughout the business world for convenience so someone can sign when the holder of the POA has something better to do, so it's not an embarrassing thing to use. Ours need to be "durable" as Harshedbuzz says, so they will survive the incapacity of the primary, but the primary doesn't have to be incapacitated to use it. She doesn't have to be unable to sign for this to be useful, as you can use it to conduct business while she's in day care or doesn't like to leave the house, or if she doesn't remember how to sign, as happened with my spouse.

Elizabeth607

https://alzconnected.org/discussion/comment/221364#Comment_221364

Good to know about notifying Medicare. Thank you. Attorney did not mention this.

howhale

Amen to all the terrific input. Yes, you need to find a competent and trusted attorney to help you put together a complete plan and document package. I am just nearly complete with ours and it can be tedious and time consuming but so necessary. Fortunately we had the POAs and will done previous to her incapacity. However, we were shown as the responsible person for the other. Obviously that is no longer appropriate but having the POA already established with no restrictions, I was able, with the attorney, to make changes as needed. One new learning was, at least in Georgia, that the will does not control how the home is handled. This may necessitate having it probated which can be costly and time consuming. All the while family will be paying to maintain it and all bills associated. Getting beneficiaries, transfer on death names, etc. changed is needed. The house can be in a trust to circumvent probate or, in Georgia this year with a new law, may be open to a more simplified process yet still eliminate probate. Get an attorney now and get the process underway before something happens unexpectedly.

Brens Daughter

https://alzconnected.org/discussion/70488/power-of-attorney

Hi Sir I was the POA for my mother and Yes I would advise it unless you have a child you trust to do it I was my mothers POA and I was able to make phone calls for her and make appts and i even handled her finances for her and etc and handled her utilities but I found it best to put all her utilities on auto-pay I also was able to write checks out for her as needed.

trottingalong

I did the POA myself by getting the California document online. Had it notarized and gave the banks copies. I’m lucky, I have always done all the bills and banking. He doesn’t even attempt to spend money.

Victoriaredux

https://alzconnected.org/discussion/comment/222006#Comment_222006

I searched and the California POA forms I saw require a Doctor's letter to be effective so be prepared .

Always puzzles me that folks try to DIY the most important financial action they can do- cede control over everything to another but will pop a few hundred to thousands of dollars for bigger tires on a truck or a flat screen . Especially when they know the documents have a 99 percent chance of needing to work flawlessly at some point or they'll have to go to probate court.

harshedbuzz

https://alzconnected.org/discussion/comment/221974#Comment_221974

Help me understand this- "Yes I would advise it unless you have a child you trust to do it".

Even a trustworthy child will need the legal tools to act on behalf of their parent with dementia. The POA also affords a level of safety to the PWD as it legally obligates the named agent to act in their best interests.

HB

trottingalong

https://alzconnected.org/discussion/comment/222018#Comment_222018

https://alzconnected.org/discussion/comment/222018#Comment_222018

I should have clarified. We went to an attorney for our living trust. When my husband was in the hospital they did the medical dpoa which does have a doctors signature. We have a home and few assets, so I did get the California dpoa for finances online, had it reviewed by our local attorney and notorized.

welden

Many thanks to all who responded, for such clear and well-informed advice. I will work on this ASAP.

Jazzma

My experience has also shown that a DPOA (financial and health) is critical. We had our will written with my DH was still fairly lucid, so being each other's DPOA made sense. Having that power now, I am able to remove him as my DPOA (he is in memory care, late stage 5) and make financial decisions that may better serve us if we have to look for assistance in the future (for instance, putting my share of our assets in a trust for his care, should I die before him). There are so many decisions that will need to be made in the future, and your spouse will not be able to participate in those or to physically sign necessary documents. It's harsh, but you really do need to do it.