Power of Attorney

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.

@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.

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.

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!

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.

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.

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.