Legal Considerations for Retirement Part 5: Power of Attorney

In the previous part of this blog series, we discussed the importance of a living will. When you have a living will, you will need to give someone power of attorney. In this part of the blog series, we will discuss power of attorney and what happens if you don’t have it.

What is Power of Attorney?

Giving someone power of attorney¹ is a very important decision. Power of attorney gives another person the ability to make legal decisions on your behalf. If you become ill and incapacitated, then you may consider granting power of attorney to a spouse, adult child, sibling, parent or close friend. The person granted power of attorney has the legal right to make many important decisions including financial decisions, gifts of money, healthcare decisions and recommending a guardian for your children. Since someone granted power of attorney has the legal authority to make your financial and health decisions, you should choose someone that you trust. It is especially important to choose someone you can rely on because power of attorney is not regulated by the court system, which means it could be easy for someone to abuse this power.