Without financial and medical powers of attorney, a court must appoint a guardian or conservator if you become unable to decide for yourself, costing $5,000 or more and delaying critical choices. An accident or early dementia can leave you unable to sign documents. Pre-signed POAs let a trusted person act immediately on your behalf.
Chapters
You hear that sound? No? Well, you should, because that's your wake-up call. It's your wake-up call to remind you that if you don't have documents in place giving someone else authority to make decisions on your behalf, if you can't do so on your own, you need to get that done now. I'm talking about a financial power of attorney and a medical power of attorney. This is why you need it. If you were in an accident and you were left unconscious, who would have the authority to make your financial and medical decisions? If you don't have documents in place, someone would have to go to court for you. Someone would have to be appointed your guardian or your conservator or whatever it is called in your state. A judge would give that person authority to make those kinds of decisions. Cost of doing that could be $5,000 or more, whereas preparing a power of attorney now would be a small fraction of that number. Do you have a relative in the beginning stages of dementia? That's another situation where you need to get power of attorney immediately. At some point, that person will not have the capacity to be able to sign documents. So this is your wake-up call to get it done now.
