What Is the Power of Attorney?
A Power of Attorney is shortly referred to as a POA. A power of attorney can be a useful tool that permits you to be involved in monetary transactions. This tool is important when you cannot be present to sign documents. It can be because you have turned incapacitated, or you are moving to a foreign nation, or for any other reason. When you plan to give the power of attorney to some other person, it is better that you understand your responsibilities and rights specific to both healthcare and financial powers of attorney in Florida.
Capacity to Execute:
Before you give the power of attorney to some other person, it is important that you should consider one thing. You should check whether the person to whom you give this tool has the capacity to execute things on your behalf. Also, to execute this tool in Florida, you must have the capacity to do it.
What does capacity mean? It means that you should understand what you are executing. Further, you should understand the effect when it is executed as well. Capacity also involves your mental capacity and also the capacity of the person to whom this power is given by you. For instance, if you or the person to whom you give the power has dementia or other such mind-debilitating issues, it can be risky to execute the power.
Understanding Power of Attorney:
If you live in Florida or if you engage in crucial financial transactions in the state, it is better to make sure that a power of attorney is created as per Florida Law.
A POA created under the law of another state should be acknowledged in Florida. However, you can probably run into issues with an out-of-the-state form that is not acquainted with the person you should accept it. In any argument of power of attorney needs in Florida, it will aid with understanding some fundamental terms. Here are some helpful terms for you to understand:
- General Power of Attorney: It is a tool that gives the agent a wide range of powers to take care of all kinds of financial transactions.
- Special or Limited Power of Attorney: This term is used for denoting POA that restricts the authority of the agent to a single transaction. Otherwise, it can also be for a specific period or for a particular type of transaction as well.
- Durable Power of Attorney: This term is used for denoting a POA that does not come to an end by the incapacity of the principal.
- Springing POA: This POA will not come into play until the principal becomes incapable.
- Incapacitated or Incapacity: The Florida Law defines that term as the inability of a person to take those actions needed to get, manage and organize personal and real property, income, benefits, business property, intangible and personal property.
How Should You Execute Power of Attorney in Florida?
To make the power of attorney valid, you should sign the document related to this tool in Florida in the presence of a couple of witnesses. Also, your POA document should be acknowledged by a notary. All of you should sign the documents in the presence of each other when executing this tool.
Agent Qualification:
Before you choose a person as your agent to give the Power of Attorney, you should make sure that the person is at least 18 years old. Otherwise, the agent can also be a financial institution that has trust powers. Otherwise, it can be a business trust with its operation in Florida and has the authorization to conduct trust business in the state.
When the Florida Law demands the details above, considering your personal security, you should remember one thing. The person or a trust that you choose as your agent should be dependable and trustworthy. The reason is that the agent will have exclusive and complete authority to carry out some duties on your behalf. Of course, you might feel that the agent is liable for breach of fiduciary duty if he acts outside of the scope of the power of attorney. But, to safeguard yourself from any tough situation in the future, it is better to check whether the attorney is dependable.
When you select a person as your agent, it is better to make sure that the person is close to you. It means that the person or entity should have a general understanding of your wishes and intent. You should be in a position to share your interest with the agent on how you want your properties to be executed and your general goals.
Why Should You Consider a POA?
With our experience in estate planning, we always suggest our clients to discuss their POA ideas with our attorney. From our experience, we suggest our clients to go for a POA in the following instances:
- When our client is not able to make medical decisions, his/her agent can decide in the best interest of our client.
- To handle legal and financial matters when our client is not in a position to handle these things with the utmost cautiousness.
- When you have assets that you wish to safeguard
- If you have business operations to be handled by a reliable person
- Just in case you wish to avoid conservatorship and guardianship issues
- If you wish to safeguard yourself against Financial Abuse Claims
- To meet the financial responsibilities rightly
- To get complete peace of mind in your old age, there is someone to take care of all your responsibilities.
We have guided many of our clients with rightly signing a power of attorney document with positive outcomes for our client as our intention.
