Power of Attorney For Estate Planning

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Power of Attorney For Estate Planning
While planning your estate, you may want to think
about assigning powers of attorney to a person
you trust in case you are not capable of taking
certain actions or making certain decisions.
This is not something that many of us want to
think about, but if for some reason you are
incapacitated, you want to make sure that
unscrupulous parties dont try to take advantage
of you or your family while you are in a crisis
situation.
Richard Cayne of Meyer International suggests
using a power of attorney to protect you and your
family.
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What is a Power of Attorney?
A power of attorney is a legal document the
allows another person to act on your behalf as
your attorney-in-fact. It needs to be authorised
while you are proven to be of sound mind. It
sounds like something out of a courtroom
television show, but this is important so your
instructions cant be contested when the time
comes for the person to act for you.
You can limit a power of attorney as much as you
want, so that only certain assets or situations
can be acted on by your attorney-in-fact. For
example, you can just allow for bill payments
while you are in hospital, or you can allow for
full access to all your accounts for all
decisions.
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There are usually two types of powers of
attorney. One is an ordinary one, which means it
is only authorised until certain events occur (as
determined by you) or until you pass away. You
are still capable, mentally, but you are
bequeathing responsibility to another party. The
other is sometimes called a durable or continuing
power of attorney, which gets set in motion when
you are not able to make your wishes known. This
is probably the more well-known type an elderly
person losing their memory needing a person to
take care of their finances and/or medical care.
Richard Cayne says, It can seem a bit macabre to
think about a time when we are no longer in
control, but unfortunately its a fact of life
this can happen. It is better to be prepared for
the worse.
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A power of Attorney is not a Trustee or an
Executor
A power of attorney is part of estate planning,
but just as with trustees, this is not something
that can take the place of a will. You still
should prepare a will and, as discussed in other
postings, consider the use of trusts if a power
of attorney is not a suitable option.
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International is Still Local
As with all the other discussions in estate
planning, you need to make sure that whatever you
put in place complies with local laws. Every
country will have their own laws, and it can
happen that what works in one jurisdiction will
not work in another. To continue this
conversation, contact Richard Cayne at Meyer
International.
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Meyer International Ltd 399, Interchange 21
Building, 23rd Fl., Unit 3, Sukhumvit Road,
Klongtoey-Nua, Wattana, Bangkok
10110 Thailand Tel [phone] /
81-(0)50-5539-1501 Fax [phone]
http//meyerjapan.com