POWERS OF ATTORNEY

Powers of Attorney services for you:

• General Powers of Attorney
• Special Powers of Attorney
• Registration of Enduring Powers of attorney
• Lasting Powers of Attorney
• Revocation of Powers of Attorney
• Disclaimer of Enduring or lasting Powers of Attorney
• Living Wills (or Advance Decisions or Advance Directives)

A Power of Attorney is a document which grants another individual or individuals (attorney/s) the legal authority to act on your (the donor’s) behalf on a range of matters, either in general (a General Power of Attorney) or for a specific purpose (a Special Power of Attorney). However, such powers of attorney automatically revoke and cease to have effect if you lose mental capacity to conduct your affairs.

It is no longer possible to create Enduring Powers of Attorney (EPAs). Existing EPAs are still valid but need to be registered when the donor becomes mentally incapable of conducting his/her own affairs.

Lasting Powers of Attorney (LPAs) replaced EPAs and allow you to select one or more “attorney/s” to act for you if you lose mental capacity. There are two types of LPAs:

• a Property and Financial Affairs LPA, which gives you the ability to choose one or more persons you are willing to entrust with the responsibility of handling your property, money and financial affairs, subject to any conditions or restrictions you may wish to impose.
• a Health and Welfare LPA, which allows one or more persons to make decisions on your health, treatment and welfare where you are not able do so yourself, allowing them to consent to or refuse medical treatment or making decisions on your residential care.

In both cases it is a legal requirement for the attorney to act in your best interests at all times.

Living Will (or Advance Decision or Advance Directive)

A Living Will (or Advance Decision or Advance Directive) differs from a Health and Welfare LPA in that it directs others to act according to the wishes you set out in advance about any treatment you will or will not receive in anticipation of situations that could arise in the future. You may also indicate if you would like any and all life-sustaining treatment to be attempted, letting doctors know that you would like them to try absolutely everything, no matter how slim your chance of surviving … or not to be resuscitated, as the case may be.

However, they are not legally enforceable. Refusal of treatment may still fall to a doctor’s discretion, e.g. if your circumstances could not have been anticipated and this may have affected your opinion or if you have acted in a manner which suggests a change of mindset since you created the document.

On the other hand, with the Health and Welfare LPA, you can place the decision in the hands of another person/s, who will decide as the situation arises what should be done, based on what they feel would be best for you and they are legally enforceable

However, you cannot request specific treatments, ask for your life to be ended (since this is illegal, although ceasing treatment which is the only thing keeping you alive is permissible), force doctors to act against their professional opinion or nominate another person to make decisions about the care you should receive.