Power of Attorney. A license to steal? Part 2

Published: May 20, 2009

(Page 2 of 2)

The biggest chore was tracking down shares of stock that Mr. Schrum, also a lawyer, had purchased by exercising employee options online. Because of “a string of bad luck,” Ms. Goffe said, the financial institution holding the options and the couple’s brokerage company had been sold, their Web sites eliminated and the records put into storage. The shares, worth $7,500, had been credited to a stranger’s account. In dealing with each institution, she needed to present the power of attorney.
Skip to next paragraph
Your Money Guides
Estate Planning »

WHEN DOES THE DOCUMENT TAKE EFFECT? You can choose to make it effective from the moment you sign it, or specify that it be activated by a specific event, for instance, if you become incompetent.

The problem with the second approach, known as a springing power, is that someone must decide when you have reached that state, said Ms. Neuwirth, the New York lawyer. Traditionally, this has required a medical opinion and can lead to disputes.

Even when powers are effective immediately, the agent may not be sure when it’s necessary to take control. That is what happened to Dr. Mark Segall, a surgeon in Los Gatos, Calif., who said his elderly parents gave him power of attorney in 1996.

Knowing that they were private about financial matters and valued their independence, he did not use it until last year, when he said they seemed relieved to have his help. He then discovered that they had been shredding all their mail, including bills, for many months and had accumulated about $1,100 in finance charges on their credit card (at Dr. Segall’s request, the company waived the late fee).

WHERE IS A POWER OF ATTORNEY VALID? Because state laws vary, you cannot assume that a power of attorney signed in one state will be honored in another. Howard M. Hujsa, a lawyer with Cummings & Lockwood in Bonita Springs, Fla., recalled a client whose son was unable, under his mother’s power of attorney, to sell her house after she became incompetent.

Her power of attorney was signed in Massachusetts, which at the time required only one witness; his mother had moved to Florida, where the property was located, and Florida law says an agent with power of attorney cannot sell real estate on behalf of the principal unless the document is signed by two witnesses.

The family had to go to court to have the son appointed as guardian. He continued in this role until his mother died several years later and he had to file annual reports to the court, something an agent under a power of attorney is not required to do. The process wound up costing the family more than $30,000 in additional legal fees, Mr. Hujsa said.

Likewise, if you plan to spend time overseas and buy or sell real estate, conduct business or open a bank account there, you need to find out what the law in that country requires, said Anne J. O’Brien, a lawyer with Arnold & Porter in Washington. Very few countries will honor durable powers of attorney from other jurisdictions, she said.

While some countries have an equivalent form, others permit the arrangements only under court supervision, said Mark Summers, a lawyer with Speechly Bircham in London. In Britain, you must use a power of attorney that is 25 pages long.

Many Americans are surprised to find out that a British power of attorney can cost several thousand dollars, he said, about 10 times what a lawyer would charge in the United States to prepare a much shorter document.