Updating an Enduring Power of Attorney
Updating an Enduring Power of Attorney
An Enduring Power of Attorney (EPA) is a document that gives one or more people the power to make personal and/or financial decisions on your behalf when you have lost the capacity to make decisions on your own.
If you completed an EPA form a while ago, or your circumstances have recently changed, you may be thinking of updating your enduring power of attorney. Often this coincides with updating your will.
Updating your EPA may involve changing who your attorneys are, or simply changing the specific powers they are given.
Please note that some changes of circumstances can automatically end an enduring power of attorney, such as marriage or divorce. This is discussed in our previous article on revoking an enduring power of attorney.
Reasons for updating your EPA
You have accumulated significant financial assets. You may have accumulated significant or complex financial assets since originally completing an EPA form. If this has occurred, you may wish to appoint a more appropriate attorney to make financial decisions on your behalf.
In this instance, you can revoke your original EPA by completing a Form 6 Revocation. You may then complete an EPA form which either appoints the same attorney for personal and financial matters (Form 2), or an EPA form which appoints one person for personal matters and another person for financial matters (Form 3).
Your attorney no longer has a good relationship with you. You may find over time that your attorney is no longer suited to the role of making decisions on your behalf. For example, you may have simply drifted apart over a number of years and you are no longer comfortable with that person making personal or financial decisions for you. Alternatively, there may have been a relationship breakdown and you no longer believe that your attorney will make decisions that are in your best interest.
In these situations you may revoke their power of attorney using a Form 6, and then complete a new EPA.
Your attorney has moved away. If your attorney has moved interstate or overseas, it may no longer be practical for them to make decisions regarding your personal or financial matters in the event that you can’t make those decisions for yourself.
If this occurs, then you may remove them as your attorney by completing a Form 6, and create a new EPA giving power to a more appropriate attorney.
There may be many different reasons why you would like to update your EPA, some of which may not have been considered in this article. If you would like to discuss your options with one of our expert estate planning lawyers, please contact us by calling 07 3106 3016 or by using the form on this page.
This article does not give legal advice and should not be relied upon as such. It is intended to provide general and summary information on legal topics, current at the time of first publication. You should seek professional legal advice before acting or relying on any of the content contained herein.
