BETA - What is a power of attorney?

What is the power of attorney? The general durable power of attorney for me in Ohio is the one that I use because it's all encompassing. It covers pretty much anything you can think of that as a person, any of the business or any of the financial or any of the affairs that you have, from banking to your real estate to taxes to even deciding where you might go if you were to need long-term care. It talks about government benefits like social security and all of those things. So it's all encompassing. The basic concept is while you're living, if you become incapacitated or disabled to the point that you can't get to the bank or you can't go renew your license, you have named this person, this agent, to act in your place. You can name co-agents, but I advise every client I have against that. I advise you name a primary and an alternate because if you name co-agents, they have to agree on everything and I promise you, you are setting yourself up for some stress because it is difficult. It could be two of your children, your adult children. They will not agree on every single thing. So name a person and then name an alternate that if something were to happen and you can't take care of things that they will do it for you. You can change those things. So the way in Ohio it works in terms of once you have a document, your power of attorney, can you have another one? Anytime you execute a new POA, it revokes all prior ones. And in Ohio, that language is actually in the document. So if things change, say one of the agents that you named becomes disabled or even dies, you can revisit and I encourage people to revisit their documents every five or six years or maybe even four to make sure things are as you want them. I get the question sometimes, do you have to do these as an attorney or can I do them? So there are forms out there. You know, Google has everything. There are legal forms that you can print, download and print, fill in a couple of things, sign it. In Ohio, a signature can be notarized by a notary, an official notary, or it can be witnessed by two witnesses. You have the option in Ohio to do those things. So what I say to people is what you're going to get off of the internet is going to be a page or two. What I'm going to give you usually is five to six and sometimes seven pages. So you get what you pay for. If that's what you choose to do, I tell people and clients, go do that. The good thing in Ohio is there is an office, Columbus is the capital in Ohio, there is an office in Columbus that you can actually get documents that are very close to mine. You can have those mailed to you because they, that I forget what the office is, but they really try to help people to make sure they get their documents done. Let me add one other thing that I always advise clients about who you choose as your agent. First of all, this person has to be trustworthy. That is the key thing that I say to people. Do you trust this person with your bank account number? Do you trust them with your social? That is the criteria that I think is the most important. And then are they willing and are they able to handle your affairs if they need to?