Across the country -- and notably in Western Pennsylvania, where the number of vulnerable elderly has compounded the problem -- a simple legal document called a power of attorney is disrupting the ever-lengthening lives it was supposed to benefit.
A durable power of attorney, known less formally as a POA, allows people too busy, too old, too ill or too far away to designate an agent to take care of financial and property transactions. The POA may authorize an agent to pay bills, change documents, write checks, enter into contracts or buy and sell their house. The purpose is to help people unable to attend to their own affairs.
In most cases, it works. When it goes wrong, lives can be ruined, families torn apart and, wealth and savings lost in a mist of legal wrangling and dubious transactions.
Full Article and Source:
Courting Trouble: The document granting 'power of attorney' often leads to abuse
A durable power of attorney, known less formally as a POA, allows people too busy, too old, too ill or too far away to designate an agent to take care of financial and property transactions. The POA may authorize an agent to pay bills, change documents, write checks, enter into contracts or buy and sell their house. The purpose is to help people unable to attend to their own affairs.
In most cases, it works. When it goes wrong, lives can be ruined, families torn apart and, wealth and savings lost in a mist of legal wrangling and dubious transactions.
Full Article and Source:
Courting Trouble: The document granting 'power of attorney' often leads to abuse
2 comments:
I am always amazed that attorneys often become POA over their clients. That seems to me a gross conflict of interest but it is not uncommon.
People need to understand that you can limit POA, but if POA is really needed, it is probably too late for decision making.
What they are describing here is exactly what happens through guardianship/conservatorship abuse.
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