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| THOMAS W. REZANKA |
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| Serving Others Since 1980 |
Palm Harbor, Florida |
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| A well crafted durable power of attorney is your first line of defense to avoiding placement in an adult guardianship. |
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Durable Powers of Attorney
Durable Powers of Attorney are documents which are important to adults of all ages and are the first line of defense in pre-planning to avoid both incompetency proceedings and appointment of a guardian. Loss of mental competency requiring the appointment of a guardian for an adult can occur not only from dementia and Alzheimer’s, but also from accidents occurring around the home (a slip or fall in the bathtub or shower), a fall from a ladder or roof, automobile accident, inadvertent drug interaction (from prescribed medications or over the counter medications) or from any number of other causes. Once you have become mentally incapacitated it is too late to create a power of attorney and an adult guardianship is often the only alternative.
As the first line of defense to avoiding placement in an adult guardianship, it can be a problem eliminator. Take for example Bob, who is 30 years of age, and his wife, Mary, who is 28 years of age. They have been married to each other for two years. Bob is involved in an auto accident and loses the ability to make decisions for himself. It may be necessary for Bob to be institutionalized for the rest of his life. Mary would like to sell the house and then move back in with her parents temporarily. Since Bob never considered giving her a power of attorney, Mary cannot sell the house and sign for Bob without first having Bob declared incompetent by a guardianship court. If Bob and Mary had each created a durable power of attorney, in which they had appointed each other as their respective agents or lifetime legal representatives during periods of incapacity, then Mary could have sold the house without court involvement and the attendant costs and expenses associated therewith. If Bob and Mary were in their early sixties, the only way in which Mary could access the monies in Bob’s 401K plan, without having Bob declared incompetent by a court and going to the expense of establishing an adult guardianship for him, is through the use of a durable power of attorney.
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