Completing a Power of Attorney
A Power of Attorney (POA) is one type of advance directive that allows you to authorize another person to act on your behalf. POA's are not just for people who are sick or old. If something happened to you and you ended up in the hospital, how would your bills get paid, or your other personal business taken care of? This series goes over the Power of Attorney form, including the options allowed and walks through filling out each section
Filling out the Form: Sections 1 and 2 - Naming your Agent(s)
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Section 1– Naming the agent.
This section identifies the principal and is where you name the person you wish to serve as your agent. You can name more than one person as your agent, although we usually don’t encourage this because it can lead to complications. This is discussed further in Section 2 of the form. You can also name one person as your primary agent and another person as the alternate agent in case the first agent is unable or unwilling to serve. This is covered in Section 10 of the form. If you want to appoint your spouse as your only agent, this section would be completed like this:
Section 2– Deciding how co-agents act.
If you’ve named more than one person to serve as your agent, you then have to decide whether each agent can act on their own without the other agent or whether both agents have to act together. For instance, let’s say you named your wife and daughter as co-agents in a general power of attorney. That would mean each has the authority to act on your behalf for all kinds of matters. Your wife lives with you in Anchorage, but your daughter lives in Kenai. If you want your wife to be able to access your bank account and sign checks without your daughter’s signature and consent, then you would check the top line in Section 2 so that “each agent may exercise the powers conferred separately, without the consent of any other agent.” If you want your wife and daughter to act on your behalf but only with each other’s consent, you’d mark the second line.