Why We Need Enduring Guardianship And Power Of Attorney Appointments As Well As Having A Will On Our Death

Most of us are aware that we should have a Will. If we don’t, then we die ‘intestate’ meaning someone still has to administer (finalise) our estate and comply with State law, resulting in passing our personal effects and money to the State and to relatives we may not even have considered leaving them to!

Sometimes we don’t want to trouble family members with appointing them as our Executor in our Wills, so we don’t bother making a Will at all. THE PROBLEM IS someone is still going to have to administer our estates when we die. 

This includes arranging and paying for our funeral, paying our debts, notifying any pension or superannuation providers to avoid overpayments, transferring any real estate we own to others and finalising our Income Tax on any income we may have.

LOSING CAPACITY BEFORE WE DIE

It is just as important to ensure that we have appointments in place for someone to be our Guardian and/or Financial Manager BEFORE WE DIE, especially if we were to lose MENTAL CAPACITY to make decisions for ourselves. Enduring appointments mean that they continue even when we lose capacity.

Such appointments are very important, because they allow us to appoint someone that WE would want to decide where we live, what health care and medical treatment we receive and to look after our money, if we are no longer able to make those decisions for ourselves.

Just as with our Wills, sometimes we don’t want to trouble our relatives by asking them to carry out these functions. BUT THIS IS MISGUIDED.

If we don’t make such appointments while we are mentally capable of doing so, we in fact make it MORE difficult for our family who are left. Family members or social workers are then forced to apply to the Guardianship Division of the NSW Civil and Administrative Tribunal (NCAT) for Guardianship and Financial Management Orders to be made, authorising the very people we would have picked to perform those functions for us.

By appointing someone WHOM WE TRUST, we are planning ahead and saving family members the worry of having to pick up the pieces when we fail to make such appropriate appointments in the first place.

All such appointments can be made through your family Solicitor. There are strict rules about ensuring that both the person making these appointments and the appointees understand what they are doing and accepting, which have to be certified by a legal practitioner or the like. They can also be made through the Public Trustee and Guardian, but the latter takes a commission from your estate if you appoint them, so best to keep it in the family!

Advice can be sought from - David Thorley Veterans’ Solicitor via the link below.