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Managing Your Finances With A Power Of Attorney

A major part of planning your estate and protecting your assets is through the use of a financial power of attorney. A power of attorney allows you to give another person (known as an “agent”) the power to accomplish certain tasks as if they were in fact you. The agent, in essence, can take your place. With a financial power of attorney, your agent can handle financial matters on your behalf should you become unable to do so on your own.

Your financial power of attorney can be limited or broad. It can allow your agent to only handle matters regarding your real estate, or it can allow them to handle any financial matters for you from real estate to handling your checking account to opening credit cards in your name to giving gifts on your behalf. It is important to have an attorney draft your financial power of attorney because this is such a powerful document — you do not want to give powers to someone in a manner that you did not expect or intend to do.

A Powerful Tool For Critical Situations

Here at the Law Office of Rebecca L. Evans, our attorneys can further protect your estate by drafting financial powers of attorney that are durable. This means that, should you become disabled or incapacitated, your agent still has all of the powers listed in your financial power of attorney. This allows your agent to take care of your finances when you are unable to do so, thus protecting your assets from possible foreclosure or credit infractions. Alternatively, if you have not named an agent in a financial power of attorney the court would need to appoint a person as conservator to manage your resources and report each and every transaction on an annual accounting.

You can always revise or revoke your financial power of attorney, as long as you are legally competent, and then your agent would no longer have the powers previously given to them in the financial power of attorney. However, our lawyers do suggest that if you do revoke a financial power of attorney you make sure to contact any financial institutions that were previously given a copy of the financial power of attorney so they do not continue to allow your agent to act under the revoked financial power of attorney.

Contact The Law Firm That Has Your Best Interest In Mind

No financial power of attorney is valid after you have passed away. It is only valid while you are alive. What makes this an excellent part of your estate plan is that it helps to protect you while you are alive, whereas your will and trust protect your assets after you have passed away.

To find out more about getting a financial power of attorney, please contact the Law Office of Rebecca L. Evans today by calling 703-278-2028 or sending us an email online. We are happy to discuss your estate plan as a whole and look forward to helping you determine whether having a financial power of attorney would be a smart part of your estate plan. From our office in Springfield, we help people throughout Northern Virginia.