Getting an EPA in place is important – it’s up there, like having a current will. And keeping your EPA current is critical too. You don’t want someone managing your affairs later who has changed or who now has quite different ideas on how you should be looked after.
We get lots of enquiries from people who have done their EPAs, who want to change the attorney. Lots of reasons – no longer in contact, have fallen out with them, they have moved to another town. But most people do not want the expense and hassle of doing new EPAs again – for many, it was bad enough the first time. Luckily, it is possible (within some limits, there is always fine print!) to terminate the attorney, without redoing the whole document. There are provisions in the statute which enable this.They are hard to read and it’s best to get the friendly family lawyer to check it out first for you. Wills and EPAs – great to have them in place, but they need to be current.
Worst of all is having no EPAs in place. This might mean a trip to the Family Court to get special orders, to do what the EPAs would have done. The orders are called Property Manager or Welfare Guardian. Our Life Law Team do plenty of these applications. It covers a gap quite well but it is expensive (compared to EPAs) and generally short-lived (normally only three years before a renewal is needed). So the focus must still be on having EPAs and keeping them current.
