Preventing Challenges or Conflicts with Your Power of Attorney Document

Creating a financial power of attorney is one of the first and most important steps that you can take to protect yourself in the event that you become unable to make decisions or take actions with your finances.

However, you’ll want to ensure that your financial power of attorney is properly drafted and accepted. If you think that someone might end up going to court to challenge your durable power of attorney for finances or arguing that you were in fact coerced into signing it, there are several proactive steps you can take in drafting and signing the document to minimize these problems. First of all, if you previously created a financial power of attorney document by yourself, you might want a lawyer to review the document.

An experienced and knowledgeable estate planning lawyer can help you answer questions about the POA as well as any other estate planning documents you might have created. You might also be anticipating challenges to a trust or a will. A knowledgeable estate planning attorney can answer questions for all of these issues too.

A couple of key steps can minimize the opportunities for someone to challenge the validity of your financial power of attorney. While you may certainly hope that no one will end up arguing about the legality of this document, being proactive can help reduce expenses and delays with regard to your agent under the power of attorney taking the action you desire. Some actions you can take to minimize the risk of challenges to your financial power of attorney include:

Get a doctor’s statement saying that you appeared to be of sound mind at the time you signed the financial power of attorney.
Sign your document in front of witnesses and a Notary Public.
Make a videotape of the signing ceremony.

While we certainly hope you never need to fight back against a challenge to your financial power of attorney, it is a smart idea to take these proactive steps to avoid a challenge. Schedule a consultation today with an estate planning attorney in New Hampshire.