Enduring Power of Attorney
$128 includes GST
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An Enduring Power of Attorney (POA) is a legal document. It allows you to appoint a person to make decisions about your assets. The POA deals with your assets e.g. real estate and bank accounts.
What is a WA Enduring POA? (Western Australia)
A WA Enduring POA is a legal document. It allows you to appoint a person to make decisions about your West Australian assets. Your WA POA deals with your assets e.g. WA real estate and bank accounts.
What can’t the WA POA do?
The WA Enduring POA is an “economic” document. Your WA POA does not deal with your health, medical treatment or lifestyle. To do this, instead, build a Medical W.A. POA on our website. Also, the person receiving your EPA cannot:
* vote in any elections
* make a Will
* sign another WA POA
* act as a Trustee
* control your body (you need to build a Medical Western Australian POA on our website for that)
However, the person receiving your WA Enduring POA, can open and close bank accounts, pay debts, and buy and sell Western Australian land. This is provided it is in your ‘best interests’ to do so.
How does the person receiving my WA POA actually use the WA Power of Attorney?
Here are some examples:
Example 1 – Using your bank account
The persons you appoint walk into the bank and present to the bank clerk with your Savings Account book and your WA POA. Your bank clerk stares blankly at them. He sees his bank manager. The bank manager explains to the bank clerk that those persons “now stand in your shoes”. They can do whatever you could do with the bank account. The bank manager asks to take a copy of the POA for future reference. The bank manager tries to keep the original WA POA but the persons you nominate decline and get back the West Australian POA. The transaction on the bank account takes place using the WA POA.
Example 2 – Signing your WA POA
You tell the persons that you nominated, to sign a lease agreement. You are on holiday overseas and email is unavailable. Your attorney contacts the landlord. They:
1. tell the landlord that there is a WA POA
2. tell the landlord that they are signing the lease on your behalf
3. they sign in their usual signature area and write under the signatures “signed as attorney for *your name* under a West Australian POA dated ## Month, year”.
You are now bound to the lease. The landlord may photocopy the WA POA to attach to the lease.
How many Attorneys and how many Substitute Attorneys can I have for a Western Australian Enduring POA?
You have six combinations of people you appoint under the EPOA laws of Western Australia:
- One Attorney with no substitutes (e.g. you just appoint your brother and no one else)
- One Attorney with one substitute (e.g. you appoint your wife as the Attorney with a child as a substitute – common for a couple with one child)
- One Attorney with two substitutes (e.g. you appoint your partner as your Attorney and two of your children as a substitute – common for mum and dad with two or more children)
- Two Attorneys with no substitutes (e.g. you appoint two of your children, common if you are divorced or your spouse is dead or lacks mental capacity)
- Two Attorneys with one substitute (e.g. you appoint your two oldest children, and your third child is the substitute. Common if you are divorced and have 3 or more children)
- Two Attorneys with two substitutes (e.g. you appoint your two oldest children, and your third and fourth children as substitutes)
How many Attorneys am I allowed to have in a Western Australian Enduring POA?
1. After you select Jurisdiction (choose Western Australia) you are then invited to appoint one or two Attorneys:
Q: I have three children. Can I appoint all three as Attorneys in a WA Enduring Power of Attorney?
Sorry, Western Australian law only allows one or two Attorneys in a WA Enduring POA. You can not appoint a third Attorney. If you are unhappy with that then speak to your Local Member of Parliament to have the WA government change the law.
2. You then appoint NONE, ONE, or TWO Substitute Attorneys
Protects from death duties, divorcing and bankrupt children and a 32% tax on super. Build online with free lifetime updates:
Couples Bundle
includes 3-Generation Testamentary Trust Wills and 4 POAs
Singles Bundle
includes 3-Generation Testamentary Trust Will and 2 POAs
Death Taxes
- Australia’s four death duties
- 32% tax on superannuation to children
- Selling a dead person’s home tax-free
- HECs debt at death
- CGT on dead wife’s wedding ring
- Extra tax on Charities
Vulnerable children and spend-thrifts
- Your Will includes:
- Divorce Protection Trust if children divorce
- Bankruptcy Trusts
- Special Disability Trust (free vulnerable children in Wills Training Video)
- Guardians for under 18-year-old children
- Considered person clause to stop Will challenges
Second Marriages & Challenging Will
- Contractual Will Agreement for second marriages
- Wills for blended families
- Do Marriages and Divorce revoke my Will?
- Can my lover challenge my Will?
- Make my Will fair: hotchpot clauses v Equalisation?
What if I:
- have assets or beneficiaries overseas?
- lack mental capacity to sign my Will?
- sign my Will in hospital or isolating?
- lose my Will or my home burns down?
- have addresses changed in my Will?
- have nicknames and alias names?
- want free storage of my Wills and POAs?
- put Specific Gifts in Wills
- build my parent’s Wills?
- leave money to my pets?
- want my adviser or accountant to build the Will for me?
Assets not in your Will
- Joint tenancy assets and the family home
- Loans to children, parents or company
- Gifts and forgiving a debt before you die
- Who controls my Company at death?
- Family Trusts:
- Changing control with Backup Appointors
- losing Centrelink and winding up Family Trust
- Does my Family Trust go in my Will?
Power of Attorney
- Money POAs: NSW, VIC, QLD, WA, SA, TAS, ACT & NT
- be used to steal my money?
- act as trustee of my trust?
- change my Superannuation binding nomination?
- be witnessed by my financial planner witness?
- be signed if I lack mental capacity?
- Medical, Lifestyle, Guardianships, and Care Directives:
- Company POA when directors go missing, insane or die
After death
- Free Wish List to be kept with your Will
- Burial arrangements
- How to amend a Testamentary Trust after you die
- What happens to mortgages when I die?
- Family Court looks at dead Dad’s Will