» Powers of Attorney

In Texas, you have a choice to make your power of attorney effective immediately or only after incapacity. McCreary Law Office recommends the former. If you go with only after incapacity, too often, your agent (the person you put in charge) could have difficulty getting a formal declaration of incapacity. And without that, your agent would be powerless, which is exactly what we are trying to avoid by putting your power of attorney in place. We’ll discuss these options in detail during a consultation.

A limited power of attorney is the same as a traditional power of attorney except that it grants only specific — limited — power. For example, if someone will have to sign a deed for you to sell your home because you are not available, you might grant that person power to do only that action and only for a limited amount of time. (Such a power of attorney for real property must be recorded with the deed.)

No. The powers under a power of attorney die with you.

No. When your agent acts on your behalf, that indicates the agent has accepted the power and the responsibility.

It could take up to seventeen business days to learn if a bank (or anyone else) is going to refuse to accept your power of attorney. When given a power of attorney, a bank can ask for either the agent’s certification or an attorney’s opinion before accepting a power of attorney, but that must be done within ten business days. But the bank cannot require that a power of attorney be on some other type of form as long as the one presented grants banking powers. The bank then has seven days to either accept the power of attorney or provide a written reason it is being refused. Texas law provides limited reasons someone can refuse to honor a power of attorney.