Power of attorney

[wizbit93]

After watching the Kate Garraway programme last night, I've been thinking about Power of Attorney.
DH and I are in our 40s. It scares me that if something was to happen to him I would not be able to access bills, bank accounts etc.
I'm also not sure regarding the health one- what powers would that give me?
Also, I have seen about having someone else as well as DH. If I set up a friend is it easily adjusted to swap to our children once they are older, or would we have to take out a new one?
Final question- do you need to use a solicitor or can you just go to gov.uk?
Thanks for any help

Find mumblechum on here or Marlowe wills
She sorted my parents POA out very quickly and easily. You can do it yourself as well but we preferred a professional to do it
A lot of MNetters recommend her

Do the firm yourself - very easy.

Forms

Yes do the forms yourself, they are quite straight forward.

With regards health POA, I held that for my dad. The last couple of years of his life he had a couple of hospital and rehab stays, attended the Falls Clinic, had Social Workers and District Nurses visit him at home etc.
Most of them wanted to know who held POA for him (he had dementia so no mental capacity himself).

I'm not entirely sure what difference it made, I would like to think that our family's wishes regarding treatment would still have been taken into account, whether we had the POA in place or not.

It's maybe one of those things that, if everything goes smoothly, you look back and think "Well was that necessary?" But in the event of things not going smoothly you're very glad you had it.

Thanks everyone. I've been chatting to my mum about it today so we're going to look into getting it set up for her too.

You can do it yourself, fee is £82 for each poa.

Also set up a joint account and pay all the bills from that. If one of you dies at least the survivor won't have to deal with a frozen account and final demands. Make sure pension beneficiaries are set to the survivor, that you have wills and guardianship arrangements if you have kids.

An advance directive is also a good idea - that is free, just needs witnessing.

An advance directive is also a good idea - that is free, just needs witnessing..

Advanced directives can be tricky and often not specific enough to be useful when it comes to it. They probably do need input from someone with medical/legal knowledge.