How To Create A Power Of Attorney
MyPowerOfAttorney™- Establish a Durable Power Of Attorney
Why do you need a Power of Attorney? What if you were in a coma,
or otherwise incapacitated such that you were unable to communicate? Or
struck with a disease or other tragedy which affected your mind? Who
should control your finances, or your assets? The
MyPowerOfAttorney™ service here at
LegalWills.ca
ensures that your wishes in
these and other unexpected circumstances are heard, understood, and carried out
to your specifications.
We have removed the obstacles to writing a Power of Attorney. It
is convenient, low cost, and simple. The MyPowerOfAttorney™ service steps
you through a series of questions in a "wizard" format. It will ask you
about your wishes regarding who should act on your behalf for legal, financial
or business matters. All questions are written in plain language, so you
don't have to be a legal expert to create your own Power of Attorney. You
simply answer the questions about your wishes and we automatically and instantly
format a document that forms the basis of a legal Power of Attorney, custom-made
for your local jurisdiction. If you live in Canada, this
document can then be printed and signed in front of witnesses to become a
legally binding document. There is also plenty of supplementary
information to help answer all of your questions.
There are actually a few different types of Power of Attorney:
A "General Power of Attorney" is the authorization for another
person to act on your behalf for legal, financial or business matters.
You may do this, for example, if you have emigrated and have ongoing legal
or business matters to attend to. In this case, it may be convenient
to have an authorized person sign documents on your behalf.
A "Durable Power of Attorney" has the same authorization, but the
powers continue to be effective even if you become mentally incapacitated or
incompetent for any reason. Of course, you must be competent before
the Durable Power of Attorney is set up. You can also set up a Durable
Power of Attorney to only come into effect if or when you become mentally
incompetent.
You can also create a "Power of Attorney for Health Care" or "Advance
Health Care Directive". This gives the authority to a loved one to
make healthcare decisions on your behalf. For example, if you are
critically ill a Power of Attorney for Health Care could dictate whether or
not you should receive life-sustaining treatment or medication. This
is special type of document which can be created using the MyLivingWill™service here at
LegalWills.ca.
At
LegalWills.ca
you can create each of the above types of Power of Attorney.
Make unlimited updates free of charge. Don't pay a lawyer every
time you need to update your Power of Attorney. We allow your Power of
Attorney to be kept securely online at
LegalWills.ca
so that you can make
unlimited updates for as long as you are a member here. Not only will you
always have a legal Power of Attorney, but it will always be kept up to date.
You can still have it reviewed by a lawyer. If you wish, we can
arrange for your Power of Attorney to be reviewed by a lawyer, who will check
the document for consistency and completeness.
(Currently not available in Ontario.)
How does it
work?
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a Power of Attorney
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MyPowerOfAttorney™- Frequently Asked Questions
The MyPowerOfAttorney™ service steps you through a simple question and answer
wizard, formats your answers into a readable format, and allows you to make
unlimited updates to your Power of Attorney while allowing you to store your
information securely online. You can then designate your own personal
"Keyholders®", who with their unique ID can unlock your Power of Attorney at the
appropriate time.
The complete pricing structure is available on our Products & Prices
page.
According to current laws in most jurisdictions, in order to be a legal
document your Power of Attorney must be signed in the presence of two witnesses,
and in most cases in front of a Notary Public. A Notary Public has the
legal standing to administer oaths and officiate over the signing process.
In other words, they are an independent person who will determine that all
parties signed of their own free will, and that they are all who they say they
are.
However, "electronic signature" laws are moving rapidly and we
are closely monitoring these laws to support the future electronic notarization
of documents, or even the electronic signature of your Power of Attorney.
It is only a matter of time before this becomes standard practice in preparing
legal documents. According to today's laws you will need to print the
Power of Attorney you create with the MyPowerOfAttorney™ service and have it
signed according to the laws in your area. More details about this process
are available on the help pages within the wizard.
Although the unsigned version of your Power of Attorney stored online
is not a legal document, if you wish you can allow one or more
of your designated Keyholders® to have access to the Power of Attorney that you
have created here. This could be important if your
legally signed copy cannot be located. In this situation, your
LegalWills.ca
Power of Attorney can still provide some guidance to a loving
family, as they can understand how you would want your legal, financial and/or
business matters to be handled.
You can choose to have a 1-year, 10-year, 25-year or Life membership at
LegalWills.ca,
during which time you can make as many updates or amendments
to your Power of Attorney as you wish at no extra charge. Details of the
membership packages available can be found on our Products & Prices
page.
The question and answer wizard can be completed in less than 15 minutes,
although this is not advisable, particularly if you are unfamiliar with the laws
and processes involved. The wizard has a wealth of helpful information
that you will likely find educational and useful. You should take the time
to read through as much of this as possible, so that the Power of Attorney is
not simply created, but you understand exactly what it means. There may
even be sections of the wizard that you feel warrant some additional research.
When working through the MyPowerOfAttorney™ service you
do not have to complete the document in one sitting. You can answer a
couple of questions and then store these wishes securely online here at
LegalWills.ca
until you have a few more minutes to answer additional
questions. If you prefer, you can spend many weeks or months making
unlimited updates until you are happy with your final results, at which point
you could have your final copy reviewed and signed.
All of your information stored at
LegalWills.ca
is safe and secure.
Your information is so highly encrypted that nobody has access to this
information other than yourself and your trusted Keyholders® using their randomly
generated personal key. Even the owners and administrators of
LegalWills.ca
are not able to access your information due to the software
design and encryption methods used.
Note, however, that some services require temporary decryption of a member's documents
as part of the operation of providing that service.
For example, if the member wants to have their Will reviewed by one of our legal
professionals, or wants to have their documents printed and mailed to them, then
the software will automatically decrypt these documents as part of the member's
instructions to have these services performed.
All data passing from your computer to
LegalWills.ca
is authenticated and
encrypted using 256-bit "SSL encryption". This is the most advanced level
of encryption available today, and it means that any information sent from your
computer is scrambled in a way which makes it completely unintelligible if
intercepted. When you are on a secure section within the
LegalWills.ca
site, a padlock will appear on your web browser.
This is your assurance that the encryption is in place and that you are
communicating across a secure link.
Furthermore, we use an industry standard high security
streaming-encryption algorithm known as "RSA" to encrypt all of your information
before it is stored online. To give you a feeling for the level of
security provided by this encryption, it has been estimated that with the most
efficient algorithms known to date, it would take a computer operating at 1
million instructions per second over 300 quintillion years (that's 3 with 20
zeros behind it!) to break the encryption. That's several trillion times longer
than the age of the Earth.
Services such as MyFuneral™,
MyLifeLocker™,
MyVault™,
and MyMessages™ do not create legal documents and
make no assumptions about your country of residence.
We have worked extensively with lawyers in Canada to ensure that the legal
documents created by the MyWill™,
MyExpatWill™,
MyPowerOfAttorney™ and
MyLivingWill™ services are up to date
with the laws in all of the provinces in
Canada, including: Alberta,
British Columbia, Manitoba, New Brunswick, Newfoundland and Labrador,
Northwest Territories, Nova Scotia, Nunavut, Ontario, Prince Edward Island,
Québec,
Saskatchewan, and Yukon.
Hence, our
services can be used to generate legal documents in any Canadian Province or Territory.
If you have any doubts about the legal standing of any documents in your
jurisdiction, feel free to seek legal counsel in your area to have your
documents reviewed.
There is a considerable amount of information included in the on-line help of
the MyPowerOfAttorney™
wizard. This will answer most of the common
questions regarding the steps included in creating your own Power of Attorney.
For information about the other services available, or about
LegalWills.ca
in general, you can browse this website or send an email to
[email protected].
We will be happy to answer any questions you may have.
Create your Power of Attorney right now using the MyPowerOfAttorney™ wizard
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