Do I need powers of attorney as well as a will?

Two documents, two different jobs

A continuing power of attorney for property authorizes someone to manage your finances and can do almost anything with your property that you could do yourself, except make a will on your behalf. A power of attorney for personal care authorizes decisions about health care, housing and daily living once you can no longer make them.

Both are made under the Substitute Decisions Act, 1992. Neither replaces the other, and Ontario doesn't combine them into a single form.

We prepare both documents alongside your will, so your property, your care and your estate are all covered by documents that work together.

When each one actually starts

A continuing power of attorney for property can take effect immediately, or only once you become incapable, depending on how it's written; most people choose immediate effect for convenience, trusting the person named not to act unless needed. A power of attorney for personal care generally only takes effect once you're found incapable of personal care.

Until that trigger happens, you continue to make your own decisions; the document sits ready rather than active.

Your wishes still control

Under sections 66 and 67 of the Act, an attorney for personal care must follow a wish you expressed while capable, if it applies to the decision at hand, and otherwise act in your best interests, considering your known values and beliefs. This is the legal mechanism for religious, cultural or lifestyle instructions about your care.

Writing those wishes down, or telling the person you name what matters to you, does more work than any particular phrase in the document itself.

Who can act, and who can't

A person providing you paid health care or paid support services generally cannot act as your attorney for personal care unless they're also your spouse, partner or relative. Property and personal care can go to different people, since the skills involved differ, and each document should name an alternate in case the first choice cannot act.

A joint appointment of more than one attorney raises the same coordination questions as naming co-executors in a will.

What happens if you don't have one

Without a power of attorney for property, a family member, or failing that the Public Guardian and Trustee, must apply to become a statutory or court-appointed guardian, a slower and more public process than acting under a document signed in advance. Without a power of attorney for personal care, health care decisions fall to a hierarchy of substitute decision-makers set by the Health Care Consent Act, 1996, which may not match who you would actually have chosen.