Before You Sign the Power of Attorney: Check the Agent Line, the Granted Powers, and Who Holds the Copies

A financial power of attorney lets one person act for another with money, property, and accounts. Your parent decides what the paper says and whether to sign it, and you are usually the person who will carry it to the bank, the benefit office, or the insurer. The checks below decide whether the paper works when you need it. The drafting and the signing rules belong to a Missouri attorney, and the Missouri Bar's lawyer referral service can help you find one.

Local option: New Plan Care gives families in the St. Louis area in-home help so a parent can stay home: companionship, help with bathing and dressing, meals, and overnight care. Call (314) 405-0887.

Name the agent and the backup

Start with the agent line. Confirm the full legal name, address, and phone number of the person named, and check whether a successor agent is named for the case where that person cannot serve. A paper with one name and no backup leaves the family stuck if the agent is unavailable, unwilling, or has died. Ask the lawyer whether the agent acts alone or whether the paper requires agents to act together, and what happens if the named agent lives out of state.

Read the powers, not the title

A paper with a general title can still be narrower than you expect. Look for an explicit grant of each power you expect to use: paying bills, handling retirement and bank accounts, dealing with public benefits, handling real estate, and dealing with taxes. Missouri's power of attorney law treats some powers, such as making gifts or changing beneficiary designations, as needing specific language in the document rather than implied from general words. Compare the list against the work in front of you. If a power is missing, the bank or agency may refuse the agent when that power is needed, and the family then has to go back to the parent or to court.

Check when it starts and when it stops

Find the effective date. Some papers take effect at signing. Others wait for a trigger, often a physician's written finding that the parent cannot manage affairs, which is called a springing paper. A springing paper can stall at the counter because the institution asks for proof of the trigger that the paper names but does not supply. Ask which kind you have and exactly what proof it calls for. Then check how the paper ends: at the parent's death, on revocation, or on a stated event. Confirm the parent can still revoke it while able to do so, and write down who must be told if that happens.

Keep the health care paper separate

A financial power of attorney does not decide medical questions, and the financial agent is not automatically the person who makes health care choices. Missouri handles health care decisions in a separate document. Do not assume the two papers are the same or that one covers the other. Ask the lawyer and the physician's office which medical paper your parent has on file and whether the hospital and doctor have copies. The medical decisions belong to your parent, the doctor, and the family, and this page does not cover them.

Plan the copies before the first use

Most banks, brokerages, insurers, and benefit offices will review a power of attorney before accepting it, and some require their own form. Ask each one in advance what it needs, and record the answer with the contact's name. Keep the signed original in a known place, and get certified copies if the lawyer recommends them. Keep a list of which institutions already hold a copy and when each received it, so the family does not carry a fresh stack of papers to every counter.

Bring these questions to the lawyer

Bring the draft and ask: Does it grant each power I listed? Does it name a successor agent? Is it springing, and what proof starts it? What signing, witnessing, or notary steps does Missouri require for this paper? What will each bank or agency ask to see? Does my parent need any other paper in place first? Where the answer depends on what a particular Missouri institution will accept, that is the point where the lawyer takes over from this page.

The CFPB publishes consumer material on how banks handle powers of attorney, which is worth reading before the first counter visit. Missouri SHIP and Aging Ahead can help with the benefit questions the paper touches, but they do not draft or review the document. For the rest of the order of papers, begin with Start Here: The Order to Read. For how the claims on this site are sourced, see Sources, and for how the desk writes, see How We Write. For local phone numbers, see Local Help With Paying for Care.