Enduring power of attorney (financial)

Under an enduring power of attorney (financial), you can appoint someone to manage your financial and property affairs. This includes any related legal matters.

Your attorney can:

• help with your day-to-day finances
• pay your bills
• manage your property
• organise your tax returns.

Enduring power of attorney (personal)

Under an enduring power of attorney (personal), you can appoint someone to make decisions about your personal life and lifestyle. This doesn’t include medical decisions.

Your attorney can make decisions about:

• where you live
• who you live with
• what education or training you can have
• whether you go on holiday and where you go.

Supportive attorney

A supportive attorney is someone you can appoint to help you make decisions. However, they can’t make decisions for you if you aren’t able to make them yourself.

We can help you prepare an enduring power of attorney for financial and personal matters and help you appoint a supportive attorney.

Medical treatment

Everyone has the right to make their own medical decisions. But what happens if you can no longer make those decisions because of injury or illness? There is a document called the Appointment of medical treatment decision maker, which lets you choose someone to make medical decisions for you. This person will legally be able to make medical decisions for you if you can’t.

General non-enduring power of attorney

A general non-enduring power of attorney allows you to nominate one or more attorneys to do anything on your behalf that you can lawfully do by an attorney. You may limit the role of the attorney to performing a specific task for you, such as collecting the rent from a property you own whilst you are overseas, or acting only for a specific period of time. Under a general non-enduring power of attorney, your attorney cannot make medical treatment decisions for you. An attorney appointed under a general non-enduring power of attorney automatically loses legal authority to act for you if you lose capacity. So, whilst the general non-enduring power of attorney can be useful for a limited or short-term appointment, bear in mind that it will cease to be effective if, due to an accident or ill health, you lose capacity to make your own decisions.

How can we help?

There are two ways we can help you prepare your powers of attorney.

• Book an appointment for your power of attorney

You can book an appointment with one of our professional staff to prepare your power of attorney documents in a number of locations around Victoria by calling 1300 138 672 or by booking an appointment online.

• Do it yourself with a Power of Attorney Kit online

Our Power of Attorney Kit is an easy and convenient way to appoint someone to make decisions for you if you can’t. It’s a downloadable and printable PDF template with a planning guide and easy-to-follow step-by-step instruction guide. This will suit you if your situation is straightforward.

Find out more about our Power of Attorney Kit.