Welcome to ncpowerofattorney.com.  A Power of Attorney is a powerful estate planning document that plans for your lifetime needs in the event you are unable to act upon your affairs. A Power of Attorney allows your spouse (or any competent adult that you designate) to act on your behalf in the event you are away during an emergency or are incapacitated and unable to sign documents. Powers of Attorney come in various forms. The most frequently used Powers of Attorney are financial powers of attorney and healthcare powers of attorney. A Non-Springing financial power of attorney can be a Durable Power of Attorney or a Springing Durable Power of Attorney.

A Non-Springing Durable Power of Attorney, for financial purposes, means that the power of attorney survives your incapacity. This type of power of attorney becomes effective upon your signing the document and provides for the designated person(s) to be able to sign documents and take actions on your behalf in regards to your financial affairs. A Springing Power of Attorney for financial purposes allows the designated person(s) to only use the Power of Attorney upon a specific event (usually your incapacity) and requires certification that the event has taken place.

A Healthcare Power of Attorney allows the person(s) designated to make healthcare decisions for you in the event you are unable to make these decisions for yourself. This type of Power of attorney only becomes effective when you can no longer express your own medical decisions due to a serious illness, accident or other event. Your Living Will provides certain instructions in the event of a terminal illness and imminent death, but cannot address every possible situation that might result in the need for medical care. Therefore, the Healthcare Power of Attorney allows for these decisions to be made by your health care agent.

More discussion on estate planning documents and Powers of Attorney can be found in our sections on avoiding probate through Revocable Trusts ("Living Trusts"), "Probate - Understanding Living Trusts", "How you can Avoid Probate, Save Taxes and More", "What's so bad about Probate", "Doesn't Joint Ownership Avoid Probate?", "Probate - if something happens to me, who has control?," "Probate - how can a living trust save on estate taxes?"

This power of attorney information is maintained by Dan Brady, Attorney and Certified Public Accountant, located in Raleigh, North Carolina. 

The Firm's active practice areas include Corporate and Business Law and Taxation, Trusts and Estate Planning, Personal Injury Litigation, Family Law and Divorce, Billing, and Staff Confidentiality.

Please visit our site to learn more about North Carolina probate and other areas of law in which we may be able to assist you in the management of your estate and legal affairs.