Australian Capital Territory (ACT) - Enduring POA

What is a ACT Enduring POA?

A ACT Enduring POA is a legal document in the Australian Capital Territory. It allows you to appoint a person to make decisions about your assets. The ACT EPA deals with your assets e.g. real estate and bank accounts

What can't the ACT EPA do?

The ACT POA is an “economic” document.  Your POA in ACT does not deal with your health, medical treatment or lifestyle. To do this, instead, build a ACT Medical POA on our website. Also, the person receiving your ACT POA cannot:

• vote in any elections
• make a Will
• sign another ACT EPA
• act as a Trustee
• control your body (you need a Power of Guardianship instead)

However, the person getting your ACT Enduring POA, can open and close bank accounts, pay debts, and buy and sell land. This is provided it is in your 'best interests' to do so.

How does the person getting my ACT EPA use it?

Here are some examples:

Example 1 - Using your bank account

The persons you appoint walk into the bank and present to the bank clerk with your Savings Account book and your ACT EPA. The clerk stares blankly at them. He sees his bank manager. The manager explains to the clerk that those persons “now stand in your shoes”. They can do whatever you could do with the bank account. The manager asks to take a copy of the ACT Power of Attorney for future reference. The bank manager tries to keep the original ACT POA but the persons you nominate decline and get back the ACT POA. The transaction on the Savings account takes place.

Example 2 – Signing using your ACT POA

You tell the persons that you nominated, to sign a lease agreement. You are on holidays overseas and email is unavailable. Your attorney contacts the landlord. They:

1. tell the landlord that there is a ACT Enduring POA
2. tell the landlord that they are signing the lease on your behalf
3. they sign in their usual signature area and write under the signatures “signed as attorney for *your name* under a ACT POA dated ## Month, year”.

You are now bound to the lease. The landlord may photocopy the ACT EPA to attach to the lease.

Protects from death duties, divorcing and bankrupt children and a 32% tax on super. Build online with free lifetime updates:

 

Couples Bundle

includes 3-Generation Testamentary Trust Wills and 4 POAs

 

Singles Bundle

includes 3-Generation Testamentary Trust Will and 2 POAs

 

Death Taxes

• Australia's four death duties
• 32% tax on superannuation to children
• Selling a dead person's home tax-free
• HECs debt at death
• CGT on dead wife’s wedding ring
• Extra tax on Charities

Vulnerable children and spend-thrifts

• Your Will includes:
  • Divorce Protection Trust if children divorce
  • Bankruptcy Trusts
  • Special Disability Trust (free vulnerable children in Wills Training Video)
  • Guardians for under 18-year-old children
  • Considered person clause to stop Will challenges

Second Marriages & Challenging Will

• Contractual Will Agreement for second marriages
• Wills for blended families
• Do Marriages and Divorce revoke my Will?
• Can my lover challenge my Will?
• Make my Will fair: hotchpot clauses v Equalisation?

 

What if I:

• have assets or beneficiaries overseas?
• lack mental capacity to sign my Will?
• sign my Will in hospital or isolating?
• lose my Will or my home burns down?
• have addresses changed in my Will?
• have nicknames and alias names?
• want free storage of my Wills and POAs?
• put Specific Gifts in Wills
• build my parent's Wills?
• leave money to my pets?
• want my adviser or accountant to build the Will for me?

Assets not in your Will

• Joint tenancy assets and the family home
• Loans to children, parents or company 
• Gifts and forgiving a debt before you die
• Who controls my Company at death?
• Family Trusts:
  • Changing control with Backup Appointors
  • losing Centrelink and winding up Family Trust
  • Does my Family Trust go in my Will?

Power of Attorney

1. Money POAs: NSW, VIC,  QLD, WA, SA, TAS, ACT & NT
   • be used to steal my money?
   • act as trustee of my trust?
   • change my Superannuation binding nomination?
   • be witnessed by my financial planner witness?
   • be signed if I lack mental capacity?
2. Medical, Lifestyle, Guardianships, and Care Directives:
   • NSW, QLD, WA, SA, TAS, ACT & NT
   • VIC Appointing Medical Treatment Decision Maker
3. Company POA when directors go missing, insane or die

After death

• Free Wish List to be kept with your Will
• Burial arrangements
• How to amend a Testamentary Trust after you die
• What happens to mortgages when I die?
• Family Court looks at dead Dad's Will