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What do the Power of attorney laws entail?

Power of attorney laws have to dictate that the attorney is authorized to represent another with regards to private affairs, business or even other related legal matters. The one who authorizes the other to act is referred to as the principle where as the one who acts on behalf of the other person or the one authorized to act is the agent.

The principal who is the person that creates the power of attorney is supposed to execute that authorization under normal mental capacity meaning that he should be under full mental capacity. It is a legal document signed authorizing an individual towards representing another in a court of law. We have seen that the principle should sign those documents under full mental capacity. There are exceptions, which can affect that power. For instance, if the authorizer who is also known as the donor suffers from Alzheimer’s disease or a particular head injury through an accident, the already put into effect document may start working unless otherwise.

Meaning in this case, the principle must be able to state that the document should continue working whatsoever. There are two types of powers of attorney. These are oral and those written by hand and it doesn’t mean that there must be a witness around. This means that an orally executed power of attorney will in fact hold up to the court of the law just as though it was written although mostly the power is required to be in writing than oral like in institutions like hospitals, banks as well as internal revenue service in the US. This is necessary to them, and mostly they make it a cat and mouse chase before honoring any power of attorney, which is not written. As a matter of fact, the chase ends in a dead end, and the petitioner has to go all way back and have the power written.

Within the power of attorney laws, there are various rules. The equal dignity rule is part of those laws that entails specific authorization towards someone performing various acts for another individual and thus the appointment should have followed the same formality. Let us look into this concept under the following terms, the selling of a house. If the principal grant’s power of attorney to someone to sell a house, the contract for sale should be put into writing to  cover the statute of frauds according to most US legal jurisdictions.

Types of power of attorney laws

Power of attorney could be general or limited as long as it defines the nature according to the enforcement by the court. There are various types of power of attorney and all are defined according to their application. There is the durable power of attorney which can be defined according to its nature. For instance, within common law, when the principle that authorized the power dies or even becomes somewhat incapacitated to grant such power with regards to mental illness, or physical injury, the power will continue to be effective as it will have been durable provisions.

Another power of attorney is health care power; although not all, durable power of attorney can be termed as health care power. This power provides the attorney authority to come up with health care decisions. Another power of attorney is the relationship with advance health care directive and this can or cannot appear as one in a single document. As we said earlier there are various powers of attorney and springing power and standardized forms are other types of powers that can be granted by the grantor or the principle.


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