Attorney

In the context of a power of attorney, an attorney is the person authorised by another individual, called the principal or donor, to act on their behalf in financial or legal matters. This use of the word is distinct from its everyday meaning of a qualified lawyer; a power of attorney can appoint a family member, friend or professional adviser with no legal qualification at all, provided the principal trusts them with the responsibility.

The scope of an attorney's authority depends entirely on the power-of-attorney document itself, which can grant broad authority over all the principal's financial affairs or narrow authority limited to a single transaction, such as selling a specific property while the principal is overseas.

In this sense, an attorney is simply the trusted person someone else has legally deputised to handle money and paperwork on their behalf, nothing to do with courtroom lawyers at all, even though the legal document granting that authority, the power of attorney, is itself a formal legal instrument.

• Acting in the principal's best interests and strictly within the authority granted.
• Keeping the principal's money separate from their own at all times.
• Ceasing to act once the power of attorney is revoked or, in most jurisdictions, once the principal dies.

Because an attorney can be given sweeping control over another person's finances, most jurisdictions impose fiduciary-style duties requiring the attorney to keep records and, if asked, account for their decisions to the principal, other family members, or a court, particularly where the principal has lost the capacity to supervise the arrangement themselves.

Because the role carries significant trust and potential for abuse, legal advisers generally recommend choosing an attorney based on demonstrated reliability and financial responsibility rather than simply the closest family member, and some principals choose to appoint more than one attorney jointly, requiring both to agree before major decisions are made.

An attorney who breaches their duties by using the principal's funds for their own benefit can face civil liability and, in serious cases, criminal prosecution for financial abuse, and banks are increasingly trained to watch for warning signs of an attorney acting outside the scope of their authority on a vulnerable principal's account.

A principal who still has legal capacity can generally revoke a power of attorney at any time, formally ending the attorney's authority, though banks and other institutions typically need to be formally notified of the revocation before they will stop honouring the attorney's instructions on an account.

Once a principal loses mental capacity, a properly structured durable or enduring power of attorney continues to operate, allowing the attorney to keep managing finances without needing court intervention, which is precisely the situation this type of document is designed to plan for in advance.

Some banks offer family members or co-attorneys the ability to receive copies of account statements or alerts for an account being managed under a power of attorney, giving an additional layer of oversight that can help detect misuse of the arrangement before significant harm occurs, particularly important when the principal themselves is no longer capable of monitoring their own finances.

A principal setting up a power of attorney must decide between granting broad, general authority covering essentially all financial matters or a narrower, limited authority confined to specific tasks, such as managing a single investment account or completing one particular property sale, and this choice directly shapes how much discretion the resulting attorney actually holds.

Many jurisdictions also distinguish between an ordinary power of attorney, which automatically ends if the principal loses mental capacity, and a durable or enduring power of attorney, specifically designed to survive exactly that situation, which is the version most commonly used for long-term estate and incapacity planning.

Because the role carries real potential for financial abuse if misused, family members are often encouraged to discuss expectations openly with whoever is named as attorney before the arrangement is actually needed, reducing the risk of later disputes among relatives over how the role is being exercised.