An Enduring Power of Attorney gives another person the authority to manage legal and financial matters on your behalf. Depending on your wishes, this can include buying and selling property, operating bank accounts, and spending money on your behalf.

An Enduring Guardian gives another person the authority to make lifestyle and medical decisions on your behalf. These decisions may include deciding where you live, which doctors you see, the type of care you receive or any medical treatment you may need to receive. They will also have access to your medical information in order for them to make the best decisions regarding medical care.

Anyone aged 18 or over can be appointed as your Power of Attorney and or Guardian. Preferably, it will be a spouse, child, near relative or some other trusted individual in your life. Often, Galluzzo Lawyers will draft mutual powers of attorney, where a married couple each appoint the other to be their power of attorney, should the worst ever happen to one of them.

Yes, Joint Powers of Attorney and Joint Guardianships are also possible.

No. If you have lost your mental capacity, whether that be through degenerative brain disease such as dementia, or by a sudden illness or accident, under the law you are no longer considered capable of appointing a Power of Attorney or Guardian because you no longer have the mental capacity and the ability to fully understand such decisions. It will be too late.

Without any legal appointment, nobody automatically has a right to manage your assets or make decisions on your behalf. Not even your husband or wife.

Your loved one would have to apply to a Tribunal in order to be appointed your financial manager or Guardian. If the Tribunal believes that person to be not fit for the task, then it may appoint a governmental body, the NSW Trustee and Guardian, to manage your affairs.

This can be a long and stressful process, especially at a time when your loss of capacity would likely be causing stress and difficulty in itself.  Galluzzo Lawyers strongly recommends you sort your affairs out in advance.

Yes. So long as you are still mentally capable, you can alter the appointment.

The documents which appoint Powers of Attorney and Guardianships can be drafted in such a way that place restrictions on how a person can deal with your finances, and how they can make decisions on your behalf. Galluzzo Lawyers can draft particular limitations into the document, and you can decide:

• what your Power of Attorney or Guardian is and is not allowed to do
• Limit any benefits they can receive from the position
• Require that a doctor provide a medical certificate or certain recommendations before any medical treatment decision is made on your behalf and much more

Galluzzo Lawyers can tailor a document to suit any specific requirements you feel need to be put in place to ensure peace of mind.