Thursday, 25th April 2024
Most people sign what is known as an Enduring Power of Attorney.
With this document you empower one or more people to sign your name to and conduct all your legal and business affairs. Unless you impose any limits on this, that authority starts immediately and continues until you die. It continues even when you may be incapacitated physically or mentally, such as by a stroke or by senility. A General Power of Attorney does not work in those circumstances.
It is a very serious matter to appoint a Power of Attorney. You should consider the many options available to you before choosing who you appoint and on what terms. You should not proceed with a Power of Attorney if you have any doubts at all and should seek legal advice. Unfortunately lawyers deal with many situations where a Power of Attorney has been abused or has led to family disputes. Proper advice that takes into account your personal situation and careful legal drafting can help to avoid this.
See also Legal Aid Factsheets
An enduring guardian is someone you appoint someone to make medical and lifestyle decisions for you. These may include agreeing to medication, surgery, and other medical procedures and decisions as to where you should live.
Enduring means it continues (endures) when you are unable to make these types of decisions for yourself.
Guardianship Forms - these must be registered to be effective. While it is possible to prepare the Guardianship yourself, many people review all of their arrangements including their Will and Power of Attorney at this time. Foolkit recommends that you seek legal advice .and not try to prepare those yourself.
See also Legal Aid Factsheets
Are you looking for detailed information like this, or contact details for any of the bodies mentioned on this page. If so, then start on our Elder Law for Lawyers page.
If it isn't there, then start on our Finding Detailed Legal Information page.
Please read our warning on that page "Be careful using these resources".
The Law is not always as straightforward as it appears. We have not included any information about when and how to use that information or any traps. We assume that the Lawyers will know this.
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When a person with a mental incapacity can no longer make decisions in certain areas of life, the Guardianship and Administration Board can be requested to make an order appointing somebody else to do this on that person's behalf.
The causes of mental incapacity can include dementia, intellectual disability, brain damage, mental illness, coma or being in a moribund state, and this must affect the person's ability to make his or her own decisions.
The main orders the Board can make concern their guardianship, care, treatment, detention and control of their financial and legal decisions.
There is no online legal handbook for Tasmania. The Law Handbook Online for South Australia is excellent, up-to-date and easy to use.
While we caution about using any legal material from interstate, it can be useful to get a feel for a legal topic to see how the Law works in South Australia. This at least will give you a general understanding of how lawyers and the Courts approach a legal problem. You can then start to look for information on the Law as it applies in Tasmania.
WARNING: Information from interstate web sites should not be relied upon without legal advice. The law and courts often vary a lot between States. For example, Registration of an Enduring Guardian is essential in Tasmania, but is not even mentioned in SA.
