You need a Power of Attorney.

Last week, my mother-in-law, who is 91, was admitted into the hospital. She was almost in a coma. Because she could not speak for herself, the hospital needed a power of attorney to administer treatment. Fortunately, several years ago, I had my mother-in-law give a Power of Attorney to my wife. It came in handy last week. I took a copy down to the hospital and everything proceeded smoothly.

If you’re a husband, you need a Power of Attorney for your wife. If you’re a wife, you need a Power of Attorney for your husband. You may also need Powers of Attorney for sisters, brothers, or even your mother-in-law and father or grandparents.

The reason is because what the Power of Attorney gives you the right to do. The Power of Attorney gives you the right to sign someone else’s name. It’s a standard form. You can buy them at www.webtalkwithbob. $10. Very often you can get a sample Power of Attorney form from a bank or the library. Once you get it, the person, let’s say in my case, my wife, signs it, authorizing me for the Power of Attorney to sign her name. I take that document to a Notary Public and have it notarized.

This is a very helpful document. Very often my wife is out of town when perhaps I need a document to be signed by both her and myself. So I now can sign her name without having to go through the expensive process of sending a set of documents to her at a separate location. Very often the reverse is true. I’m out of town, she needs a Power of Attorney to sign my name, whether it’s a bank account, a check account, a purchase of a residence, sale of real estate, or whatever document may require both signatures.

We also have a Power of Attorney for my wife’s mother. It’s very helpful to us, because very often she’s not in a position to sign a document, and sometimes she’s not healthy enough to sign the document. So with the Power of Attorney, we can go ahead and sign her name and make whatever transaction we’re entering into legitimate. The Power of Attorney is a very important document that we need to have. Many of us forget about it until we need somebody else’s signature, and oh by the way, they’re out of town or they’re sick, they’re in a hospital, or they’re in a position where they simply can’t sign it. Then it’s too late to get the Power of Attorney.

What we do in our family is we have a standard form; we exchange Power of Attorney with people in our family that we think we need to have that right to exercise. Then we file it away in our storage cabinet where we keep important documents. We only pull it out when in fact we actually need it.

The Power of Attorney. It will save you time. It’ll save you money. It’ll save you stress. It allows you to keep going or keep entering into agreements when the other person is not available or healthy enough to sign. So make a list of people that you may want to exchange Powers of Attorney with, people that you trust, generally only close family members. Get those documents notarized and keep them when you need them. I guarantee that you may only need this document once every three or four years, but once you have it, you’ll be happy that you took the extra minute or two to get it done now so that when you need it, you have it.

Remember, click on to our Website at www.webtalkwithbob.com and subscribe to our blog. Signing off. Have a great day.

If you read this blog, send me an email at sherwoodearly@gmail.com. Put Power in the subject line and I will send you a Power of Attorney form.