My mom has a POA that requires springing with a doctors statement of incapacity. She is currently healthy and cognitively sharp but elderly and overwhelmed with financial management. She would like me to help her with her bill paying and investments. She does not want to revise or redo her existing POA. This stops me from signing as an Attorney In-fact and helping her. Is there a legal way around this? For example, a form, addendum, or affidavit that she can sign to accompany the POA when submitting to a third party entity that gives me permission to act on her behalf?
Some people don't completely trust the agent, even a close relative, to act in their best interest so they put these restrictions on them. If you don't trust the agent at the time of signing the document, why would you trust them when you need them most? Just because the document becomes effective on the day it's signed, doesn't mean the agent can act against the principal's wishes. That person still has control over their finances until they choose not to or they are unable to.
Speak to an elder care atty to see if you have any options.
You can prepare the payments, run them by her just to keep her in the loop. This is what we did.
As to investments, that's a different story. If she has IRAs, based on what I've been told by the investment management company, a secondary individual can't be added as a decision maker. What we did was work out the details, then I conferenced Dad in, then called the holder to request a disbursement. Conference calling was a real help in this respect.
The entity confirmed Dad's concurrence by asking personal questions; after that, he stayed on the line while I handled the disbursement issues.
If the investments are stocks, we handled the issue in the same manner, with a conference call. I honestly don't even recall but my father more than likely had also executed the management entity's very own specific DPOA.
Just a comment on third party entities: they EACH have their own forms. After Dad's death, I requested the transfer forms; there are generally 5 - 6, several pages long, from each investment manager. I rather doubt that they would accept something that's not one of their standardized forms.
Also, weather depending, we usually went out to lunch, or for a walk or ride, before addressing the financial issues and writing checks. We were both in a more relaxed mood.
Since you're apparently not living closely, you might precede a business phone call discussion with relaxing chat, so Mom's relaxed before discussion of monetary issues with you.
You might also ask the various regular companies to whom she makes payments if they'll send a copy of the bill to you. Eventually, I changed Dad's receipt options so that I got all the bills.