ESTATES · 5 MIN READ
Your power of attorney matters more than your will
A will only starts working once you have died. The document that protects you while you are alive is the one most people skip.
People come in asking for a will. They almost never come in asking for powers of attorney, and the powers of attorney are the documents most likely to be needed first.
In Ontario there are two: a continuing power of attorney for property, which lets someone manage your money and your house, and a power of attorney for personal care, which lets someone make medical and living decisions. They are separate documents and can name different people, which is often sensible — the person best with money is not always the person you want deciding about a care home.
Without them, if you become incapable, nobody automatically has authority. Not your spouse, not your adult children. The bank will not talk to them. Your family's option is an application to the Superior Court for guardianship: several thousand dollars, several months, medical assessments, and a formal capacity finding about someone they love.
The most common misconception is that a joint bank account solves this. It solves access to that one account. It does nothing about the mortgage, the CRA, the insurance, or the decision about where you live.
The second most common is that these documents hand over control immediately. A continuing power of attorney for property can be drafted to take effect only on incapacity, and a power of attorney for personal care operates only when you cannot make the decision yourself.
They take one appointment. We include both with every will we draft because we have watched too many families discover, in a hospital corridor, that the paperwork they needed was the paperwork nobody mentioned.
This is general information about Ontario law, not advice about your situation, and reading it does not make you our client. If any of it sounds like your circumstances, book a consultation and get an answer that accounts for the facts.