Enduring Powers of Attorney, Guardianship and Administration

At Ferrier, Athanasiou & Kakulas we are skilled in drafting Enduring Powers of Attorney and Enduring Powers of Guardianship.

An Enduring Power of Attorney can be made in favour of a trusted person who will be able to manage your financial affairs in certain situations. It could be for a short period of time – for example, you might be overseas or non – contactable and you may want a trusted person to manage a financial matter for this time.

Alternatively, an Enduring Power of Attorney could be prepared to come into effect, if you lose your own capacity to properly manage your financial affairs in your own best interests.

An Enduring Power of Guardianship is a similar document. However it relates to the trusted person being able to make decisions about your lifestyle, such as where you live, who you have contact with and what medical treatment you might have.  An Enduring Power of Guardianship can be tailored to your own individual circumstances and can provide you with peace of mind in the event you become ill or lose the ability to make these kinds of decisions for yourself.

Enduring Powers of Attorney and Guardianship are often, although not always, prepared for older people. Sometimes there may be a dispute between family members about what is in the best interests of an older person and there is disagreement about who should make important decisions on behalf of the older person.

These disputes are dealt with by the State Administrative Tribunal. The Tribunal can make Orders such as Administration Orders (to deal with a person’s financial affairs) and Guardianship Orders (to enable decisions about the person’s lifestyle to be made).

We have represented the adult children of older people at the Tribunal as well as parents of disabled adult children. We have run successful cases in every instance at the Tribunal.

We can also prepare Advance Health Directives, which can cover specific health and medical treatment decisions that will need to be made in the future.