Powers of Attorney and Advance Decisions

Two Different Things

A power of attorney appoints someone you trust to make decisions for you. Depending on where you live it may cover your property and money, your health and care, or both, and it may only take effect if you can no longer decide for yourself. An advance decision, sometimes called a living will or an advance directive, is different: it records treatment you would refuse in specific circumstances, rather than appointing anyone.

How This Differs From Your Will

A will takes effect after death. These documents matter while you are alive but unable to decide for yourself, which is why they sit separately in Healthcare Decisions rather than inside your will. Many people have both, and they do not overlap.

What We Do and Do Not Do

Powers of Attorney and Advance Decisions has two routes. You can build a document here, working through it section by section. Before you can finalise one, you acknowledge the disclaimer and execution checklist, and an independent qualified professional must complete a review. Or, if you already signed something elsewhere, you can upload it and we will store it exactly as given. An uploaded document cannot be finalised here, because it arrived executed and we did not draft it.

Either way, we do not register your document with any authority, and we do not confirm that it is valid. Requirements differ considerably from one country or region to another, and some documents may need witnessing or official registration before they have any effect. Building a document here is not the same as making it legally effective where you live.

Uploading a Copy

If you already have a signed document, you can upload a scan or photograph of it. Clear, complete pages are worth the extra minute: a copy that cuts off a signature or a witness block is much less useful to whoever needs to read it later.

Registering Where the Paper Original Lives

Whichever route you took, the copy here is only half the job. Register the document in the location registry as well, so the record says where the signed paper original is kept and who to contact for it. That is often the missing piece, because the usual problem is not that no document exists, it is that nobody knows where it is.

What to Record

• The kind of document, for example a power of attorney or an advance decision, and what it covers.
• Who is appointed to act for you, and how to reach them.
• The date it was signed, and any reference number given by a registering body.
• Anything a reader would need to know, such as a condition that has to be met before it applies.

A copy is useful, but a hospital, bank or registry may ask for the signed original, so record where it physically lives. A solicitor’s office, a safe at home and a bank deposit box are all common answers, and any of them is fine as long as somebody knows which one it is.

Your Decision, Recorded Per Document

These documents describe your health and your care, so we treat them as private by default. Nothing about them is disclosed to anyone unless you switch disclosure on yourself, and you make that choice separately for each document.

Turning Disclosure Off

You can withdraw that permission whenever you like. When disclosure is off, we do not share the document, confirm that it exists, or reveal where the original is kept, on any of the surfaces that would otherwise show it. Your choice is followed, not weighed against anything else.

If You Lose Capacity

If you have switched disclosure on, the people you designated can be told that a document exists and where to find it when it is needed. They see what you allowed and nothing more. Anyone you have shared with reaches the document through their own secure link, so you can see who has been given access.

These documents tend to be written once and then forgotten, which is how they end up out of step with your life. It is worth a look whenever something changes.

• Someone you appointed dies, moves abroad, or is no longer the person you would choose.
• You separate or divorce, or a relationship changes in a way that affects who should act for you.
• You move to another country or region, where the document may not carry the same weight.
• Your views on treatment change, which may mean an advance decision needs rewriting rather than editing.
• You sign a replacement document, in which case upload the new one and remove or supersede the old record so nobody follows the wrong version.

Changing what you have stored with us does not change the legal document itself. If the document needs to change, that is a matter for the professional who prepared it and for the rules that apply where you live.