$49
Per year. Both powers of attorney, the revocable living trust and its pour over will, every other document, Legacy Lens™ and unlimited free edits for as long as your plan is active.
Choose CompleteEstate document
Somebody hasto sign for you
The document that lets a person you chose handle your money if you are alive but not able to. Not after you die, which is what a will covers. During the weeks or months in between, when the mortgage is still due.
About 10 minutesDurable and springing optionsFree updates forever
What it does
The gap nobody plans for
Every estate plan has a hole in the middle of it, and this is the document that fills it. A will speaks after you die. A trust holds what you own. Neither of them helps on a Tuesday when you are in an intensive care unit, the mortgage payment is due on Friday, and the bank will not discuss your account with your spouse because their name is not on it.
A financial power of attorney appoints an agent: one person you have chosen, given written authority to act on your finances when you cannot. Pay the bills, deposit the cheques, deal with the insurer, file the tax return, keep the household running. Durable means the authority survives your incapacity, which is the entire point, since an ordinary power of attorney would end at exactly the moment it became necessary.
It is worth being clear about what you are handing over. Your agent can do the financial things you could do, within the limits the document sets. You are not giving up control while you are able: you remain in charge of your own affairs and can revoke the appointment at any time you have capacity. What you are doing is deciding in advance who steps in, rather than leaving that to a process.
What happens without one
- Nobody, including a spouse, has automatic authority over accounts in your sole name
- A family member who needs to act has to apply to a court to be appointed
- That application takes time, costs money in filing and legal fees, and happens during the worst weeks of your life
- The person appointed is chosen through that process rather than chosen by you
- Ongoing court supervision and periodic accounting are common once someone is appointed
- Bills, payroll for a small business and insurance premiums keep falling due throughout
The court process exists precisely to protect people who cannot protect themselves, and it does that job. This document simply means your family does not have to use it, because you already answered the question it asks.
What is included
Broad enough to be useful, bounded enough to be safe
Generated from your answers against the statutory form and requirements of your state, because this is the document institutions are most likely to reject on a technicality.
01
Your agent, and a successor
Who acts for you, and who takes over if that person cannot or will not. A power of attorney with a single named agent and no successor is one phone call away from useless.
02
When the authority begins
Effective immediately, or springing, meaning it begins only on a documented finding of incapacity. Immediate is simpler for institutions to accept. Springing feels safer to most people. The document explains the trade off and records your choice.
03
The powers you grant, itemised
Banking, real property, investments, taxes, insurance, retirement accounts, business interests, government benefits and claims. Listed individually rather than as one sweeping sentence, because banks read the list.
04
The powers you withhold
Authority you deliberately do not grant. Making gifts of your property, changing beneficiary designations and creating or amending a trust are the usual candidates, and in most states they have to be granted expressly rather than assumed.
05
Guidance on compensation and records
Whether your agent may be reimbursed or paid, and the requirement that they keep records of what they do with your money. This protects your agent as much as it protects you.
06
Reliance and acceptance language
The provisions that let a third party accept the document in good faith. This is the practical difference between a form a bank honours and one it sends back.
07
Your state’s statutory form where one exists
Many states publish a form that institutions are effectively required to accept. Where yours does, that is the form you get, rather than a generic template that has to argue for itself.
08
An execution checklist and copies guidance
Notary and witness requirements for your state, plus who should hold a copy. A signed power of attorney nobody can find is functionally an unsigned one.
Who needs this
Every adult, and sooner than most people assume
This is the document with the widest gap between how many people need it and how many have it. Incapacity is not an age related event, which is the part that surprises people.
You are married, and accounts are in one name
Marriage does not confer automatic authority over a spouse’s individual accounts, retirement plans or solely owned property. It is the assumption we correct most often.
You own a home with a mortgage
Payments continue regardless of your health. So do property taxes, insurance and any repair the house decides to need. Somebody must have authority to pay them from your money.
You own or run a business
Payroll, suppliers and contracts do not pause. Naming an agent with express authority over business interests is often the difference between a handover and a shutdown.
You are single, or your family is far away
With no obvious person in the room, this document is the only place your choice exists. It is more important without a spouse, not less.
This document covers money and property only. Medical decisions are made under a Medical Power of Attorney, and most people should have both. Both are included in Legacy Complete™.
Part of your bigger plan
The cheapest large move on your score
On the LQ™ Score this is unusually good value for the effort. It takes about ten minutes, it costs nothing extra on a plan, and it closes a gap the platform otherwise flags on every single refresh.
It is also the document that keeps needing attention, and the platform is built for that. An agent who moves away, a successor who has since died, a business you started after signing, an institution that asked for a fresh copy because yours is eight years old. Each of those becomes a recommendation with points attached rather than a problem discovered at the worst moment.
Signing it moves Estate Readiness. Getting a copy to your agent and your bank moves the practical part that the score also tracks, because an executed document sitting only in a drawer has not finished doing its job.
What signing your POA is worth
0
Before
0
After
Smaller than a will in points, and the highest return for the time it takes. Estate Readiness leans on your LQ™ Score harder than any other pillar, and this is the fastest ten minutes available on it.
Points shown are illustrative. Your own movement depends on what you already had in place.
Pricing
Two ways to get it
$99
The financial power of attorney on its own, yours to keep. Locked once you finalise it, with no Legacy Lens™ and no further edits without a plan.
Buy the documentOne document is $99. Both powers of attorney and everything else is $49 a year.
And these two documents are the pair most likely to need changing, because they name a living person who has a life of their own. Free edits matter more here than on anything you sign once.
Questions
About powers of attorney, specifically
Ten minutes
Ten minutes, and the gap in the middle of your plan is closed.
Name your agent, name a successor, see your LQ™ Score, and decide about a plan afterwards.
Free forever. No card. You pay only when you want documents.