Jameson Stone Law prepares financial powers of attorney across Central Pennsylvania, and Daniel Jameson leads the estate work. Two things decide whether one actually works when it is needed. Whether it was executed the way Pennsylvania requires, and whether it grants the specific authority your agent turns out to need. Both are settled at the drafting stage.
Since 2015
Pennsylvania tightened these rules considerably with Act 95, which applies to any power of attorney signed since the start of 2015. The document has to be dated and signed by you. It has to be acknowledged before a notary. It has to be witnessed by two people who are each eighteen or older. And it has to carry the statutory notice, in capital letters, at the beginning, signed by you.
There is a fifth step that catches people out because it happens later. Your agent has to sign the statutory acknowledgment before exercising any authority at all, and until they do, they have none. The witnesses also cannot be the agent or the notary, which matters more than it sounds because spouses commonly name each other, and a spouse who is the agent cannot witness the document. A form downloaded from the internet is not exempt from any of this, and it frequently does not include it.
What It Does Not Cover
A general grant of authority is not general. Pennsylvania sets out nine categories of power that an agent cannot exercise unless the document expressly says so, and they are exactly the ones that matter when a family is under pressure. Making a gift. Creating, amending or revoking a trust. Changing a beneficiary designation. Creating or changing rights of survivorship. Delegating the agent’s own authority. Disclaiming property. Waiving certain annuity rights. Exercising fiduciary powers. Accessing electronic communications.
Gifting is where this bites hardest. A great deal of planning around long-term care depends on an agent being able to make gifts, and where the document does not grant that power, the agent simply cannot, however sensible it would be. An agent who does it anyway can be personally liable for it. This is the difference between a document that solves the problem and one that merely looks like it does.
Without One
Where somebody loses capacity with no power of attorney in place, the family cannot simply step in. Banks will not talk to them, the mortgage cannot be dealt with, the house cannot be sold, and nobody has authority over anything. What is left is a guardianship petition to the Orphans’ Court, which means a hearing, medical evidence, a judge deciding who should be appointed, and ongoing reporting to the court afterward.
That process costs money, takes time the family does not have, and is a matter of public record. It also puts the decision in a judge’s hands rather than yours. A power of attorney signed while you still have capacity avoids all of it, which is why it is generally the most useful document in an estate plan and also the one people leave latest.
What We Handle
Authority over banking, property, taxes and business matters, drafted to the current statutory requirements.
The express grants an agent needs for care planning, which a general document does not confer.
Authority limited to a company's affairs, kept separate from personal financial arrangements.
Checking whether a pre-2015 power of attorney still does what the family now needs it to.
Our Process
01
Your agent, a successor in case that person cannot serve, and whether either of them should act alone.
Which of the nine express powers you want granted, decided against what your circumstances are likely to require.
Notary, two eligible witnesses, the signed notice, and the agent acknowledgment completed before anything is needed.
The paperwork here is the easy part, and it is not what goes wrong. What goes wrong is a document that says something the person did not mean, or that covers assets it has no authority over, or that has not been looked at since circumstances changed underneath it.
Yes, and it will be valid if it is in writing and signed at the end. Pennsylvania sets a low bar and a handwritten will meets it. The risks are not in the execution, they are in the drafting. Ambiguous wording, a residuary clause that does not work, no alternative beneficiary if someone dies first, assets that the will has no authority over, and a signature with text after it that may be disregarded. Those problems only surface when the person who could have explained the document is no longer there to explain it, and by then they cost far more than the will would have.
Yes, even though the statute partly does it for you. Divorce automatically revokes provisions in favour of a former spouse and voids their appointment as executor, but it leaves the rest of the will standing. If they were the primary beneficiary with no alternative named, your estate may pass under the intestacy rules to people you would not have chosen. It also does nothing to beneficiary designations on insurance and retirement accounts, which continue naming a former spouse until you change them yourself.
The intestacy statute decides, and it makes every choice you would have made. Who inherits, in what shares, and who is appointed to administer the estate, which may not be the family member best suited to it. Guardianship of minor children is determined the same way. The estate still goes through estate administration either way, so there is no saving in it, only a loss of control. Nothing about the statutory scheme accounts for a stepchild you raised, a partner you never married, or a child who needs more help than the others.
Making a valid will in Pennsylvania takes a piece of paper and a signature. Making one that does what you intended, covers what it needs to, and still works in ten years takes a conversation. Daniel Jameson leads the firm’s estate work, and the first conversation costs nothing.