Must third parties honor a power of attorney?
The law requires that third parties honor power of attorney under our state statutes. However, as the power of attorney ages, the financial institutions, which are usually the ones receiving these power of attorneys, question whether they’re still valid. There’s an affidavit that can be signed by the person who’s presenting the power of attorney that says this is still effective, it hasn’t been revoked, the person is alive. The difficulty has been in processing that power of attorney as well as the affidavit because if it’s not something the banking institution is used to seeing because it’s old, then it just takes longer for that power of attorney to be used by the bank.