Often clients want to appoint more than one person to act as their attorney when making a Power of Attorney but this can sometimes cause significant problems.
There are two ways to appoint more than one person to act as your attorney. One is to state that they are required to both act together and the other is to say that either one of them can act alone.
The problem with requiring both of them to act together is that this can often be cumbersome. Every cheque written to pay a bill needs to be signed by both attorneys and often a bank will not allow access to online banking for more than one person.
A problem that can arise from allowing two attorneys to act independently is that one may not always know what the other is doing and accounts can easily be overdrawn or bills can be missed or paid twice.
Because of this it is preferable to appoint one person to act as your attorney and appoint the second person as a backup or alternate attorney who can only act if the first person is unable or unwilling to act.
Deborah A. Todd
