Answer:
Answer by Randy Carey: It would be a matter of State law. In some States, you cannot refuse to accept a properly executed Power of Attorney.
Answer:
Answer by Ken Golliher: Dad executed a valid, durable POA 7 years ago. His health has failed in the interim and he is now in a nursing home, incapcitated. (He no longer has the physical or mental capacity to execute a legal document.) The attorney-in-fact, his son, presents the POA in preparation for taking control of his monies, all of which are in Bank A.
Bank A says, "We don't do that" and refuses to accept the POA.
Now, the son apparently has no choice, he will have to go to court and offer evidence in public that his father is legally incompetent and have himself appointed as the conservator or personal representative. Thereafter, he will need to file periodic accountings with the court. Personally, I doubt that he will jump at that option. Instead, I think he will just sue Bank A for its unreasonable refusal to accept the POA. He should win pretty easily.
Banks cannot just refuse to accept POAs across the board. They need to have a reason, some problem with this POA, not POAs in general. If they like, they can have bank counsel review the POA prior to acceptance and, yes, they can ask the person offering the document to pay any fees involved. If the position is that we only refuse them when the principal is in good health, then the bank should assume the principal will close his accounts and the attorney-in-fact will not be involved.
Answer:
Answer by John Burnett: The draft "Uniform Power of Attorney Act" (UPOAA) that has been introduced in several state legislatures (and passed in a number of them) includes language that almost ensures acceptance of a POA. A bank can take some time (if memory serves, it can be four business days, according to the model legislation) to vet the POA or to get it translated, both at the expense of the principal, and must either accept it or give its reasons for not doing so. And, as Ken suggests, it had better be a good reason addressing a problem with the particular document, or the bank could have some significant 'splainin' to do.
You can get the status of adoption of the UPOAA (it's the law in 13 states and the USVI as of now) at http://www.uniformlaws.org/Act.aspx?title=Power%20of%20Attorney.
First published on BankersOnline.com 12/17/12
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