Legal Question in Administrative Law in California

Re: General Power Of ATty.

There are two possibly-applicable powers of attorney. First is a health-care decisions power of attorney, which gives the attorney-in-fact power to make decisions regarding issues such as elections for surgery or continuing life support efforts, when the principal is unable to make those decisions. Possibly this is what you are asking about. The provisions of law are found in Probate Code sections 4600 et seq. The Code provides a statutory form; see Probate Code section 4701. It is entitled "Power of Attorney for Health Care."

If, on the other hand, you want to give someone a more general power to manage your affairs for a period of time, this is not the desired form (although you might want to execute both, but they would cover different matters).

The Uniform Statutory Power of Attorney may be what you're looking for. It has a number of boxes that you can initial to give powers over certain matters, or you can give all powers by initialing the last line. It is described in the Probate Code at Sections 4400 et seq. and is illustrated at Section 4401.

I recommend sitting down with a local lawyer before filling out and signing any power of attorney form. That shouldn't cost much and would be much safer than handling it yourself, where the result might be a paper that was ineffective because of a mistake in execution, or worse than that, gave greater powers than you intended.