After my mom had a stroke, completing paperwork such as insurance forms became difficult for her. She agreed to give me power of attorney. We completed the paperwork with an attorney and distributed it to all of her account service providers (banks, insurance companies, brokerages, etc.). Every single company said they would not acknowledge me as the POA unless we also filled-out their own company-specific POA forms. First question: can they legally require that?
About eight months after her stroke, my mom fell and broke her hip. She did not recover well, and both her physical and mental capacity have diminished. She understood the POA forms originally, but I doubt she would understand them now. We changed my mom's medical insurance in the last open enrollment period, and the new insurer wants my mom to complete their company-specific POA forms. Should I sign these as my mom's POA? It seems ridiculous to sign a POA authorization as a POA. I am sure this is only the first of many times we will face this question as my mom's needs change. What is the proper way to handle this?
1 Answer from Attorneys
It's a very common problem and always a mess.
NY General Obligations Law section 5-1504 provides that a NY Statutory Power of Attorney may not be unreasonably rejected.
That doesn't mean that the national banks and financial institutions care at all about NY law, as you've found out.
Their law departments cannot stay on top of the Power of Attorney laws of all 50 states, so they come up with their own PoA which gives them additional protections and which they are familiar with. I know JPMorgan Chase will accept the NY PoA; the branch will fax it to the law department for review and will respond yes or no within an hour or so. Citibank takes longer; HSBC is nightmare. Morgan Stanley accepts the NY form. In any event, to force a company doing business in NY to accept the Power of Attorney, you'd need to hire a lawyer to bring a "special proceeding" to compel the financial institution to accept the Power of Attorney. This is not very painful, but it will cost you some money. You wrote that after mom's stroke you sent out the NY PoA to the companies, and they rejected it. I wonder why you didn't take action then, but waited until after mom fell to take action.
Baring that, it's always easiest not to fight the back office and go ahead and complete their Power of Attorney form. If mom can't sign or a notary won't notarize mom's signature, then you've got a problem.
Since you're mom's Power of Attorney per NY law, don't hesitate to sign mom's name per the instructions to Agents included in the NY Statutory Power of Attorney. Give that a shot.
Unfortunately you may end up filing for guardianship for mom. None of the financial institutions will deny your authority as guardian. This is royal pain in the neck and costly. It may be your only option though.
Get the lawyer back in the loop and ask for his or her help with bringing the special proceeding.
Good luck.
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