Powers of attorney – statutory v common (people)** law documents

Following the previous two posts a question has been raised about the need to comply with the state-based legislation in each jurisdiction when creating a general power of attorney, as opposed to an enduring power of attorney.

Broadly the position in relation to general powers of attorney is as follows:

1. Each state has legislation setting out a statutory regime for making a general power of attorney;
2. In addition to this statutory regime, there is at common law the right to make a power of attorney or otherwise delegate the rights of a principal to an attorney;
3. Assuming the document creating the attorney appointment is properly crafted, a common law appointment of attorney will generally have more flexibility than a statutory document (which will often be in a standard pro-forma).

Enduring powers of attorney are not able to be made at common law and it is therefore necessary to rely on the statutory regime.

The reason that the common law does not support enduring powers of attorney is because a power of attorney terminates automatically when a principal loses legal capacity.

The common law treats a principal-agent relationship as a personal one. This means an agent has no authority to act on behalf of a principal if the principal themselves can no longer act.

** for the trainspotters, the title here is riffed from Pulp, ‘Common People’.