Estate Planning

Free Florida Durable Power of Attorney - Will it work?

By David M. Goldman

Over the weekend, I read an article about a Free Power of Attorney and decided to look for one for a Florida Durable Power of Attorney. I ran across a website by H & R Block called RocketLawyer.com.

This website offered me a free Durable power of attorney for Florida. The fine print was that I was going to be charged 19.95 per month for ever if I did not cancel my account within 5 days. ( I did cancel my account, but it took me a while because they do not tell you how to cancel the account. (FYI to cancel your RocketLawyer account simply send and email to support@rocketlawyer.com with the words Cancel Account in the subject.

Anyway, I thought I could use their service to create a valid Power of Attorney but I wanted to know if someone who did not know what to do could create an invalid document.

I must say that I was surprised that not only was the document not Florida specific, and did not offer any of the protections that a valid Durable Power of Attorney can offer like being reimbursed for the costs of refusal to accept the authority of the document but it also allowed me to create in invalid document.

Even scarier that an invalid document, it allowed me to simply revoke prior designations by putting a line in my document. Anyone who has been to a Florida Estate Planning Lawyer knows that to revoke a valid Durable Power Of Attorney one must file a revocation in the county where they live.

What did I learn from creating my Free Florida Durable Power of Attorney? I learned that for $240 a year, I can create an invalid, unenforceable Florida Durable Power of Attorney which wrongly purports to revoke my old Durable Power of Attorney. This invalid revocation could allow my old agent to continue to act as my agent in making decisions on my own. my old agent will be able to use my authority without liability.

Oh yea, did I forget to mention that I was not given the opportunity to create a contingent deployment version of the Durable Power of Attorney, the free version took effect immediately, its a good think that the free version was not valid.

What a bargain.

Full post as published by Florida Estate Planning Lawyer Blog on March 10, 2008 (boomark / email).