Articles
Who Steps In If You Can’t? Powers of Attorney in Manitoba
Author: Philippe Richer
Your dad is still living at home in St. Vital, but his memory has been slipping. You have been helping him for months, picking up groceries, sorting his mail, keeping an eye on the bills. One afternoon you go to the credit union to move some money so his property taxes clear on time. You have a power of attorney he signed years ago, and you bring it with you. The teller reads it, then steps away to talk to a manager. When she comes back, she tells you the document is too old, and that the branch needs to “review it” before they can let you do anything.
You are standing at the counter with a signed legal document, trying to help your father, and the bank has just told you no. This is one of the most stressful moments families run into when they are caring for an aging parent, and it usually arrives without warning. It helps to understand what a power of attorney actually does, why a bank might balk at one, and what makes a document that holds up when you need it.
What a power of attorney actually is
A power of attorney is a document in which one person, the donor, gives another person, the attorney, the authority to manage their financial and legal affairs. The word “attorney” here does not mean a lawyer. It means the person you have chosen to act for you. You can name your spouse, an adult child, a sibling, or anyone you trust.
In Manitoba, powers of attorney are governed by The Powers of Attorney Act (CCSM c. P97). The Act sets out who can grant one, what the attorney can and cannot do, and the duties the attorney owes to the person they are acting for. Those duties are real. An attorney has to act in the donor’s best interest, keep the donor’s money separate from their own, and keep records. It is a position of trust, with real legal obligations attached.
A power of attorney covers finances and property. It does not cover medical decisions. Health care is handled by a separate document, a health care directive, which names someone to make care decisions if you cannot speak for yourself. The two work as a pair, and most people who plan ahead end up with both.
Why the bank questioned the document
Here is the part that catches families off guard. A bank or credit union is not refusing to honour the power of attorney to be difficult. They are protecting themselves, and in a roundabout way, protecting your parent.
When a bank lets an attorney move money, it is relying entirely on that document being valid and still in force. If the donor has since cancelled it, signed a newer one, or if there is a family dispute about whether the parent was capable when they signed, the bank can be on the hook. So the bigger the request, or the older the document, the more carefully they look.
A few things make a bank hesitate:
- The document is old, and they want comfort that it has not been revoked or replaced.
- It was a do-it-yourself or downloaded form, and the wording is unclear or missing pieces.
- It does not clearly say it survives the donor’s mental incapacity, which is the exact situation you are now in.
- The signing was not properly witnessed.
None of these mean the document is worthless. But each one gives the bank a reason to slow down, and a slowdown is the last thing you need when a bill is due.
“Springing” versus “Enduring” powers of attorney
One distinction matters more than people realize when they are setting one up.
An enduring power of attorney takes effect as soon as it is signed. Your attorney can act right away, even while you are perfectly capable. People often pause at this, because it sounds like handing over the keys too early. In practice, it is common between spouses, and it is the version that causes the fewest problems at the bank, because there is no separate hurdle to clear before the attorney can act.
A springing power of attorney only takes effect when a triggering event happens, usually a declaration that you have lost capacity. It feels safer, because nothing happens until it is needed. The catch is that someone then has to prove the trigger has occurred, often with a doctor’s assessment, before the attorney can do anything. In practice, most doctors will not sign off on a loss of competency until competency is completely gone. That means during the long stretch where a parent is declining, struggling with decisions, and clearly needs help, the attorney still cannot step in because the trigger has not yet occurred. That gap can last months or longer, and it is exactly the window where families need help the most.
For most people, we recommend an enduring power of attorney over a springing one. The stress a springing POA creates during the in-between period, where a parent is clearly declining but has not yet lost capacity entirely, usually outweighs the comfort of knowing it “only kicks in when needed.” An enduring POA avoids that gap altogether.
What makes a power of attorney hold up
If you are setting one up, or helping a parent set one up, a few things separate a document that works from one that gets second-guessed:
- Name the right person, and a backup. Choose someone trustworthy, organized, and willing. Name an alternate in case your first choice cannot act when the time comes.
- Decide when it takes effect. Enduring or springing, on purpose, with the trade-offs in front of you.
- Say clearly that it continues through incapacity. A power of attorney that is meant to help during declining health needs to state that it endures if you lose mental capacity. This is the whole reason most families want one.
- Get it witnessed properly. Manitoba has rules about who can witness the signing. Getting this wrong is a common reason a document is later questioned.
- Keep it current. A document signed twenty years ago, naming someone who has since moved away or passed, invites exactly the kind of review you do not want. Revisit it when your life changes.
- Tell people where it is. A perfect document in a drawer no one can find helps no one.
What this looked like for one Winnipeg family
The details here are changed and generalized, but the shape is common. A woman came to us after her mother was moved into care. Years earlier, her mother had signed a short power of attorney she found online. It named the daughter, but it never said it continued if her mother lost capacity, and it had only one witness.
For small things, the credit union had let it slide. But when the family needed to sell the mother’s condo to help pay for care, the deal stalled. The buyer’s lawyer would not accept the document for a real estate transfer, and Land Titles would not move the title on it. The mother, by then, could no longer sign a new one.
The family was not left without options, but the path got longer and more expensive than it needed to be. Had the original document been drafted to endure incapacity and witnessed properly, the sale would have closed on the daughter’s signature. The fix, in the end, cost far more than doing it right the first time would have.
Three things Manitobans get wrong about powers of attorney
“I have a will, so I’m covered.” A will only takes effect when you die. A power of attorney is for while you are alive but unable to manage your own affairs. They do opposite jobs, and you want both.
“My family can just step in if something happens.” They cannot do that automatically. Without a valid power of attorney, your relatives have no legal authority over your accounts or property. If you lose capacity without one, the family may have to apply to have a committee appointed through the court, which is slower and more involved than the document you could have signed in an afternoon.
“Any form will do.” The form is the easy part. Whether it takes effect at the right time, endures incapacity, and was witnessed correctly is what decides if it works when a bank or Land Titles is looking at it. A document that fails at the counter is worse than no comfort at all, because you were counting on it.
Set it up before you need it
The hardest version of this is the one we cannot fix: a parent who has lost capacity and never signed a power of attorney, or signed one that does not hold up. Once capacity is gone, the document can no longer be made. The window closes quietly, and families often do not notice until they are standing at a counter being told no.
If you are caring for an aging parent, or thinking about your own plan, a power of attorney is worth getting right while it is still easy. We will walk through who should act for you, when it should take effect, and the wording that keeps a bank or Land Titles from second-guessing it. It pairs naturally with a will review, so many people handle both in one sitting.
If this is on your mind, give us a call or book a short consult. We will keep it straightforward.
