Frequently Asked
Find your answers here, or contact us through the form below.
For Businesses
Whether you’re a lawyer, financial planner, or wealth advisor, the POA Registry introduces safeguards to improve the overall expectations of when substitute/supported decision making is being used – along with tracking the last-in-time status of the document. As a result, the POA Registry helps in reducing fraud.
As a service provider, you may be required to take consent from a client’s substitute decision maker. It’s, of course, vital to know who that substitute decision maker is and when their authority comes into effect. Thus, it may be necessary to search the POA Registry when you suspect incapacity, when a client informs you of a diagnosis, or when someone comes in claiming to be a client’s substitute decision maker and you need to verify their identity.
Registration and activation can only be completed in the POA Registry by authorized legal accounts (which may be different based on the jurisdiction) however, anybody can make a request to our internal compliance resources. The POA Registry provides pre-defined access for your substitute decision making stakeholders with enhanced safeguards (i.e. ID Verification).
For Substitute Decision-makers
After an individual uploads the document appointing a substitute decision maker, we issue our unique Registry keys to various parties who have a specific procedure to follow in order to access and/or activate a Power of Attorney, including the substitute decision maker themselves.
A substitute decision maker would access the POA Registry at a time when the grantor is no longer able to make decisions for themselves and action needs to be taken, whether that be in regards to the grantor’s finances, health care, property, etc. A substitute decision maker would need this document to make such decisions.
The substitute decision making document usually states what conditions have to be met before this authority is activated and what the scope of the authority is. Thus, if you need assistance determining your authority, our system permits you to search, access, and/or activate the authority set by the document. We believe that someone’s substitute decision-making information should not be confidential if service providers are investigating the incapacity of a decision-maker.
For Grantors
The POA Registry is more than just a storage location. Not only do we assist in identifying and validating substitute decision makers, but we also ensure that the proper procedures are followed when activating a substitute decision making document, thus reducing opportunities for fraud. Our multidisciplinary practitioners have created meaningful procedures related to activation using technology to streamline timely information – including the impact of medical information on decision-making.
No, it is intended to support any substitute-decision-making appointments authorized in Canada, including: Continuing Power of Attorney for Property, Power of Attorney for Care, Power of Attorney for Health Care , Limited/Specific Power of Attorney, General Power of Attorney, Enduring Power of Attorney, Springing Power of Attorney, Representative Agreement, Advanced Directive, Personal Directive, Power of Attorney for Healthcare, Non-continuing Power of Attorney for Property, Healthcare directive, Care Directive, and Advanced Health Care Directive.
There are three ways to register a document.
- Make a request to your lawyer to register on your behalf. If your lawyer does not have an account, Click here to request credentials. Your lawyer will receive the acknowledgement and direction to sign at the same time as your other documents which provides your lawyer authorization to register the document accordingly.
- Make a request to your service provider to have their legal compliance resources to register on your behalf
- Click here to make a request to our internal compliance department