Notary & Legal Services Made Easy For Over 30 Years

Life Planning

Servicing: Victoria, Oak Bay, Saanich, Uplands, and the University area.

Do you have questions about the current status of your estate?

Powers of Attorney

Financial/Property Issues

Preparing a Power of Attorney (POA) enables you to appoint a trusted person to look after your affairs in the event you become mentally incapable due to accident or illness. It is also common to prepare a POA if you will be out of the country for an extended period of time, or if you are a student moving away to attend a post secondary institution. This document allows your spouse, family member, friend, or legal representative—your Attorney—to handle a variety of transactions on your behalf such as banking, vehicle or home insurance, utilities, property transfers, and many others.

Powers of Attorney have changed significantly in the last couple of years and are now a more flexible document. You have the ability to appoint alternate attorneys who may act in the event your first choice is unable or unwilling to do so. We can also customize paragraphs according to your circumstances and preferences as well as indicating restrictions within the document to limit certain transactions.

Copies

We advise you not to make unnecessary copies of your Power of Attorney. Your POA is a legal document, and your Attorney will require the original in order to act for you. A copy is not sufficient. Any agency requiring a copy of your POA (e.g., your bank, insurance company, care home, etc.) can make their own copy from the original and return the original to you. We strongly advise that you not relinquish the original POA to anyone. If your POA gets misplaced, you will need to complete a new one, and this may be difficult if you are travelling, incapacitated and/or deemed incapable of executing legal documents. Please keep your POA in a secure location and advise your Attorney where is stored and how they can access it if they need it.

The best time to do a Power of Attorney is when you are healthy.

Representation Agreements

Financial/Health Issues

Representation Agreements are designed to allow an adult to appoint a representative, or multiple representatives, to make decisions regarding health care, personal care, and routine management of financial affairs. It is possible to appoint one representative to handle all areas, or multiple representatives with areas of specific responsibility. As with Powers of Attorney, these documents are flexible and can be customized.

We follow a similar process for preparing Wills, Powers of Attorney, and Representation Agreements. Clients will have two appointments with the Notary, the first of which is primarily for gathering information. The Notary will discuss with you which estate planning documents you already have, what the status of your estate is, and ensure that the document you are preparing fits with your overall estate planning goals. The second appointment is for reviewing the documents and signing. Usually there are two weeks between appointments; however, exceptions can be made.

Wills

Preparing a Last Will and Testament ensures that, after you die, your assets are distributed according to your wishes. In the absence of a Will, the courts may appoint someone to distribute your assets and can decide who the beneficiaries of those assets will be. Wills also provide an opportunity to appoint guardians for minor children, indicate your preferences regarding burial/cremation/service/ceremony after death, and name charities as beneficiaries.

For more information, please visit our Wills & Estates page.

What to Bring to the Appointment

Two pieces of identification (one government-issued picture ID, one secondary)
Full legal names and current addresses of anyone being mentioned (i.e. primary and alternate Attorneys or Representatives)
Copy of existing legal documents
Copy of Title or most recent Assessment (if you are a property owner)

You will need two appointments with the Notary. The first appointment will be to gather the required information and answer any questions you may have. The Notary will ask you a series of questions in order to tailor the document(s) to your specific needs. We then prepare the document(s), and the second appointment will be to review what we have prepared, make any changes if required, and complete the signing.

Please allow for an hour-long appointment each visit. We find that, when discussing estate planning matters, most appointments take 45 to 60 minutes.