What is DPOA?

And in Canada, "Durable" can be applied to either or both financial and healthcare POA. They are separate documents.

And to confuse matters further, it can be 'springing', which means an event has to happen in order for it to be enacted. But a 'springing' one can be activated by the person issuing the POA if they no longer want to handle their affairs.

In my family, a family member now has their durable, POA handle some financial transactions, taxes etc, the 'bigger' things, while continuing to handle their day to day finances, by themselves.

There are two types of POAs. One is giving your power for a specific thing. Like with my Mom. She was taking my daughter to England with her to see my sister. I had a lawyer write up a temporary POA giving my Mom the right to speak for me if something should happen to my daughter.

Durable is until death or the person who has assigned a person wants to change their POA to someone else. You should have both financial and medical made up at the same time.

c47090, DPOA is "durable power of attorney." If an existing POA does not specifically include the word "durable," then it is voided if the grantor becomes incapacitated. As freqflyer described, POAs and DPOAs can be for financial matters or for medical matters or for both. If you are currently your dad's POA agent and the document does not state that it is "durable" (or "springing") POA, then I suggest that you explain the insufficiency of his POA and ask him if he wants to change it so that you can make decisions for him if he becomes incapacitated.  The AgingCare.com homepage has a link under "Money and Legal" that helps explain all this in more detail.

c47090, a DPOA is a Dual Power of Attorney which means one person, or two if a second name is written, has both the financial and medical power.

You have a Power of Attorney, do you know if it is for helping your Dad with financial matters, or helping your Dad with medical matters. If it is one of those, then someone else has the POA for the other item.

Was the POA drawn up by an Attorney?