{"id":5216,"date":"2024-12-09T13:50:44","date_gmt":"2024-12-09T13:50:44","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/s37407.p1377.sites.pressdns.com\/resources\/power-of-attorney-vs-guardianship\/"},"modified":"2025-09-29T13:50:53","modified_gmt":"2025-09-29T13:50:53","slug":"power-of-attorney-vs-guardianship","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.care.com\/c\/power-of-attorney-vs-guardianship\/","title":{"rendered":"What\u2019s the difference between power of attorney and guardianship?"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>At first glance, durable power of attorney (POA) and guardianship might seem interchangeable. But while both are important legal roles that give one person decision-making power over another&rsquo;s financial, medical and personal matters, there are important distinctions between the two.&nbsp;<\/p><div class=\"wp-block-custom-dynamic-list key-takeaways-block\"><h3>Key takeaways<\/h3><div class=\"key-takeaways-container\"><ul><li>Durable power of attorney (POA) and guardianship, while somewhat similar, are not interchangeable terms.<\/li><li>A POA is a legal document that allows a person to appoint someone to act on their behalf in certain matters, while a guardianship is a court-appointed person who&rsquo;s given authority to manage financial and healthcare decisions for someone else.<\/li><li>When a person has a POA in place, it makes becoming a guardian much more seamless (and takes less time) than without.<\/li><\/ul><\/div><\/div><h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\" id=\"h-what-is-a-power-of-attorney\" data-toc-id=\"7b2797ad\"><b>What is a power of attorney<\/b>?<\/h2><p>This is a legal document that allows you to appoint an agent to act on your behalf in certain matters, such as financial or healthcare.&nbsp;In order for the agent to stay in effect, it must be a&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.law.cornell.edu\/wex\/durable_power_of_attorney\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">durable POA<\/a>. This is crucially important. With any other type of POA, the agent actually&nbsp;<em>loses<\/em>&nbsp;the power to act on another&rsquo;s behalf when that person becomes incapacitated or enfeebled, which is exactly the time they need someone to take over. <\/p><p>There are different types of durable POAs. They can be in charge of one, or both, of the following:<\/p><ul class=\"wp-block-list\"><li>Medical issues.<\/li><li>Financial decision-making. <\/li><\/ul><h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\" id=\"h-what-is-guardianship\" data-toc-id=\"2d0a4ddd\"><b>What is guardianship?<\/b><\/h2><p>A guardian or conservator is a court-appointed person who&rsquo;s given authority to manage the finances and\/or health care decisions for someone who is no longer able to make those decisions on their own. In some states, the terms guardian and conservator are interchangeable. In others, they&rsquo;re separate roles, so one person could be appointed to handle finances while another manages the healthcare and personal business.<\/p><p>Some people appoint the same person in both roles, while others choose to appoint different people to handle healthcare and finances. That route may make sense if, for instance, a relative is competent with finances but may be too squeamish to follow specific health care wishes in a crisis.<\/p><p>A person can set up a <a href=\"https:\/\/www.care.com\/c\/what-is-a-power-of-attorney\/\">power of attorney<\/a> and name an agent to handle their affairs&nbsp;<i>before&nbsp;<\/i>anything happens to them. This gives people the choice in who should oversee their affairs. Guardianship, on the other hand, can only be obtained&nbsp;<i>after&nbsp;<\/i>a person has become incapacitated, and the court will be the one to decide who will have the decision-making power. <\/p><p>A durable POA established ahead of time can preclude the need for a guardianship. If you don&rsquo;t have a durable POA, you risk the possibility that your loved ones&nbsp;may be hamstrung and unable to make time-sensitive decisions on your behalf.<\/p><h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\" id=\"h-what-are-key-differences-between-power-of-attorney-and-guardianship\" data-toc-id=\"a21e8e2b\">What are key differences between power of attorney and guardianship?<\/h2><p>In addition to their overall roles, here are two key differences between a POA and guardianship.<\/p><h3 class=\"wp-block-heading\" data-toc-id=\"75ee520d\">Power of attorney can be set up in advance<\/h3><p>Becoming a person&rsquo;s guardian requires paperwork and a hearing in front of a judge. While the process may move swiftly, there will certainly be a lag time between when a person becomes incapacitated and when someone else can take over. On the other hand, if you have a POA in place, it&rsquo;s much more seamless: You simply provide the care team or financial institution a copy of the signed power of attorney, as well as identification proving you&rsquo;re the person listed in the POA, and can immediately begin acting as the agent.<\/p><h3 class=\"wp-block-heading\" id=\"h-guardianship-can-be-contested\" data-toc-id=\"0f3624c5\">Guardianship can be contested<\/h3><p>When a person requests guardianship over an older adult,&nbsp;the older party can represent themselves in court&nbsp;(or with a lawyer) as to why guardianship isn&rsquo;t necessary or why a specific person shouldn&rsquo;t be named guardian. This typically happens if the person still maintains some mental competency. And if there&rsquo;s more than one person who wants to be named guardian &mdash; say, two siblings who both want to care for their aging parent &mdash; the process can be even more complicated, as the court will consider the character and resources of each interested party.<\/p><p>With a durable POA, however, you get to choose the person you want in charge of your affairs, so there&rsquo;s little need for court proceedings or a fight for control. In other words, a durable POA is much preferable to a guardianship, and can prevent a lot of problems down the line.<\/p><p><em>*Article originally written by Kate Rockwood<\/em><\/p><p><\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Both legal terms are used in senior care situations, but there are important distinctions between power of attorney vs. guardianship.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":975,"featured_media":31204,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"enable_toc":true,"care_reviewed_by":0,"care_post_updated_flag":false,"care_updated_date":"2025-09-29T13:50:44.429Z","last_update":"2024-12-09","view_count":51970,"footnotes":"","_members_access_role":[],"_members_access_error":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[1071],"member-type":[3],"vertical":[29,8,33],"platform":[2],"class_list":["post-5216","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-family-caregiving","member-type-seeker","vertical-money-planning","vertical-seniors","vertical-senior-care-advice-tips","platform-resources"],"acf":[],"created":"2019-02-05","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.care.com\/c\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5216","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.care.com\/c\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.care.com\/c\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.care.com\/c\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/975"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.care.com\/c\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5216"}],"version-history":[{"count":10,"href":"https:\/\/www.care.com\/c\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5216\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":222102,"href":"https:\/\/www.care.com\/c\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5216\/revisions\/222102"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.care.com\/c\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/31204"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.care.com\/c\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5216"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.care.com\/c\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5216"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.care.com\/c\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5216"},{"taxonomy":"member-type","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.care.com\/c\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/member-type?post=5216"},{"taxonomy":"vertical","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.care.com\/c\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/vertical?post=5216"},{"taxonomy":"platform","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.care.com\/c\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/platform?post=5216"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}