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Most people who sign a will believe their estate plan is complete, it is not. A power of attorney and a will solve entirely different problems at entirely different stages of your life, and treating one as a substitute for the other leaves a gap that no judge, no bank, and no doctor can close when a crisis arrives. A power of attorney is the legal document that authorizes a trusted person to manage your financial affairs and healthcare decisions while you are still alive. A will is the document that distributes your assets after you die. These two documents never overlap, and neither can do the other’s job.

This guide from T-Bridge Finance LLC covers exactly what each document does, how they differ, what happens when only one is in place, and how to build an estate plan that protects you at every stage of life, not just the final one.

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What Is a Power of Attorney?

A power of attorney is a legal document in which one person, called the principal, grants another person, called the agent or attorney-in-fact, the legal authority to act on the principal’s behalf. The power of attorney can be broad or narrow, covering financial transactions, healthcare decisions, or both, depending entirely on how the document is drafted. Regardless of its scope, every power of attorney operates only during the principal’s lifetime. The moment the principal dies, the power of attorney terminates automatically and completely.

The word “attorney-in-fact” does not mean the agent must be a licensed attorney. The agent can be any adult the principal trusts, whether a spouse, an adult child, a sibling, a close friend, or a qualified professional. What matters is that the person named has both the legal authority granted by the document and the personal integrity to exercise that authority in the principal’s best interest.

There are two primary categories of power of attorney used in estate planning.

A financial power of attorney authorizes the agent to manage bank accounts, investment accounts, tax filings, real estate transactions, and other financial matters. A healthcare power of attorney, which is also called a medical power of attorney or a healthcare proxy, authorizes the agent to make medical decisions when the principal cannot communicate their own wishes.

Most estate planning professionals, including the team at T-Bridge Finance LLC, recommend establishing both documents as part of a complete plan.

What Does a Financial Power of Attorney Cover?

A financial power of attorney is one of the most consequential legal documents in any estate plan because it grants another person the authority to make major financial decisions in your name. The scope of that authority depends entirely on how the document is written, and a well-drafted financial power of attorney can be tailored to be as broad or as limited as the principal requires.

What a Financial Power of Attorney Allows Your Agent to Do

A financial power of attorney can authorize the agent to access and manage bank and investment accounts, pay recurring bills and ongoing expenses, file federal and state tax returns, buy or sell real estate, manage business interests, apply for government benefits including Medicare and Medicaid, and make gifts on the principal’s behalf when the document expressly permits that authority. The breadth of these powers makes the document an extraordinarily practical tool for families who want to ensure that financial life continues without interruption during an illness or incapacity.

What makes a financial power of attorney particularly valuable in estate planning is precisely the ability to avoid court intervention. Without this document in place, no one, including a spouse or an adult child, has automatic legal authority to manage another adult’s finances. A court must grant that authority through a formal guardianship or conservatorship proceeding, and that process is slow, expensive, and emotionally taxing for everyone involved.

What a Financial Power of Attorney Does Not Allow Your Agent to Do

A financial power of attorney has explicit legal limits that are just as important to understand as the powers it confers. The agent cannot create, modify, or revoke the principal’s will. The agent cannot act in their own financial interest at the principal’s expense unless the document narrowly and explicitly permits it. The agent cannot continue to act after the principal’s death because a power of attorney terminates at that moment, and any financial action taken by an agent following the principal’s death is legally void.

The agent is also bound by a fiduciary duty to act solely in the principal’s best interest at all times. Agent abuse does occur, and the estate planning guidance provided by Dr. Taiwo Akindahunsi to T-Bridge Finance LLC clients consistently emphasizes the importance of naming a co-agent, a successor agent, or both, along with building in accountability measures such as requiring periodic accounting to a neutral third party.

What Does a Healthcare Power of Attorney Cover?

A healthcare power of attorney authorizes a named agent to make medical decisions on the principal’s behalf when the principal is unable to communicate or lacks the mental capacity to make decisions independently. Those decisions can include consent to or refusal of surgical procedures, medication choices, hospitalization, rehabilitation care, and, depending on how the document is drafted, end-of-life care decisions.

Healthcare Power of Attorney vs. a Living Will

A healthcare power of attorney and a living will are closely related but legally and functionally distinct, and many people mistakenly assume they are the same document. A healthcare power of attorney names a specific person and gives that person the authority to make medical decisions in real time, including situations the principal never anticipated. A living will, which is also called an advance directive, records the principal’s own written instructions about specific medical treatments and scenarios, such as whether the principal wants life-sustaining treatment if they are in a permanent vegetative state.

The practical difference between these two documents is significant. A living will speaks to the scenarios the principal thought about and wrote about in advance. A healthcare power of attorney gives a trusted agent the flexibility to respond to medical situations the principal did not anticipate and could not have predicted. Because no document can foresee every possible medical development, most estate planning professionals recommend having both, and they are designed to work together rather than to replace each other.

It is also worth clarifying a common source of confusion: a living will is not a will in the traditional estate planning sense. Despite the word “will” appearing in its name, a living will does not distribute assets, does not nominate an executor, and does not go through probate. It is a healthcare document that operates entirely during the principal’s lifetime, and in Maryland it is governed by a completely separate statute, the Maryland Health Care Decisions Act, Md. Code, Health-General §§ 5-601 et seq.

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What Is a Durable Power of Attorney and Why Does “Durable” Matter?

Not all powers of attorney provide the same level of protection, and the word “durable” carries significant legal weight that most people do not fully appreciate until they need the document and find it has already expired.

A standard, non-durable power of attorney terminates automatically the moment the principal becomes mentally incapacitated. A durable power of attorney, by contrast, remains legally valid through the principal’s incapacity and continues until the principal either revokes it voluntarily or dies. For estate planning purposes, that single distinction is not a technicality. It is the entire point of the document.

The most common scenario in which a power of attorney is needed is also the scenario in which a non-durable power of attorney fails: when the principal suffers a stroke, develops dementia, is in a serious accident, or otherwise loses the ability to manage their own affairs. A standard power of attorney evaporates at precisely that moment. A durable power of attorney holds.

Durable Power of Attorney vs. Standard Power of Attorney

A standard power of attorney is appropriate for narrow, defined transactions where the principal remains fully capable and simply needs a trusted person to act on their behalf for practical convenience. For example, if a homeowner is traveling internationally and needs an agent to sign real estate closing documents in their absence, a limited, non-durable power of attorney may be entirely appropriate for that specific task. Once the transaction is complete or the principal becomes incapacitated, the document ends, and its limited scope reflects the limited purpose for which it was created.

A durable power of attorney is designed for estate planning, long-term care planning, and any situation where the principal’s core concern is protection in the event of incapacity. Under the Maryland General and Limited Power of Attorney Act, codified at Md. Code, Estates and Trusts §§ 17-101 through 17-204, a written power of attorney in Maryland is durable by default under § 17-105, meaning it survives the principal’s incapacity automatically unless the document explicitly states otherwise. However, that default applies only to documents that comply with the statute’s execution requirements, which means that improperly drafted or executed documents may not carry that protection.

Springing Power of Attorney: When Authority Activates Later

A springing power of attorney is a variation on the durable power of attorney that becomes effective only when a specific triggering event occurs, typically a physician’s written certification that the principal lacks the capacity to manage their own affairs. Some principals prefer this structure because it prevents the agent from exercising any authority until the authority is genuinely needed.

The practical downside of a springing power of attorney is timing. Before a bank, a hospital, or a court will recognize the agent’s authority, the agent must first obtain and present the required triggering documentation, and that process takes time during situations that are already stressful and urgent. Most estate planning practitioners, including Dr. Taiwo Akindahunsi and the T-Bridge Finance LLC team, recommend an immediate durable power of attorney for most clients because it eliminates the procedural delay at the moment the document matters most.

What Is the Difference Between a Power of Attorney and a Will?

The core distinction between a power of attorney and a will is the timeline each document governs. A power of attorney operates only while the principal is alive. A will operates only after the principal is dead, neither document can be a substitute for the other, and neither can perform the function that belongs to the other.

A power of attorney exists so that a trusted person can manage your affairs and make decisions on your behalf when you are alive but unable to act independently, whether because of illness, injury, travel, or any other circumstance. A will exists to communicate your wishes about who inherits your property, who will care for your minor children, and who will administer your estate after your death.

Feature	Power of Attorney	Will
When it takes effect	Immediately or upon a triggering event, while alive	Only at death
When it terminates	At the principal’s death or upon revocation	When the estate is fully administered
What it governs	Financial affairs and healthcare decisions during life	Distribution of assets and estate administration after death
Who it authorizes	The agent (attorney-in-fact)	The executor and the beneficiaries
What it cannot do	Distribute an estate or act after death	Provide any authority while the principal is alive
Probate involvement	None	Triggers probate (unless a trust is also in place)

Because a power of attorney terminates at death, the agent has no authority over the estate from that point forward. The executor named in the will assumes responsibility, and the probate process begins. It is worth noting that the same trusted person can legally serve as both the power of attorney agent during life and as the executor of the will after death, but these two roles require two separate documents and carry separate legal responsibilities.

The most dangerous assumption in estate planning is that a will provides comprehensive protection. According to Trust and Will’s 2026 Estate Planning Report, which is based on a nationally representative survey of 5,000 U.S. adults conducted in January and February 2026, 56% of U.S. adults have no estate planning documents whatsoever, including no will, no trust, no financial power of attorney, and no healthcare directive.

The people in that group are unprotected from incapacity, even if they believe their situation is covered.

What Happens If You Have a Will But No Power of Attorney?

This is the planning gap that T-Bridge Finance LLC encounters most frequently in client consultations, and it is the gap that causes the most preventable family hardship. A will is legally dormant until the moment of the principal’s death, it provides no authority to anyone during the principal’s lifetime. If a person becomes incapacitated and no durable power of attorney is in place, the family has no legal mechanism to take action without first obtaining a court order.

The court process for obtaining authority over an incapacitated person’s affairs is called guardianship for personal and healthcare decisions, or conservatorship for financial decisions. A Department of Justice report identified over 1.3 million active guardianship and conservatorship cases nationwide, overseeing approximately $50 billion in assets.

The court process to establish guardianship or conservatorship typically takes several months to complete, requires legal fees that can reach thousands of dollars, and creates a public court record of the family’s financial situation and personal circumstances. A properly executed durable power of attorney, signed while the principal still has legal capacity, eliminates the need for this process entirely.

Consider a realistic scenario: a 57-year-old professional living in Anne Arundel County has signed a carefully drafted will but has never added a power of attorney to the estate plan. She suffers a sudden stroke and is hospitalized for an extended period. Her adult son cannot access her bank accounts to pay her mortgage. He cannot communicate with her insurance company on her behalf because he has no legal authority to do so.

He cannot consent to treatment decisions when the hospital requires family authorization, because no healthcare power of attorney has been signed. The family must petition the circuit court for guardianship and conservatorship, a process that takes four to six months and costs the family several thousand dollars in attorney and court fees. The entire situation was avoidable with documents that could have been executed in a single afternoon.

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Can a Power of Attorney Agent Change or Override a Will?

No. This misconception is among the most persistent in estate planning, and it deserves a direct, unambiguous answer. A power of attorney agent has no legal authority to create, modify, or revoke a will. A will can only be made or changed by the principal while the principal has the legal capacity to do so. Once a principal lacks mental capacity, their will is locked in its current form, and no one, including a power of attorney agent, can alter it.

The authority of a financial power of attorney agent is focused entirely on managing the principal’s affairs during life, and that authority does not extend to decisions about how the principal’s estate is distributed at death. An agent who attempts to influence or alter a principal’s will is acting outside the legal scope of the power of attorney and may face civil liability or criminal prosecution for doing so.

The reverse is equally important to understand. A will does not grant any authority to anyone during the testator’s lifetime. A family member named as a beneficiary in a will has no legal right to manage the testator’s finances or healthcare while the testator is alive and incapacitated. A will is dormant until death, and no provision inside a will can change that.

How Do You Get a Power of Attorney?

Obtaining a valid power of attorney requires following the legal execution requirements of the state where the document will be used. The process is straightforward when approached with proper guidance.

Maryland adopted the Maryland General and Limited Power of Attorney Act, codified at Md. Code, Estates and Trusts §§ 17-101 through 17-204. Under § 17-110, a power of attorney executed in Maryland must be signed by the principal, acknowledged by the principal before a notary public, and attested and signed by two or more adult witnesses. The notary public may also serve as one of the two required witnesses. A document that does not meet these requirements may be unenforceable at precisely the moment it is needed most.

The general process for establishing a power of attorney follows these steps:

1. Determine which type or types of power of attorney you need: a financial power of attorney, a healthcare power of attorney, or both.
2. Select a trustworthy agent, discuss the role with that person before naming them, and consider naming a successor agent in case the primary agent is unable to serve.
3. Work with a licensed estate planning attorney who can draft a document that reflects your specific situation, desired scope of authority, and applicable state law requirements.
4. Execute the document with the required notarization and witness signatures, following the statutory formalities for your state.
5. Distribute copies to your agent, your financial institutions, your primary care physician, your hospital of record, and any other party who may need to recognize the agent’s authority.

For clients outside Maryland, the execution requirements differ by state, and the rules in one state may not be enforceable in another. Anyone with financial assets, property, or family members in multiple states should discuss multi-state validity with a licensed attorney.

T-Bridge Finance LLC coordinates estate planning conversations and connects clients with licensed estate planning attorneys to ensure that the documentation, agent selection, and scope of authority all reflect each client’s actual circumstances rather than a generic template.

Take the Next Step in Your Estate Planning

A power of attorney cannot be signed after the moment it is needed. Once a person lacks the mental capacity to execute legal documents, the window for establishing a power of attorney has closed, and the family is left with a court proceeding instead of a straightforward solution. The time to establish a power of attorney is before any health event, incapacity, or emergency makes the decision urgent.

If you are ready to close the gap in your estate plan and ensure that both your financial affairs and your healthcare decisions are covered at every stage of life, schedule a consultation with Dr. Taiwo Akindahunsi and the T-Bridge Finance LLC team.

About the Author

Maxwell is a financial content strategist at T-Bridge Finance LLC, a financial services firm based in Bowie, Maryland. All articles published on this blog are reviewed by the licensed PROFESSIONALS at T-Bridge Finance LLC before publication to ensure accuracy and compliance with current insurance and financial guidelines. T-Bridge Finance LLC holds active insurance licenses and serves families across the United States with life insurance, estate planning, college funding, and tax-advantaged wealth strategies. schedule a free consultation.

FAQ

1. What is the difference between a power of attorney and a will?

A power of attorney grants legal authority to a trusted agent to act on your behalf while you are alive. A will distributes your assets after you die. A power of attorney terminates at the moment of death, and a will has no legal effect until death occurs. The two documents govern entirely different phases of life, and a complete estate plan requires both.

2. Does a durable power of attorney expire when the principal dies?

Yes. Every power of attorney, including a durable power of attorney, terminates automatically at the moment of the principal’s death. The durability of a durable power of attorney means that it survives the principal’s incapacity during life, not that it survives beyond the principal’s death. After death, the will and the executor take over all legal responsibility for the estate.

3. Can my power of attorney agent access my bank accounts without my knowledge while I am still alive?

If you have signed an immediate durable power of attorney that is currently in effect, your agent may have the authority to access your accounts, depending on the scope of authority granted in the document. This is why agent selection is one of the most consequential decisions in estate planning, and why T-Bridge Finance LLC advises clients to consider limiting the scope of the power of attorney, naming co-agents for mutual accountability, and consulting with a licensed attorney about appropriate safeguards before executing the document.

4. Is a medical power of attorney the same as a living will?

No. A medical power of attorney names a specific person to make healthcare decisions on your behalf. A living will records your own written instructions about specific medical treatments, such as whether you want life-sustaining treatment in defined circumstances. Both documents operate during your lifetime. Most estate planning professionals recommend having both, because a living will addresses the scenarios you anticipated in advance while a medical power of attorney gives your agent the authority to respond to situations you did not anticipate.

5. What happens if someone becomes incapacitated with no power of attorney in place?

When a person becomes incapacitated and has no durable power of attorney in place, the family must petition a court to appoint a legal guardian for personal and healthcare decisions, or a conservator for financial decisions, or both. This process takes months, requires legal fees, and creates a public court record. A properly executed durable power of attorney, signed while the principal still has legal capacity, eliminates the need for this process entirely. Department of Justice data shows over 1.3 million active guardianship and conservatorship cases are active in the United States at any given time, overseeing approximately $50 billion in assets.

Disclaimer: The information in this article is for educational purposes only and does not constitute financial, legal, or insurance advice. Life insurance and financial products vary by carrier, state of residence, age, health profile, and individual circumstances. Past index performance does not guarantee future results. Cash value illustrations referenced in this article are hypothetical projections and not a guarantee of policy performance. T-Bridge Finance LLC is a licensed financial services firm operating in the United States. Please consult a licensed financial advisor or insurance professional before making any insurance or financial planning decisions. To speak with our team, contact us here.