6 Things an Arkansas Power of Attorney Can’t Do, Even for a Parent

Getting power of attorney for a parent feels like getting the keys to everything.

In Arkansas, it isn’t.

The document can’t do everything, even when everyone involved means well.

Here are the limits to know before you sign one or step into the role.

Note: This is general information, not legal advice. Power of attorney rules are subject to change.

1. Changing Beneficiaries

A power of attorney can’t change who collects your parent’s life insurance or retirement account unless the document spells that out.

Arkansas’s power of attorney law, passed in 2011, lists beneficiary changes among a short set of actions that need an express grant.

Rights of survivorship, which decide who owns a joint account after one owner dies, sit on the same list.

Even with a grant, a change is off the table if another agreement covering the property prohibits it.

2. Making Gifts

Gifts are off the table under a power of attorney unless your parent’s document grants that authority.

Even with the grant, the law caps total gifts to each person each year at the federal annual gift tax exclusion.

Different terms in your parent’s document can change that cap.

A spouse who agrees to split a gift can double it.

Every gift also has to fit your parent’s known goals.

If you don’t know them, it has to serve your parent’s best interest.

3. Changing a Living Trust

A parent’s living trust, the kind set up while the parent is alive, can’t be amended or revoked under a power of attorney unless the document grants that power.

Creating or ending a trust takes the same grant.

The statutory form makes your parent initial that power separately from everyday powers such as banking and taxes.

The form even warns your parent that handing over powers like these could significantly reduce their property.

If you think the trust needs an update, check your parent’s document for that grant first.

4. Making Medical Decisions

A power of attorney can’t make your parent’s medical decisions.

The form tells your parent in plain words that it doesn’t authorize the agent to make health-care decisions.

Under Arkansas’s default-surrogate rule, a family member such as an adult child may still decide when no agent or guardian is available.

To name someone for those decisions, your parent signs a separate paper called a durable power of attorney for health care.

Unless that document says otherwise, the health-care agent’s authority starts only after a doctor decides your parent can’t make decisions.

It ends if your parent recovers.

Your parent has to sign it.

It also needs a notary or two witnesses.

At least one witness must be unrelated to your parent by blood, marriage or adoption and can’t stand to inherit.

The person named as the health-care agent can’t witness at all.

5. Delegating Authority

You can’t hand the job to someone else unless the document grants that power, the same as with gifts and trusts.

If you’re stretched thin, a brother, sister or friend can’t step in to use your authority on your say-so.

When the document does grant the power, the delegate’s errors don’t fall on you if you used reasonable care in choosing and monitoring that person.

6. Acting After Death

A power of attorney stops working when your parent dies.

Death comes first among the events that end the document.

An exception protects an agent who acts in good faith without knowing your parent has died.

Once you do know, the form tells you to stop acting for your parent.

Other Ways Authority Ends

A power of attorney can end for reasons besides death.

Your parent can revoke it.

The document also ends if you die, become incapacitated or resign, and it names no other agent.

Your parent’s incapacity doesn’t end it in Arkansas unless the document expressly says it does.

Spouses face an extra rule: Filing for divorce or annulment ends a spouse’s authority as agent unless the document says otherwise.

That rule doesn’t reach a son or daughter.

Records and Compensation

As the agent, you have to keep a record of every receipt, disbursement and transaction, unless the document says otherwise.

Unless the document says otherwise, you owe disclosure only when a court orders it or someone on a short list asks.

That list includes your parent, a guardian, a conservator and, after your parent's death, the estate's personal representative.

When one of them asks, you have 30 days to comply or to explain in writing why you need more time.

If you send that explanation, you get 30 more days to comply.

Unless the document says otherwise, you're also entitled to reimbursement for expenses you reasonably incurred for your parent and to compensation that's reasonable under the circumstances.