Powerful or Powerless?

 In their January 2025 Illinois Bar Journal article, “Powerful or Powerless?,” Thomas Osran and Robert Held focus on amendments to the Illinois Power of Attorney Act that went into effect on Jan. 1, 2025. Osran and Held note the amendments will help when third parties refuse to honor validly drafted and executed POAs. But, unhelpfully (and perhaps fatally), they add, the law creates no new teeth to enforce unreasonable refusals to honor valid POAs and lists 14 new ways for banks and others to legally refuse to honor otherwise valid POAs. Attorneys need to know how to help their clients avoid traps created by the new law and draft POAs that are more likely to be accepted by banks and others without argument, the authors advise. Practitioners also need to be prepared to certify the validity of previously drafted POAs and prepare such certificates for new POAs. And law firms may need to enact policies regarding the handling of requests to certify the validity of existing POAs.

Read the January Illinois Bar Journal’s article, “Powerful or Powerless?”