Appointment of Enduring Guardians

Unlike the Attorney who is empowered by the Power of Attorney to make legal and financial decisions, an Enduring Guardian is appointed to make lifestyle and healthcare decisions once you have lost the ability to make these decisions for yourself. This could be a temporary or permanent loss of decision-making ability arising from illness, injury or disability. 

The decisions an Enduring Guardian can make include decisions such as where you might live and the services (support, healthcare, medical and dental) that you might receive. 

As the powers of an Enduring Guardian only arise once you have lost capacity, it may be too late at that point to inform your Enduring Guardian of the lifestyle and healthcare you wish to receive. 

As such, an Advance Care Directive is a useful document to prepare beforehand. It sets out your wishes about the lifestyle you would like to live, details of what is important to you, such as your values, life goals and preferred outcomes. You can also set out the treatments and care you would like to receive or refuse, such as your preference in situations where you are on ventilator support or are experiencing any other type of life-threatening illness or injury. The Advance Care Directive will only be valid once you lose capacity to make decisions or communicate your wishes. 

The appointment of Enduring Guardian/s is crucial in the unfortunate event that you are facing a mental disability but authorisation is required to perform medical, surgical, dental, psychiatric and/or psychological treatment on you. Having an Enduring Guardian ensures that you have a loved one authorising essential treatment on you in circumstances where you are unable to give consent yourself. 

In the event that you do not have an Enduring Guardian appointed, essential treatment may be severely delayed as your loved ones will have to make an application for Guardianship Orders in the Guardianship Division of the NSW Civil and Administrative Tribunal. The time lag in making and obtaining Guardianship Orders may be detrimental to you as authorisation for your medical treatments are being delayed. 

Here at Green & Associates Solicitors, our experienced lawyers will work with you to appoint suitable and trustworthy family members and close friends as your Enduring Guardians so that your needs are taken care of in the unfortunate event that you have lost capacity. Contact us on (02) 8080 7585 for a free consultation with our experienced Estate Planning lawyers.

Green & Associates Solicitors Experience and Success 

• We have successfully created enduring guardianships where capacity was questionable, obtaining medical evidence to prove the effects of another illness rather than capacity;
• We have navigated situations involving intricate, delicate and complex care requirements;
• We have successfully achieved results for persons with prohibitive illnesses, including speech and movement impediments;
• We have successfully challenged the appointment of guardians leading to success in property, commercial, family and litigious disputes;
• We have succeeded in difficult and technical Court / Tribunal disputes over guardianship.

We also provide in-house advice to companies on a range of matters, including:

• employment-law issues (i.e. enforcing or dispute a restraint of trade clause for previous or new employees);
• compliance and regulatory issues (i.e. licencing and underquoting breaches)
• criminal matters;
• property matters;
• defamation proceedings; and
• all types of commercial matters (i.e. drafting shareholder agreements).