When a family member gets a dementia diagnosis, the to-do list grows fast. Medications. Specialist appointments. Conversations about driving. Somewhere in that pile is a legal task that often gets pushed to the bottom — and it shouldn’t.
Getting a Power of Attorney in place after a dementia diagnosis is urgent in a way that most families don’t fully appreciate until it’s too late.
Here’s what you need to know.
What capacity actually means (and why it's not black and white)
Most people assume that a dementia diagnosis means the person can no longer make legal decisions. That’s not how BC law works.
Mental capacity is task-specific and moment-specific. A person with early or moderate dementia may still have full capacity to grant a Power of Attorney on a Tuesday morning, even if they couldn’t manage their own banking by Thursday. The question a notary is asking isn’t “do they have dementia?” It’s “right now, in this moment, does this person understand what they’re signing and what authority they’re giving?”
Under the BC Power of Attorney Act, the person signing (called the “adult”) must be able to:
- Understand what assets and property they have
- Understand what it means to hand control of those assets to someone else
- Know who has a claim on their support (a spouse, for instance)
- Appreciate that their appointed attorney will have broad authority over their finances
- Recognize that the attorney could misuse that authority if the wrong person is chosen
That’s a real bar. It’s not symbolic. And it’s a bar that gets harder to clear as the disease progresses.
Why the window closes faster than families expect
Dementia doesn’t follow a straight line, but it does move in one direction.
A person who passes the capacity assessment this month may not pass it three months from now. Or they might be fine in three months and struggle six months after that. Cognitive testing fluctuates. What doesn’t fluctuate is the overall trajectory.
Once a notary assesses that a person no longer has the capacity to grant a Power of Attorney, that window closes permanently. There is no workaround. There is no substitute document that replicates what a POA does.
This is why families who wait — even with good intentions — sometimes find themselves locked out of options they thought were still available.
Important:
Once capacity is gone, a Power of Attorney can no longer be created. A court-appointed committee becomes the only path forward — a process that takes months and costs thousands of dollars.
What happens when no POA exists and capacity is gone
If a family member can no longer manage their finances and there’s no Power of Attorney in place, no one has automatic authority to act for them. Not a spouse. Not an adult child. Not anyone.
To get that authority, a family member would need to apply to the BC Supreme Court to be appointed as a “committee” — pronounced “caw-mi-tay” — under the Patients Property Act. That process typically requires:
- Two doctors to file affidavits confirming the person is incapable
- A formal court application to the BC Supreme Court
- Legal fees that commonly run between $5,000 and $10,000
- A timeline of six months to a year or more before anything is approved
During that waiting period, bank accounts may be frozen. Bills may go unpaid. Property decisions get stalled. For a family already managing a health crisis, it’s a lot.
A Power of Attorney, signed while capacity still exists, avoids all of that.
How the capacity assessment works at Simpson Notaries
When a family comes to us with a parent or family member who has a dementia diagnosis, we approach the appointment deliberately.
The conversation starts with the adult, not the family member who arranged it. We ask questions to gauge understanding. We listen. We watch how the person engages with the document and the process around it. If the adult can explain back to us what they’re agreeing to, in their own words and not ours, that goes a long way.
We also ask whether the person has a doctor who has assessed their capacity recently. If a physician has documented cognitive testing, that’s useful context, though a formal medical opinion isn’t always required for a straightforward POA.
What we’re not doing is rubber-stamping a document because a family wants us to. If we have genuine doubt about whether a person understands what they’re signing, we’ll say so. That might mean a shorter appointment that day and a follow-up, or it might mean we recommend getting a formal capacity assessment from a physician first.
The goal is a POA that holds up, not one that gets challenged later.
Simpson Notaries has been serving families across the Fraser Valley for over 55 years. Capacity conversations are among the most common — and most important — appointments we handle.
Quick Tip:
If your family member has had recent cognitive testing from a physician, bring that documentation to the appointment. It isn’t always required, but it can help the notary confirm capacity with greater confidence.
The right time to call is now
If you’re reading this because someone in your family was recently diagnosed, or because you’ve noticed cognitive changes and haven’t acted yet, the right time to book an appointment is now.
Not next month. Not after the next specialist visit. Now.
Capacity can be there in February and genuinely gone by April. We’ve had families call us in that situation. The call is harder than the one they could have made in January.
The best outcome is a Power of Attorney that was prepared thoughtfully, while the adult had clear capacity, and that sits unused in a filing cabinet for the next decade. That’s the goal. The document you don’t need is the one you want to have.
The document you hope to never use is the one worth having. A Power of Attorney prepared while capacity is clear costs a fraction of what the alternative does — in money, in time, and in family stress.
Frequently Asked Questions
Can my parent still grant a POA if they've been on medication for dementia?
Medication doesn’t automatically affect capacity. What matters is whether the person meets the legal standard at the time of signing. Some medications improve clarity; the assessment is about the person in front of us, not their prescription.
What if my family member refuses to make a POA?
A Power of Attorney has to be granted voluntarily. If the person doesn’t want to sign, we can’t override that. What we can do is have a conversation with them about what happens if they don’t, so the decision is an informed one. In some cases, hearing the committee process explained clearly is enough to change the conversation.
Can we do the POA and a Will at the same appointment?
Yes, and we often do. If both are needed, it makes sense to handle them together while capacity is confirmed.
My parent lives outside Chilliwack or Abbotsford. Can they still work with Simpson Notaries?
Yes. We work with families from Hope to Langley and beyond. We prepare the documents, and a notary closer to your family member handles the in-person witnessing. It takes a bit of coordination, but it works.
What does an Enduring Power of Attorney actually cover?
It covers financial and legal decisions: banking, investments, property, bills, contracts. It doesn’t cover health or personal care decisions. For those, your family member needs a Representation Agreement. Many families set up both at the same time.