My 21 year old son is in a youth shelter. Case workers suggesting he get a power of attorney for his affairs I’m not

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I am sorry to hear of this difficult situation.

Is your son mentally competent to make decisions about his care and finances?

Are you asking about him signing a POA for times when he is not competent or for when he is competent but needs your help with banking, for example?

Or are you thinking he cannot really understand what a POA is?

I will explain the law. It will take a few minutes.

For someone to sign a power of attorney they have to be mentally competent to understand what they are doing. There are two types of power of attorney's. One is for when the person becomes incompetent. So often parents sign this type so that when they are older and perhaps end up with dementia the kids will take over. That is called a continuing power of attorney. There are two types. One is for care and one is for financial matters.

The other type of power of attorney is when someone is competent and it is for when they are competent but they may be out of the country and need someone to do banking etc. it could also be when they are physically unable to get to the bank but are mentally competent.

So if your son is competent to sign a power of attorney you have to figure out what it's for and if he's sometimes competent and sometimes not then it would make sense for him to sign a power of attorney that is a continuing power of attorney so you would use it for times of incompetency.

But if that doesn't sound like it's going to make sense given your son's situation then the only other thing you can do is be appointed as your son's legal guardian. To do that you have to apply to the court for an order declaring your son to be incompetent and then appointing you as a legal guardian. You would have to have your son assessed by a competency assessor. There are a list of assessors that the government has certified as being assessors to do competency assessments for court purposes.

If hat is the route you are going to have to follow then your best next step would be to retain a lawyer who has had experience in doing these types of hearings in court.

What you can do to find a lawyer is one of the following things.

You can contact the Law Society and use their Lawyer Referral Service. You will be given the name of a lawyer and can consult with the lawyer and the first half hour will be free.

Here is a link to the site:

https://lsrs.lso.ca/lsrs/welcome

Or you can check on a site called lexpert. This is a legal directory of leading lawyers and law firms throughout Canada and is well-respected by the legal community.

Here's the link to their website:

http://www.lexpert.ca/directory/find-lawyers-or-law-firms/

Does that help as a starting point?

It means that you make all his decisions in terms of his care and his finances. It will be the same as if he were a minor.

Yes for sure.

Yes he would for sure.