Wills, powers of attorney, and the documents a family needs before a deployment
Why banks reject general powers of attorney, what a durable POA actually does, the difference between a will and a trust for a mobile family, and the free legal assistance most members never use.
13 min read
Questions this article answers
- What is a durable power of attorney and why do I need one?
- Why did the bank refuse my power of attorney?
- Do I need a will if I have SGLI?
- What is a family care plan?
- Where can I get a free will as a service member?
Legal documents are the part of readiness that feels theoretical until the moment it is not. They are also, for military families, unusually cheap: base legal assistance prepares wills and powers of attorney at no cost, and most members never use it.
This article covers what the documents actually do, and the specific ways they fail when prepared without thought.
The distinction that trips everyone: durable
A power of attorney lets someone act on your behalf. There are two kinds and the difference decides whether it works when you need it.
Why the bank rejected it anyway
Even a correctly drafted durable power of attorney is regularly refused by banks, brokerages and title companies. This is not the family being obstructed; it is institutions managing their own liability, and it is entirely predictable.
Common reasons: the document is old and the institution wants one executed recently. It is general where the institution wants specific authority named. It does not use the institution’s own form, which many prefer and some effectively require. Or the institution simply wants its legal department to review it, which takes weeks — and the family needed it today.
What goes wrong
Executing one general durable power of attorney before a deployment and assuming your spouse can now handle everything — the mortgage, the brokerage, the car title, the lease.
What right looks like
Calling each institution that actually matters BEFORE you leave, asking what they require, and executing whatever they name — usually their own form — for each. Then executing a special power of attorney naming the specific transactions you anticipate.
WhyA power of attorney is only useful if the third party honours it, and third parties are not obliged to. Banks and title companies set their own acceptance policies to limit fraud exposure, so the document that satisfies a court may still be refused at a branch counter. The person discovering that is your spouse, alone, on a deadline, while you are unreachable.
Still fixableThis can be fixed while you are still reachable, and becomes very difficult once you are not. Where a deployment has already started, some institutions will accept a document executed abroad and notarised by a legal assistance officer — but it is far slower than doing it beforehand.
A special or limited power of attorney, naming particular transactions, is often accepted where a general one is refused, precisely because it is narrow. Several specific ones frequently work better than one broad one.
And a medical power of attorney, together with an advance directive, is a separate document again. A financial power of attorney does not authorise medical decisions.
The will, and what it does not control
A will directs property that passes through your estate. That is less than most people assume.
- Assets with a beneficiary designation
- Life insurance, retirement accounts, emergency data forms. These pay the named person regardless of the will.
- Jointly held property with survivorship
- Passes to the surviving owner automatically, outside the will.
Does not includeAny power to override a beneficiary designation — a will cannot · Guardianship arrangements in another jurisdiction, which may not be recognised as written
For a young military family, the largest single asset is often group life insurance, which is entirely outside the will. This means a family can have a carefully drafted will and still have the bulk of their estate pass to whoever is named on a form filled out years earlier.
That does not make the will unimportant. It does two things nothing else does:
It names a guardian for minor children. For most military parents this is the single most important sentence they will ever sign, and it is not accomplished by any other document.
It directs everything without a designation — property, vehicles, personal effects, and any account where the designation is missing or has failed.
Dying without one means state intestacy law decides, using a formula written for an average family that may not resemble yours, and a court appoints a guardian without your input.
The trust question, briefly
Most young military families do not need a trust and are sold one anyway. A will plus correct beneficiary designations covers the ordinary case at no cost.
A trust earns its keep in specific situations: real property in more than one state, which a trust can keep out of multiple probate proceedings; a child with a disability whose means-tested benefits would be jeopardised by an inheritance, where a special needs trust is essentially mandatory; a desire to control the timing of an inheritance rather than handing a large sum to an eighteen-year-old; or a blended family where the default outcome is not what either parent wants.
The last is worth dwelling on, because it is the case where the default is most often wrong and least often noticed. Without deliberate planning, a straightforward “everything to my spouse” arrangement can disinherit children from a previous marriage entirely, and that outcome is legally correct and irreversible.
Family care plans
A member with dependents and no other parent in the household — a single parent, or a dual-military couple — is generally required to maintain a family care plan naming who cares for children during deployment or mobilisation, with the legal authority to do it.
The requirement is a readiness matter, but the substance is a legal one: the named caregiver needs authority to enrol a child in school, consent to medical treatment, and access records. That authority comes from documents, not from an entry on a form, and the plan is only as good as the powers of attorney behind it.
What goes stale, and when
Every one of these documents ages badly against life events. The trigger list is short and worth keeping:
Marriage. Divorce. Birth or adoption. A death in the family. A move to a new state, since these are state-law instruments. Any deployment or mobilisation. And a child reaching adulthood — at which point you no longer have automatic authority over their medical information or decisions, which surprises parents of eighteen-year-olds at the worst possible moment.
Where to get it done
Base legal assistance prepares wills, powers of attorney and advance directives at no cost for members and their families. Take an appointment well before a deployment window, since they fill.
Military OneSource offers free legal consultations, including for spouses, and can refer for matters legal assistance cannot handle.
For anything genuinely complex — a trust, a blended family, property in several states, a special needs child — legal assistance will tell you it is beyond their scope, and that is the moment to engage a civilian estate attorney licensed in your state of legal residence. Paying for that advice once, correctly, is cheaper than any of the outcomes it prevents.
Related subjects
- The DD-214 and the records that outlive your memoryWhat the discharge certificate governs, the fields that decide benefits years later, why beneficiary designations beat a will, and what to gather before you lose access to the systems holding it.
- The Survivor Benefit Plan, and the election that happens by defaultWhat the SBP annuity pays, what the premium costs, why doing nothing does not decline it, and how to compare it against commercial life insurance without getting the comparison wrong.
Sources
The authorities themselves, not summaries of them. Every figure in this domain changes, and these are where to confirm one before you act on it.
Estimates and explanation only. Not financial, legal, tax or VA advice. Rates in this domain change annually; confirm any figure against its source before acting.