Powers of Attorney

Vanishing financial institutions, Ponzi wannabes, differing state laws…agents acting under durable powers of attorney don't always have it easy. One example offered in this NYT overview:

Wendy S. Goffe, a lawyer… relied on a power of attorney that her husband, Scott Schrum, had given her to piece together his paperless financial life after it was found that he had cancer. While he was disabled, the form gave Ms. Goffe access to electronic records, including those for her husband’s rollover I.R.A. and 401(k) and the 529 college savings plan he had managed for their daughter Maya, 7.

The biggest chore was tracking down shares of stock that Mr. Schrum, also a lawyer, had purchased by exercising employee options online. Because of “a string of bad luck,” Ms. Goffe said, the financial institution holding the options and the couple’s brokerage company had been sold, their Web sites eliminated and the records put into storage. The shares, worth $7,500, had been credited to a stranger’s account.