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Cindy Sutte

Cindy Sutte

Branch Manager at Perpetual Guardian (Takapuna, New Zealand), a trustee and estate planning specialist with 20+ years' experience in the trustee industry.

Sep 13, 2026

27:50
someone that I'm an enduring power of attorney for became incapacitated tomorrow, I don't even want to say by which means because it feels like tempting fate, but say that that happened tomorrow, what do I actually do practically? Am I
28:03
on the phone to the bank, to the lawyer, to the doctor? What happens? So that activation, let's say it's at incapacity, that activation requires the doctor's medical certificate as a first step.
28:15
So then you'd be looking for the original document, whether that's either stored with a professional trust company or not, and you'd be wanting that medical certificate.
28:25
And once you have those two documents, you can then start acting for property by going to the bank with those documents and your own identification and then start accessing all the things you need to access to manage the person's affairs.
28:43
Why don't you think more people have them? I think it has something to do with the fact, possibly like a will, it's a little bit confronting because it means something that you're not able, you're not well enough or you're not able to take care of those things yourself.
29:00
So that's probably part of it.
29:01
And then the other part is probably, oh, maybe some people actually just don't know these documents exist.
29:22
And if I'm looking to set one up, who should I not be thinking about appointing? And
8:22
people use that for ill-gotten gains?
8:27
Unfortunately, there is, and we've seen a few.
8:29
You've probably seen a few in the news from time to time.
8:32
So I was thinking about this on the way over today, and I was thinking one of the things that I think people, particularly children or family members, get confused about is the they don't see that the role of attorney under an EPA is a separate role with separate duties and responsibilities.
8:52
They see it as, for example, mum and dad would want me to have this.
8:56
They would want me to have a house.
8:58
They would want me to have help and support.

20 MINS LATER

29:22
And if I'm looking to set one up, who should I not be thinking about appointing? And

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