General versus Specific POAs

You may hear people refer to POAs as "general" or "specific."

General POAs allow people to do basically anything. Good POAs will still cover a wide range of activities, but theoretically by their nature (being general), the power of attorney should be able to do anything.

Specific POAs are not usually used in an estate planning context. They allow a person to do a certain range of things. I see these most often in divorce proceedings, when a court will grant one spouse a "limited power of attorney" to do something which requires signing the other (non-cooperating) spouse's name.

We can keep this short: you want a general POA. Banks will give you enough of a hard time if you don't put the kitchen sink in your POA. There's no sense in limiting it further by making it specific or limited.