How to Prepare for Long-Distance Financial Caregiving

WHY DO BANKS REJECT VALID POWER OF ATTORNEY FORMS?

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Mostly out of fear of fraud and elder abuse. Beth Pinsker had a signed, properly executed power of attorney for her mother and still had to sit through three separate two-hour appointments at the bank, with staff calling their legal department back and forth, before it was finally accepted. Financial institutions have become far more cautious in recent years, and a document being legally valid does not guarantee front-line staff will recognize it or know how to process it. It is worth asking a bank directly, ahead of time, what their specific requirements are for honoring a power of attorney, rather than finding out during a crisis.

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WHAT DOES A FINANCIAL POWER OF ATTORNEY ACTUALLY COVER?

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Far more than most families expect. It is not reserved for major decisions like selling a house. Beth needed hers to cancel a newspaper subscription, cancel a Netflix account, cancel credit cards, and even reboot a cable box, because none of those companies would speak with her about the account without proof she had legal authority to act on her mother's behalf. A power of attorney only becomes active once the person is incapacitated, which is exactly why it needs to be set up well before that point. Waiting until it is needed usually means waiting until it is much harder to arrange.

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WHO USUALLY BECOMES THE FAMILY CAREGIVER?

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According to the data Beth cites, roughly 60 percent of the time it is a daughter, typically in her mid-fifties, often the oldest daughter in the family. She describes this person as ""the doer,"" the one already assigning Thanksgiving dishes and remembering birthdays before any caregiving responsibility ever comes up. It rarely gets decided as a family in advance. Instead, one person tends to become the default administrator of a parent's care, whether or not they ever explicitly agreed to the role, and whether or not they have siblings who could share it. Beth's own mother named both Beth and her brother as co-equal powers of attorney, which professionals generally advise against because of how much friction it can create, but in practice, Beth did nearly all of the work regardless.

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HOW DOES LIVING ABROAD COMPLICATE INHERITANCE AND TRUSTS?

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Significantly, and in ways that are easy to miss until it is too late to fix cheaply. If a named trustee is a resident of a country with different inheritance tax rules, that alone can potentially pull the entire estate into that country's tax and legal system. Separately, not every country recognizes U.S. trust law the same way, which can create serious mismatches that sometimes have to be resolved through foreign courts. State-level inheritance tax thresholds inside the U.S. add another layer: a handful of states, including Massachusetts, Washington, and New York, have notably low thresholds, so a beneficiary who lives in one of those states can face a materially different outcome than one who does not, even within a single family. A competent estate attorney should proactively ask whether any beneficiary lives abroad and flag the relevant foreign rules, rather than waiting to be asked.

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WHAT DOCUMENTS DO YOU NEED BEFORE A PARENT GETS SICK?

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At minimum, a financial power of attorney and a healthcare proxy, the legal permission to act on someone's behalf both financially and medically. Beth's own research found that only around 15 percent of people have powers of attorney in place, well behind the roughly 30 percent who have a will and the 20 percent who have a trust. These documents are free to create, take about five minutes to fill out, and do not require an attorney, though working with one is generally the safer route. The barrier to entry is genuinely low. What is not low is the cost of not having them: without these documents, family members can be locked out of accounts entirely, since institutions increasingly rely on signature and voice recognition and will not accept someone pretending to be the account holder over the phone.

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SHOULD YOU SET UP POWER OF ATTORNEY BEFORE YOU NEED IT?

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Yes, and ideally alongside an honest conversation about who in the family will actually hold that responsibility. A power of attorney sitting in a drawer does nothing until the moment it is needed, and that is precisely when families discover whether the documents will actually work, whether the bank will accept them, whether a foreign court will recognize a trust, whether a sibling understood what they signed up for. None of this is about assuming the worst. It is about testing the paperwork against reality while there is still time to fix what does not hold up, rather than during the exact crisis it was meant to prepare for.

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CHAPTER TIMESTAMPS

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00:00 - The distance every caregiver feels, whether it's states or oceans away

01:26 - How a "temporary" trip turned into nine months of caregiving

06:22 - Big-picture money talks versus the daily bill-paying reality

09:19 - Why one person always ends up "the doer" in every family

11:59 - What changes when trustees and heirs live in different countries

21:14 - The power of attorney fight that took three appointments at the bank, and the one document every family needs before a crisis

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ABOUT THE GUEST

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Beth Pinsker is a CFP® and award-winning journalist who has covered personal finance for outlets including MarketWatch and The Wall Street Journal. She managed her own mother's care and finances from several states away and wrote about the experience in My Mother's Money: A Guide to Financial Caregiving.

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ABOUT YOUR HOST

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Arielle Tucker, CFP® & IRS Enrolled Agent with Connected Financial Planning, is a cross-border financial planner based in Switzerland helping Americans living abroad navigate U.S. taxes, international investments, and cross-border financial planning.

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ABOUT PASSPORT TO WEALTH®

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Passport To Wealth® is the platform for current and aspiring US expats looking for trusted, fiduciary support. We connect globally mobile Americans with expert, licensed cross-border financial advisors, tax professionals, and relocation experts who understand the financial and legal complexities of life abroad. For guidance tailored to your specific situation, book a paid expat expert consultation today.

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LINKS & RESOURCES

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• Pre-order The Expat Money Playbook: https://www.passporttowealth.com/expat-money-playbook
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/passporttowealthofficial
• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/passport-to-wealth

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_{This episode is for educational purposes only and does not constitute tax, legal, or financial advice. Individual circumstances vary. Consult a qualified cross-border financial professional before making any financial or tax decisions.}