An enduring power of attorney (EPA) is a legal document in which you choose who will make decisions for you if you cannot make them yourself. In Queensland, enduring powers of attorney are governed by the Powers of Attorney Act 1998 (Qld), which is read together with the Guardianship and Administration Act 2000 (Qld).
This guide explains how an enduring power of attorney works in Queensland, when it starts, what your attorney can and cannot do, and the legal duties every attorney owes. It also explains what can be done when an attorney misuses their power, or when an EPA is signed by someone who did not have the capacity to sign it.
What is an enduring power of attorney?
In an enduring power of attorney, you (the principal) appoint one or more people (your attorneys) to make decisions on your behalf. It is called enduring because it keeps operating if you lose the capacity to make decisions yourself, which is usually when it is needed most. A general power of attorney, by contrast, ends if you lose capacity.
When your attorney acts within the authority you have given, the law treats the decision as if you had made it yourself. That is a great deal of trust to place in another person, which is why Queensland law imposes strict duties on attorneys and gives the Supreme Court and the Queensland Civil and Administrative Tribunal (QCAT) wide powers to step in when things go wrong.
What decisions can an attorney make?
You choose which decisions to hand over. A Queensland EPA can cover financial matters, personal matters (which include health matters), or both. If the document simply appoints an attorney without saying what for, the law treats the attorney as having the widest power the document could give, so it pays to be specific.
Financial matters
Financial matters include running bank accounts, paying bills, collecting income, managing investments, and buying, selling or leasing property. If your attorney may need to deal with land in Queensland, the EPA must be registered with Titles Queensland first. A transfer or other land dealing signed by an attorney cannot be registered until the power of attorney itself has been registered.
Personal matters
Personal matters are decisions about your care and welfare, such as where and with whom you live, your care and support, and everyday matters such as diet and dress. Whether you move into residential aged care is a personal matter.
Health matters
Health matters are a type of personal matter. An attorney for health matters can consent to, or refuse, most health care for you. That can include a decision to withhold or withdraw treatment that is keeping you alive, but only where starting or continuing the treatment would be inconsistent with good medical practice. If you have made an advance health directive, its directions take priority over your attorney’s decisions.
Decisions an attorney can never make
Some decisions are too personal to hand to anyone else. An attorney cannot make, change or revoke your will, and cannot make or revoke a power of attorney or advance health directive for you. An attorney also cannot consent to special health care, such as the removal of tissue for donation, sterilisation, or participation in special medical research.
When does an enduring power of attorney start?
This is the point most often misunderstood, because the Act treats the two kinds of decisions differently.
For personal and health matters, your attorney’s power starts only when you lose capacity for the particular decision, and it can be used only while you lack that capacity.
For financial matters, you choose when the power starts. It can start immediately, on a date you nominate, or on a particular event, such as a doctor confirming that you can no longer manage your finances. If the EPA says nothing, the financial power starts as soon as the document is made. Whatever start point you choose, your attorney can also act during any period in which you have lost capacity for the decision.
An attorney cannot act until they have signed the EPA to accept the appointment. Where an attorney’s power depends on you having lost capacity, a bank or anyone else dealing with the attorney can ask for evidence, such as a medical certificate.
Capacity is assessed one decision at a time. You may be able to decide where to live while being unable to manage a share portfolio. Capacity can also be lost and then regained, which is what happened in the Lambourne v Marrable case discussed below.
What happens if there is no enduring power of attorney?
Without an EPA, nobody has general legal authority to manage your money or property, not even your spouse or your adult children. If decisions need to be made, someone must apply to QCAT to be appointed as your administrator for financial matters or your guardian for personal matters. QCAT decides who is appointed, and it may not be the person you would have chosen.
Health care works differently. If there is no attorney or guardian for health matters, Queensland law allows a statutory health attorney to make most health care decisions for you. That is the first available and culturally appropriate person from a set order, starting with your spouse if the relationship is close and continuing, then an unpaid carer, then a close friend or relative. If nobody suitable is available, the Public Guardian takes on the role.
Who can be your attorney in Queensland?
Your attorney must be at least 18 and have capacity for the matters they are appointed to handle. An attorney for financial matters also cannot be bankrupt or taking advantage of bankruptcy laws as a debtor.
The Act rules certain people out. Your attorney cannot be someone who is your paid carer, or who has been your paid carer in the past three years. They cannot be your health provider, or a service provider for a residential service where you live. Someone who receives a government carer payment or benefit for caring for you at home is not treated as a paid carer for this purpose.
You can also appoint the Public Trustee or a trustee company for financial matters, or the Public Guardian for personal matters. Professional attorneys such as the Public Trustee charge fees for acting.
Appointing more than one attorney
You can appoint one attorney or several, and you can give different matters to different people, for example one attorney for financial matters and another for personal and health matters.
Where two or more attorneys share the same matter, the EPA should say how they are to act. Joint attorneys must make every decision together and unanimously. That is a useful safeguard, but it can be slow and can end in deadlock. Several attorneys can each act alone, which is quicker but removes the check that a second signature provides. You can also allow a majority of your attorneys to decide.
If the document does not say, the attorneys are joint attorneys. You cannot appoint more than four joint attorneys for any one matter. If joint attorneys cannot agree, any of them, or another interested person, can apply for directions. If one joint attorney dies or can no longer act, the remaining joint attorneys can continue.
You can also name successive attorneys, who step in only when an earlier attorney’s power ends, for example because they die, resign or lose capacity. Naming a successor avoids leaving a gap at the moment it is most likely to matter.
Choosing the right person
Honesty matters more than financial skill. An attorney can get help with the technical parts of the role, but no amount of supervision makes up for a lack of integrity. Think about who is organised enough to keep records, willing to deal with banks and doctors, likely to be available, and able to stand firm under pressure from other family members.
Most attorneys are family members. A national survey of Australians aged 65 and over by the Australian Institute of Family Studies found that, among those with a valid power of attorney, the attorney was a son or daughter in 70 per cent of cases and a spouse or partner in 20 per cent. Family appointments often work well, but they also mean the attorney may have a personal interest in how your money is managed, including in what is eventually left in your estate.
How to make an enduring power of attorney in Queensland
An EPA must be made on an approved form, and Queensland has two. Form 2, the short form, is used to appoint the same attorney or attorneys for both financial and personal matters, or attorneys for only one of those. Form 3, the long form, is used to appoint different attorneys for financial matters and for personal and health matters.
The government’s explanatory guide is Form 9. These forms have been in use since 30 November 2020, and an EPA made correctly on an earlier approved form remains valid.
You must have capacity when you sign
You must have capacity to make the EPA at the time you sign it. That means you are capable of making it freely and voluntarily, and you understand its nature and effect.
The Act says understanding its nature and effect includes understanding that you can limit the power and give your attorney instructions, when the power begins, that once it begins your attorney will have full control of the matters it covers, that you can revoke it at any time while you still have capacity, that it will continue if you lose capacity, and that once you can no longer revoke it you will not be able to oversee how it is used.
If there is any doubt about your capacity, for example because of illness, a recent hospital stay or a diagnosis such as dementia, it is sensible to have a doctor assess you at the time of signing. The Act also encourages the witness to make a written record of why they were satisfied you understood the document. Evidence of this kind can be very important if the EPA is challenged years later.
Signing and witnessing
You must sign the EPA in the presence of an eligible witness, who must be a justice of the peace, a commissioner for declarations, a notary public or a lawyer. The witness cannot be one of your attorneys, a relative of yours or of one of your attorneys, or a person signing on your behalf. If the EPA covers personal matters, the witness also cannot be your paid carer or health provider.
The witness must certify that you signed in their presence and that you appeared to have the capacity needed to make the EPA. If you are physically unable to sign, another eligible adult can sign for you, at your direction and in your presence.
Your attorneys must accept
An EPA only takes effect for an attorney once that attorney has accepted the appointment by signing the document.
Keep it safe and register it if land is involved
Keep the original in a safe place. A copy certified as a true and complete copy, for example by a justice of the peace or a lawyer, can be used to prove the EPA. If your attorney may need to deal with Queensland land, register the EPA with Titles Queensland.
What are an attorney’s legal duties?
An attorney holds a position of trust, and the Act sets out what that means in practice. An attorney must act honestly and with reasonable diligence to protect your interests, and must exercise their power within the terms of the EPA. Failing to act honestly and diligently is itself an offence.
Every attorney must also apply the general principles in the Act. These include presuming that you have capacity, supporting you to make your own decisions wherever possible, and seeking and taking into account your views, wishes and preferences. Where those cannot be worked out, the attorney must consider what you would have wanted, based on views you expressed while you had capacity.
An attorney for financial matters must keep accurate records and accounts of every dealing and transaction, and must keep your property separate from their own.
They must not enter into a conflict transaction unless you, or the court, have authorised it. A conflict transaction is one where the attorney’s duty to you may conflict with their own interests, or the interests of their relative, business associate or close friend. The Act gives examples, including an attorney buying your car or your house, lending your money to a friend, renting your property to a relative, or using your money to pay their own expenses.
Attorneys must keep your information confidential. Where you have more than one decision maker, such as two attorneys, or an attorney and a guardian, they must consult each other regularly so that your interests are not harmed by a breakdown in communication. An attorney who knows their power has been revoked must not use it.
An attorney who breaches these duties can be removed, can be ordered to compensate you or to account for any profit they made, and in serious cases can face criminal charges.
How do I revoke an enduring power of attorney in Queensland?
While you have the capacity to make an EPA giving the same power, you can revoke your EPA at any time, for any reason, without anyone’s agreement.
A revocation should be made on the approved form, Form 6, and signed and dated in the presence of an eligible witness, in the same way as the EPA itself. You must then take reasonable steps to tell each attorney that their power has ended. If the EPA was registered with Titles Queensland, you must also take reasonable steps to deregister it by registering the revocation. Until you do, the Registrar of Titles can register documents signed under the EPA without first checking whether it has been revoked.
It is also wise to give a copy of the revocation to anyone who holds a copy of the EPA or has been dealing with your attorney, such as your bank, doctor, accountant or aged care provider. In practice, an organisation that has not been told about a revocation may keep accepting your former attorney’s instructions.
Making a new EPA also revokes an earlier one to the extent the two are inconsistent, but it is clearer to revoke the old document expressly.
When an EPA ends automatically
An EPA can also end without any action by you. It ends when you die. It is revoked to the extent it gives power to an attorney who dies, resigns or loses capacity.
If an attorney becomes your paid carer or health provider, their power for personal matters ends. A financial attorney’s power ends if they become bankrupt, and an attorney’s power ends if they become a service provider for a residential service where you live. QCAT or the Supreme Court can also remove an attorney or revoke an EPA.
An attorney can resign by written notice while you still have capacity, but once you have lost capacity they can only resign with the permission of the Supreme Court or QCAT.
Marriage and divorce matter too. Unless your EPA says otherwise, if you marry or enter a civil partnership after making it, the EPA is revoked to the extent it gives power to anyone other than your new spouse or civil partner. If you divorce, or your civil partnership ends, the EPA is revoked to the extent it gives power to your former spouse or civil partner. Anyone planning to marry or remarry should review their EPA first.
Warning signs of power of attorney abuse
Most disputes about enduring powers of attorney are about money. Common warning signs include unexplained withdrawals or transfers from the principal’s accounts, and the principal’s home being sold, mortgaged or transferred, particularly to the attorney or a member of their family.
Other red flags are loans or gifts to the attorney, the attorney’s own bills being paid from the principal’s funds, and an attorney who cuts other family members off from the principal. Be concerned, too, if there are no records or the attorney refuses to account when asked, or if a new EPA is signed soon after a diagnosis and replaces an arrangement that had been in place for years.
What can you do if an attorney is misusing their power?
Report it to the Office of the Public Guardian
The Office of the Public Guardian can investigate allegations that an adult with impaired capacity is being abused, neglected or exploited, including financially. Investigators can require people to produce records and accounts, obtain relevant information such as medical records, and issue notices requiring uncooperative people to attend, answer questions and produce documents.
If needed, the Public Guardian can suspend an attorney’s power. The Public Guardian then becomes attorney for personal and health matters for up to three months and the Public Trustee manages financial matters, while QCAT decides what should happen next. The Public Guardian generally cannot investigate where the principal still has capacity, so those concerns are usually better taken to the police or to a lawyer.
Apply to QCAT or the Supreme Court
The principal, a family member, an attorney, the Public Guardian, the Public Trustee, or anyone else with a sufficient and genuine concern for the principal’s rights and interests can apply to QCAT or the Supreme Court.
Orders can require an attorney to produce a summary of receipts and spending, or detailed accounts, and can require those accounts to be audited. QCAT or the Court can remove an attorney, appoint a replacement, change the terms of an EPA or revoke it. They can also make declarations about the principal’s capacity, about whether an EPA is valid, and about whether an attorney’s power has started.
Recover what was taken
QCAT or a court can order an attorney who fails to comply with the Act to pay compensation for the loss caused, or to account for any profit they made. Where the principal has died, the order is made in favour of the estate. Depending on the facts, there may also be claims for breach of fiduciary duty, undue influence or unconscionable conduct, and some transactions can be set aside.
Act quickly after a death
Where the principal has died, misuse often comes to light during the administration of the estate, and recovery is usually pursued by the executor or administrator. A compensation claim under the Act must generally be made within six months of the death. If the attorney has also died, time runs from the first death. An extension of time can be sought, but it should not be relied on.
When an attorney has sold property left in a will
If an attorney sells property that the principal had left to someone in their will, the gift could fail because the property no longer exists when the principal dies. Where the principal died after these rules began on 30 November 2020, Queensland law generally gives that beneficiary the same interest in any surplus proceeds of sale that they would have had in the property, even if the sale happened before that date.
The Supreme Court can make orders to give effect to that rule, or to prevent a beneficiary gaining an unjust advantage or suffering an unjust disadvantage because of it. An application must be made within six months of the death unless the Court extends the time.
A separate provision allows a person who has lost a benefit in the estate because of an attorney’s dealing with property to apply to the Supreme Court for compensation out of the estate.
Can an enduring power of attorney be challenged?
Yes. The two most common grounds are that the principal lacked capacity when they signed, so the document was never validly made, and that the principal did not sign freely and voluntarily because they were pressured or unduly influenced. QCAT or the Supreme Court can declare whether an EPA is valid. Dishonestly inducing someone to make or revoke an EPA is also an offence.
An attorney’s conduct can be challenged separately, without attacking the document itself.
The law gives particular protection where a principal has made a gift to, or entered into a transaction with, their attorney. Under section 87 of the Powers of Attorney Act, a transaction between a principal and their enduring attorney, or the attorney’s relative, business associate or close friend, is presumed to have been brought about by the attorney’s undue influence. It is then up to the attorney to prove otherwise, and whether the principal had independent legal advice is often central to that question.
Whatever the claim, evidence decides the outcome. Medical records from around the time of signing, the witness’s file, bank statements, and evidence of who arranged the appointment and who was present all matter. That evidence becomes harder to obtain as time passes.
Capacity can be lost and regained (Lambourne v Marrable)
Having your capacity questioned is not the same as having lost it. The Supreme Court of Queensland’s decision in Lambourne v Marrable [2023] QSC 219 shows how the courts approach the question.
Harvey Marrable built the Gold Coast Bakeries business from a bakery he and his wife opened in 1956. In December 2020, aged 88, he made EPAs appointing family members as his attorneys for personal and financial matters. In 2022 he was admitted to hospital after a leg injury failed to heal, and doctors formed the view that he had lost capacity. His EPAs were treated as having started.
Mr Marrable disagreed. On 27 and 28 June 2022 he signed revocations of his EPAs, and in August 2022 he appointed different attorneys. The family members he had removed applied to the Supreme Court, arguing that he had lost capacity in early June 2022 and never regained it, so that the revocations and new appointments were invalid.
The Court found that Mr Marrable had lost capacity on 8 June 2022, but only temporarily, and that he had regained it by about 27 June 2022. His original EPAs had started when he lost capacity, but his revocations of 27 and 28 June 2022 were valid.
The case illustrates several points. Capacity is presumed, and the person who says it was lost must prove it, with the seriousness of the allegation taken into account. Capacity is judged for the particular decision at the particular time, so an illness during a hospital stay may cause a loss of capacity that later resolves.
A medical opinion about one kind of decision does not automatically answer the question for another. To make or revoke an EPA, a person must understand the nature and effect of the document, but they do not need to recall the details of all their financial affairs. Finally, a person with capacity is entitled to make a decision that others think is unwise, even when family members strongly disagree with it.
Elder financial abuse and enduring powers of attorney
The National Elder Abuse Prevalence Study, conducted by the Australian Institute of Family Studies, surveyed 7,000 Australians aged 65 and over living in the community. Just over half (52 per cent) had made an enduring power of attorney.
Of those with an active power of attorney, 13 per cent reported experiencing elder abuse in the previous year, compared with 17 per cent of those without one. People who had informal family agreements, such as care in return for money or property, reported higher rates of abuse than those who did not (21 per cent compared with 15 per cent).
Those figures show an association, not cause and effect. An EPA is not a safeguard on its own, and practical steps help more. Appoint attorneys who must act jointly if you have any doubts, require records to be kept and shared with someone you trust, tell more than one family member about the arrangement, and name a successive attorney. The current forms also include sections where you can name the people your attorney must notify when exercising their power, and say what they must be told.
If you are worried that an older person is being abused, you can call 1800 ELDERHelp (1800 353 374), which connects you to the service in your state. If someone is in immediate danger, call 000.
Enduring power of attorney FAQs
What is the difference between a power of attorney and an enduring power of attorney?
A general power of attorney ends if you lose capacity, and it can only cover financial matters. It is often used for a particular purpose or period, such as while you are overseas. An enduring power of attorney continues if you lose capacity, and it can cover personal and health matters as well as financial ones.
What is the difference between an EPA and an advance health directive?
An EPA appoints someone to make decisions for you. An advance health directive records your own directions about your future health care, and can also appoint an attorney for health matters in case your directions prove inadequate. A direction in an advance health directive takes priority over an attorney’s power for health matters. An advance health directive must include a certificate from a doctor or nurse practitioner confirming that you appeared to have capacity to make it.
Can my attorney change my will?
No. Making or revoking a will is a special personal matter that cannot be given to an attorney. If a will needs to be made, changed or revoked for someone who has lost testamentary capacity, only the Supreme Court can authorise it, and an application needs the Court’s leave.
Can my attorney sell my house?
An attorney for financial matters can sell your home if that is within the power you have given them and the sale is in your interests and consistent with the general principles, including taking your views, wishes and preferences into account. To complete the sale of Queensland land, the EPA must be registered with Titles Queensland. An attorney cannot buy your home themselves, or sell it to a relative or close friend, unless you or the court have authorised that conflict transaction.
Can my attorney be paid?
Not unless you have authorised it. Paying themselves from your money would put the attorney’s interests in conflict with yours, so it is allowed only if you, or the court, have authorised it. The approved forms do not include a payment clause, so if you want your attorney to be paid, say so expressly in the EPA. An attorney can be reimbursed for reasonable expenses they pay on your behalf. Professional attorneys such as the Public Trustee charge fees.
Does an enduring power of attorney end when the principal dies?
Yes. An EPA ends on the principal’s death. From then on the estate is dealt with by the executor named in the will, or by an administrator if there is no executor, and the former attorney has no further authority. The former attorney can still be held to account for what they did while the EPA was in force.
Is an EPA made in another state valid in Queensland?
Generally, yes. An EPA validly made in another Australian state, or in New Zealand, is treated in Queensland as if it were a Queensland EPA, but only to the extent that its powers could have been given by a Queensland EPA. If your EPA was made in a territory or overseas, or you have moved to Queensland, it is worth having it reviewed.
Can I appoint different attorneys for different decisions?
Yes. It is common to appoint one person for financial matters and another for personal and health matters, using the long form (Form 3). It can work well where their strengths differ, provided you are confident they will cooperate, because they must consult each other regularly.
Talk to us about an enduring power of attorney dispute
ROC Legal does not prepare enduring powers of attorney. We act in disputes about them.
If you are concerned that an attorney is misusing their authority, that an EPA was signed by someone who no longer had the capacity to sign it, or that money or property has been taken from someone who could not protect themselves, we can advise you on where you stand and what can be recovered. This is part of our estate litigation practice.
These matters are easier to deal with early, while the records still exist and before assets are spent or transferred, and some claims must be made within six months of a death. Your first consultation is free and confidential, with no obligation to proceed. Call ROC Legal on 1300 196 219 or request a consultation to discuss your situation.
This page is general information about Queensland law as at October 2026. It is not legal advice, and you should get advice about your own circumstances.