SunCrest Law / Families & individuals / Missionary families
A departing missionary is gone for eighteen months to two years, usually right as adult life begins — a bank account, a car, a phone contract, a tax return, sometimes a scholarship or a student loan. A power of attorney lets a parent handle all of it without a transatlantic phone call and a notary.
A power of attorney names someone — almost always a parent — who can sign on the missionary's behalf while they are away. It does not take anything away from the missionary, and it ends when they revoke it or when the term you choose runs out.
With one in place, a parent can file a tax return, deal with the bank, renew or cancel a phone plan or insurance policy, sign for a car sale or registration, respond to a student loan servicer, and handle whatever paperwork arrives in the mail with a deadline on it.
Without one, institutions will not talk to you. Banks and the IRS in particular will not accept a parent's authority over an adult child's account on the strength of the relationship alone, no matter how obvious the situation is.
No. The missionary stays in charge and can revoke the document at any time. We can also narrow it — limiting it to financial matters, excluding the sale of specific property, or ending it automatically on a set date — if a general grant feels like more than you want.
Before departure, while everyone is in the same room and a notary is easy to reach. Signing one from the field means coordinating a U.S. embassy or consulate appointment, which is slow, sometimes far away, and occasionally not possible at all.
That is a separate document, and worth signing at the same time. A health care directive names who may speak with providers and make decisions if the missionary is seriously injured or unable to communicate — a real possibility across a two-year assignment abroad.
You can, and some banks will accept one. Many will not. Institutions reject powers of attorney over formatting, missing statutory language, stale dates, and notarization problems, and you will discover the rejection at the moment you need the document to work. We prepare it in the form Utah institutions expect, and walk you through notarization.
The whole thing is usually one short meeting and a flat fee. If you have more than one missionary leaving, or a sibling departing later, we handle them together.
Parents of departing missionaries are often the same people who have never signed their own powers of attorney, wills, or health care directives. If one of you were in an accident while your missionary was abroad, the family would face two problems at once.
We are happy to prepare only the missionary document. But if you want to look at the rest of it while the family is already in the room, that conversation is free. See the family practice.
Tell us when they leave and we will work backward from it. The first conversation is free and there is no obligation.
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