A Wish Come True

AUTHOR’S NOTEThe Power of Attorney is usually in use when someone with money, an elderly woman or man, is too old or mentally unstable to conduct their own affairs. Then the power of signing cheques and organising an estate or business is given to a relation or to a Solicitor who acts as an Executor. It has very old origins – in fact the beginning of it has been lost in the mists of time. It arose originally out of Common Law and in particular the general Law of Agency. Merchants authorised a subordinate to buy goods for them in distant countries and eventually the law developed so that this became entirely legal. Various cases came before the Courts over the years, which clarified some of the ways it could be used. There was, however, no legislation at that time and it goes so far back that the original date is not given in the legal text books. The case that I have put in this novel would have been entirely legal at that date, so long as the Solicitors in charge of the estate had the Earl’s signature. Of course there have been abuses of this arrangement, but on the whole in England it has worked very well and a great many businesses, estates and fortunes have been saved by the original owner giving Power of Attorney to someone younger, more knowledgeable and in a great number of cases with a keenness to try new ideas and new methods.