Setting Clear Rules for Your Supporters

You are in charge of your own life. When you ask people to support you, you decide what help you need — and the next step is being clear about it, so they know exactly how to help.

Think of it like having someone help in your garden. You would tell them which plants to water and which weeds to pull. Setting rules for your supporters does the same thing. It is not about distrust. It is about making things clear and easy for everyone.

Why clear rules matter

• They keep you in control. When you are specific about what your supporters can do, you stay in charge of the big decisions.
• They protect you. Clear limits are a strong way to protect your money, your home, and your choices.
• They help your supporters. Clear rules take the guesswork away. Your supporters can act confidently, knowing they are helping the way you wanted.

Part 1: When does the help start?

Before anyone starts helping, decide when their help begins.

Setting the trigger

A trigger is the signal that your supporter can start helping with something. You decide what it is.

For informal help, the trigger can be simple — when you ask, or if you go into hospital.

For an Enduring Power of Attorney, which covers your money, it depends on the document. You can usually choose for it to start as soon as you sign, or only when a doctor assesses that you need the help. Powers of attorney are set by state and territory law, so the rules differ depending on where you live. Our guides are written with New South Wales in mind.

One appointment does not cover everything

This catches people out. In New South Wales, money and health are two separate appointments:

• A Power of Attorney covers financial and legal matters — bills, bank accounts, property.
• An Enduring Guardian covers health and lifestyle — medical treatment, where you live, services you receive.

They are different documents, and you can appoint different people to each. Rules you write for one do not apply to the other.

Keeping your information safe

• Passwords. Keep your computer and banking passwords to yourself. A supporter does not need them to help you.
• Papers. Keep the original documents somewhere secure.

Part 2: Be specific

“Help me with my money” is too vague to be useful, and vagueness is where trouble starts. Name the actual tasks.

Money

• Can: Pay my electricity and phone bills from my account.
• Can: Ring Centrelink to check on my pension.
• Cannot: Sell my house or my car.
• Cannot: Take out a loan in my name, or spend my money without asking me first. Keep the receipt for anything you pay for on my behalf.

Health, if you have appointed an Enduring Guardian

• Can: Make my doctor’s appointments and collect my medicines.
• Can: Join me when I visit my doctor and help me understand what they have said.
• Cannot: Decide about moving me into aged care without talking to me and my family first.
• Cannot: Change my treatment unless I have agreed to it.

Talk it through

Talk through with each of your supporters — what they can help with, and what they cannot do without asking you. An honest conversation now means everyone knows where they stand, and nobody has to guess later. Have these conversations at the height of your confidence and earn peace of mind.

It might help to write it down. A short note of what you agreed gives everyone something to go back to, and nobody has to rely on remembering.

It is also worth letting the wider family know what you have arranged and why — who is helping with what, and where the limits are. Most family disputes are not about what was done. They are about what nobody was told.

Setting rules is not a precaution against your family. It is how you stay in charge of your own life while letting people help.