Powers of Attorney and Personal Directives Act PEI 2025: What Changed

What the Old System Looked Like

Before November 1, 2025, PEI's framework for substitute decision-making was split awkwardly across two statutes with a significant blind spot between them.

Financial matters were handled under the former Powers of Attorney Act. Healthcare decisions were governed by the Consent to Treatment and Health Care Directives Act (which continues to operate alongside the new legislation). But a whole category of personal decisions — where a parent lives, who they associate with, their daily care routine — had no dedicated legal mechanism.

Families who needed to make housing decisions for an incapable parent often had no choice but to apply to the Supreme Court for a guardianship order. That meant legal fees, capacity assessments, court hearings, and months of waiting — all for a decision that should have been as straightforward as the financial and medical ones.

The Three Big Changes

1. Personal directives now exist. The Act created a new legal instrument — the personal directive — that lets a parent appoint an "agent" to make non-financial, non-medical personal decisions. This covers residential placement, social associations, nutrition, clothing, and general personal care. It activates only when the parent loses decision-making capacity for those matters.

This single change eliminates the most common reason PEI families end up in court. A parent who signs a personal directive alongside their power of attorney and health care directive has all three categories of decision-making covered without any need for judicial involvement.

2. Stricter eligibility for representatives. Under the old Act, virtually any adult could serve as attorney. The 2025 legislation introduced criminal record screening: a conviction within the preceding ten years for violence offences (assault, sexual assault, kidnapping, criminal harassment, uttering threats, intimidation), or financial crimes (theft, fraud, criminal breach of trust), can disqualify a person from acting as attorney or agent. An undischarged bankruptcy disqualifies a person from acting as attorney. The conviction restrictions have statutory exceptions, including a record suspension and, while the principal has capacity, the principal's written acknowledgement and consent after independent legal advice.

These aren't background-check recommendations. They're statutory eligibility restrictions in the Powers of Attorney and Personal Directives Regulations (EC927/25). A person subject to one of these restrictions cannot act unless an applicable statutory exception is met, even if the parent specifically names them.

3. Enhanced accountability and accounting duties. The new regulations impose stricter record-keeping obligations on attorneys and agents. They must maintain detailed records of property, liabilities, income, and expenditures. These records can be demanded by the principal, family members with standing, or the court. This is a significant change from the old system, where accountability mechanisms were minimal and rarely enforced.

What Happened to Existing Documents

Documents executed before November 1, 2025, remain valid under Sections 42 and 43 of the Act. Families don't need to revoke and redo their existing powers of attorney.

However, there's an important catch: attorneys acting under older documents are now bound by the enhanced compliance and accounting duties in the 2025 regulations. The document may be old, but the obligations are new. An attorney who was accustomed to informal financial management now has a statutory duty to maintain records.

There's also a coverage gap to consider. Older documents don't include personal directives (because the instrument didn't exist). Families with only a pre-2025 financial power of attorney and a health care directive still lack coverage for personal care decisions. Adding a personal directive under the new Act fills that gap without replacing the existing documents.

Why an Old Free Kit May No Longer Be Suitable

Community Legal Information of PEI withdrew all of their power of attorney kits after the 2025 Act took effect because the templates were based on the former legislation. An unexecuted template based on the former legislation may not meet current requirements. Documents executed before November 1, 2025, remain valid under the transition rules, but families should check whether they provide the personal-matters coverage now available through a personal directive.

The 2025 regulations include optional form templates (Form 1, Form 2, and Form 3) for the new legislative framework.

Getting Compliant

Our PEI Power of Attorney & Personal Directive Kit is built entirely around the 2025 legislation. It includes the statutory forms from the regulations, the new personal directive (the document that didn't exist before), a witness screening sheet that incorporates the stricter eligibility rules, and execution instructions aligned with Section 32 of the Act. For families with existing pre-2025 documents, it also covers what to keep, what to add, and when a full replacement is warranted.

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