§ 19-9-124.Parental limitation on delegation of power of attorney; rights, duties, and responsibilities of agents; acknowledgment of acceptance of responsibilities; approval of agents; organizational and entity record keeping

This is the heart of Georgia’s power of attorney for the care of a child. A parent may delegate to an agent any power and authority over the child’s care and custody, with a few exceptions: the agent can’t consent to the child’s marriage or adoption, to the performance or inducement of an abortion on or for the child, or to the termination of parental rights. No court approval is needed. But the delegation can’t change any rights, obligations or authority set by an existing court order, including a standing order, and it can’t take away a parent’s rights over custody, parenting time, visitation or support. Nor can it cut off support the child should receive under a court order or for any other reason. When the Child Support Enforcement Agency is collecting support for the child, it’s authorized to redirect the payments to the agent while the power of attorney lasts, or until it’s revoked or superseded by a court order.

Timing matters if a divorce or custody case is pending. A power of attorney signed during that case is void from the start unless both parties to the case sign or agree to it, if both have custodial rights to the child, or the judge enters an order allowing it as in the child’s best interests.

Except as limited by federal law, this article or the parent’s own directions in the document, the agent steps into the parent’s shoes, with the same rights, duties and responsibilities the parent has under Georgia law. The agent must accept in writing the responsibility of caring for the child for the life of the power of attorney and, if it applies, name the child-placing agency or nonprofit entity or faith based organization the agent works with. The agent must also certify that he or she isn’t on Georgia’s sexual offender registry or another state’s, territory’s, the District of Columbia’s or a tribe’s sexual offender or child abuse registry, and has never been required to register. Background checks turn on the agent’s relationship to the child. The person signing the power of attorney must require a nonrelative agent to provide a criminal background check and, when signing, acknowledge having read and reviewed it. For a grandparent, great-grandparent, stepparent, former stepparent, step-grandparent, aunt, uncle, great aunt, great uncle, cousin or sibling of the child, the signer may waive the check instead. Section 19-9-121 defines the check as an unrestricted search of state and FBI criminal records.

The agent must act in the child’s best interests. An agent who consents, or refuses to consent, to medical, dental or mental health care in good faith and in the child’s best interests isn’t liable to the person who signed the power of attorney. Every child-placing agency and nonprofit entity or faith based organization that helps with these documents must keep a record of all powers of attorney signed by agents it approved for at least five years after they expire. The section was last amended in 2020.