Personal Directive Nova Scotia Template: What to Include and How to Sign It

A personal directive in Nova Scotia is the document that tells people what medical and personal care decisions you want if you can no longer speak for yourself. It's governed by the Personal Directives Act — completely separate legislation from the Powers of Attorney Act that covers financial decisions. If you've already set up an enduring power of attorney, you're only half done. Without a personal directive, your healthcare decisions default to a statutory hierarchy that may not reflect what you actually want.

What a Personal Directive Template Must Include

The Nova Scotia Department of Justice provides a free Personal Directive template on its website, including a long-form version with detailed instruction fields. Whether you use the government template or draft your own, a valid personal directive must contain:

The basics:

• Your full legal name and date of birth
• A clear statement that the document is a personal directive under the Personal Directives Act
• The date of signing
• Your signature (or the signature of someone signing on your behalf if you're physically unable)
• One independent witness signature

Your delegate appointment:

• The full name and contact information of your delegate — the person who will make decisions for you
• Whether you're appointing alternate delegates (who take over if your primary delegate can't serve)
• The scope of authority — you can limit what types of decisions the delegate can make, or grant broad authority over all personal care matters

Your instructions (optional but strongly recommended):

• Specific healthcare preferences: resuscitation, mechanical ventilation, artificial nutrition, palliative care
• Living arrangements: whether you want to remain at home, move to a specific facility, or avoid certain types of care settings
• Personal care preferences: daily routines, religious practices, dietary needs, social activities
• Values statements: what quality of life means to you, what conditions you consider unacceptable

The long-form template from the Department of Justice walks through each of these categories with prompted fields. You don't need a lawyer to fill it out, but the document is only useful if you're specific enough that your delegate can actually follow your wishes rather than guessing.

How It Differs from a Power of Attorney

This is where Nova Scotia families get tripped up. An enduring power of attorney covers finances — banking, property, investments, tax filings. A personal directive covers everything that isn't financial — medical consent, living arrangements, clothing, hygiene, social contact.

Naming a financial attorney does not give them authority over your medical care. Naming a healthcare delegate does not let them access your bank accounts. You need both documents, and they should be coordinated — ideally naming people who can communicate with each other about decisions that cross both domains, like selling a home to fund long-term care placement.

Witness Rules for a Personal Directive

A personal directive in Nova Scotia requires one independent witness. The witness cannot be:

• The named delegate
• The delegate's spouse or partner
• Someone signing on your behalf (if you're physically unable to sign)

There's no requirement for a lawyer or notary to witness a personal directive, though having one does add an extra layer of credibility if the document is ever challenged. Compare this with the enduring power of attorney, which requires two witnesses and has a longer list of disqualifications (the attorney's children, for example, are also excluded).

Joint Delegates: What You Can and Can't Do

A common mistake is naming two children as "joint delegates" to make healthcare decisions together. Under the Personal Directives Act, you cannot appoint joint delegates for the same category of decisions. If you name two delegates for medical care, the directive is invalid on that point.

What you can do is name different delegates for different domains — one person for healthcare decisions and another for living arrangements, for example. Or you can name one primary delegate with an alternate who steps in if the primary can't serve.

What Happens If You Don't Have One

If you lose capacity without a personal directive, Nova Scotia's statutory hierarchy kicks in. Healthcare providers look to the following people, in order:

1. Spouse or registered domestic partner
2. Adult child
3. Parent
4. Person standing in loco parentis (in place of a parent)
5. Sibling
6. Grandparent
7. Grandchild
8. Aunt or uncle
9. Niece or nephew
10. Other relative
11. Public Trustee (as the statutory decision-maker of last resort)

This hierarchy isn't always a problem — many families have a clear decision-maker. But when adult children disagree about a parent's care, or when there's a common-law partner and estranged family members, the lack of a directive creates conflicts, and the family may need to apply to the Supreme Court of Nova Scotia for a representation order under the ACDMA. That process requires a capacity assessment ($500–$700) and legal representation.

How to Get Started

The Nova Scotia Department of Justice publishes the official personal directive forms at novascotia.ca/just/pda/. These are free to download and fill out. If your planning needs are straightforward — one delegate, standard healthcare preferences — the government template works fine.

For families dealing with complex situations — multiple properties, disagreements about care preferences, coordination between financial attorneys and healthcare delegates, or the need to plan for the Land Registration Office requirements tied to property sales — the Nova Scotia Power of Attorney Kit covers both the enduring power of attorney and personal directive together, including the witness and execution checklists that changed with the 2022 amendments.

Related Reading

• Advance directive vs power of attorney in Nova Scotia
• Who can witness a power of attorney in Nova Scotia
• Nova Scotia estate planning checklist

See more Nova Scotia guides →