Lasting Powers of Attorney Solicitors

A Property and Financial Affairs Lasting Power of Attorney gives your attorney the power to make decisions regarding your property and finances. These can include paying your bills, running your bank accounts and even selling your house – though you can restrict the powers if you wish.

You can use this type of LPA while you still have mental capacity. This can be useful if you’re struggling to deal with your financial matters yourself, for reasons ranging from struggling to hear over the phone to being unable to leave your home.

A Health and Welfare Lasting Power of Attorney gives your attorney the power to make decisions regarding your health and welfare. Example decisions include what medical treatment you receive, who can see your confidential medical records, where you live and who can visit you. This type of LPA can only be used once you’ve lost your mental capacity.

Setting up a Lasting Power of Attorney involves following a structured legal process, which typically progresses in the following stages.

• Contacting solicitors: The first step is to get in touch with specialist solicitors who can explain and guide you through the rest of the process.

• Selecting the type: Depending on the aspects of your life you need help managing, you’ll decide whether you need a Property and Financial Affairs LPA, a Health and Welfare LPA or both.

• Choosing an attorney: The person you appoint as your attorney should be someone you trust who understands your decision-making and preferences.

• Completing forms: You’ll need to complete the relevant Lasting Power of Attorney forms accurately, including complete information about yourself and your chosen attorney.

• Informing relevant parties: Notifying family members and your chosen attorney at this stage will help prevent disputes later on.

• Obtaining a certificate: A professional like a doctor or lawyer will act as a ‘certificate provider’, confirming you’ve understood the implications of the LPA.

• Registering with the OPG: After receiving your forms and registration fee, the Office of the Public Guardian will review them. There is then a waiting period during which interested parties can raise concerns, usually lasting around one month.

• Activating the LPA: After the waiting period has passed, you can specify that your Lasting Power of Attorney should come into effect if you lose mental capacity or activate it immediately.

Your attorney should be someone you are confident will make decisions with your best interests at heart. This could be anyone you trust, including:

• Your spouse or civil partner

• Your child or children (as long as they’re at least 18 years old)

• A relative

• A close friend

• Your solicitor

• Your accountant

Yes, you can choose more than one attorney for your LPA. If you do this, you’ll need to decide whether they must act jointly, making their decisions together, or jointly and severally, which means they can each make decisions by themselves.

• Choosing for your attorneys to act jointly can act as a safeguard for your best interests but can also make it more time-consuming for them to run your affairs if they can’t agree or are unable to act for some reason.

• On the other hand, choosing for your attorneys to act jointly but severally can make it more convenient for them to run your affairs but means they can make decisions for you without the other’s knowledge.

If you need both a Property and Financial Affairs and Health and Welfare LPA, you can choose different attorneys for each. It’s also possible to appoint a replacement attorney in case your primary attorney is unable to act. For example, you might name your spouse as your primary attorney and your child as the replacement.

Our specialist lawyers offer a fixed fee service for this work. Our prices are as follows:

A single Lasting Power of Attorney – £725 + VAT at 20% (An LPA for Property and Financial Affairs or Health and Welfare) our Private Client team can advise on the costs if multiple LPA’s are required.

In addition, the Office of the Public Guardian charges a fee to register each LPA. That fee is currently £82 per LPA.

The length of time to obtain your LPA can vary based on a variety of factors, such as any objections made during the mandatory waiting period and current processing times at the Office of the Public Guardian (OPG). Typically, the full process takes between 10 and 20 weeks from the time you submit your forms to the OPG.

The time may be longer if there are any discrepancies with your forms so it’s advisable to instruct specialist solicitors to ensure that you draft your Lasting Power of Attorney correctly.

You can revoke your LPA at any time, provided you have mental capacity. You do this by signing a deed of revocation, which is a legal document that states you are cancelling the powers you granted to your attorney. You must draft this using specific wording and have it witnessed before sending it to the Office of the Public Guardian along with the original LPA document.

You must also notify your attorney that you are revoking the Lasting Power of Attorney.

If you lose your mental capacity and don’t have a Lasting Power of Attorney, no one will automatically have the authority to make decisions on your behalf – not even your next of kin. Medical and welfare decisions can be made on your behalf by doctors and care providers, rather than your family, and there will be no way to avoid disputes.

To make financial decisions for you, your loved ones will need to apply to the Court of Protection to be appointed as your ‘deputy’. This is a time-consuming process which involves an annual fee of up to £2,500 to renew the deputyship. The deputyship powers are also significantly more limited than the powers of an attorney.

The court will make the final decision regarding who is appointed as your deputy. You have no say in who is appointed, so it may not be the person you trust the most to make decisions for you. If no one is willing or able to be your deputy, the court might appoint your local authority to make decisions for you.

Not having a Lasting Power of Attorney means losing control over who makes decisions for you if you lose your mental capacity. You can ensure that someone you trust decides your affairs by setting up an LPA while you still have mental capacity.