Lasting Powers of Attorney - information and booklets

What is a Lasting Power of Attorney? (applies to England and Wales only)

Instruction form

A Lasting Power of Attorney enables you to decide, in advance, whom you would like to manage your finances (a Property and Affairs LPA) and your personal - including where you live- and (if you wish) healthcare affairs  (LPA Personal Welfare).  The people you appoint become your Attorneys. Not having such arrangements will mean it is necessary for someone to apply to the Court of Protection to be appointed as a Deputy to manage your affairs, under the supervision of the Court through the Office of the Public Guardian.   This is clearly much more expensive and less satisfactory than choosing you own attorneys in advance.

The Personal Property and Affairs LPA (equivalent to an old Enduring Power of Attorney) can be used immediately if the donor wishes, but must, by law, be registered first.  A Personal Welfare LPA can only be used if you lose mental competence, once it too has been registered at a current cost of £150 per document.

Both documents must be signed in front of witnesses, and a Certificate Provider, who may be a friend or some types of professional, must certify that you understand what the LPA means, and that you appear mentally competent at that time.

Two other documents, in our opinion, can for a very effective part of your Legal Planning:

General Powers of Attorney

These can give immediate power to deal with financial issues, and can be for an indefinite time, or just a few weeks (e.g. when you are on holiday, and someone needs to deal with the sale of your house).  However, they become invalid should mental capacity be lost. Much cheaper, and no registration requirements, but they are NOT an alternative to a Lasting Power of Attorney Property and Affairs.

Advance Directive

This deals with medical matters only, so is not as broad based as a Lasting Power of Attorney but it is a lot cheaper and there are no registration fees.  Again, these are not an alternative to a Lasting Power of Attorney Personal Welfare

How many Attorneys should you appoint and whom?

Can you cancel a Lasting Power of Attorney?

You can cancel your LPA if you have the mental capacity to do so. If there is a dispute about whether your LPA has been cancelled, the Court of Protection has the authority to make a decision.

A Property and Affairs LPA is revoked if you or your sole attorney become bankrupt; bankruptcy does not terminate a Personal Welfare LPA.

Registering a Lasting Power of Attorney

Either you or your attorney can apply to the Public Guardian to register your LPA. The application can be made at any time after you have made an LPA and the Public Guardian would encourage you to do so: we would not be in quite so much of a rush unless there is an expectation of poor health.  Both General Powers of Attorney and Advance Directives can be immensely useful (if needed) long before you need to apply for Registration. The advantage of early Registration is there is no delay if mental capacity is suddenly lost.  The Registration process is currently taking around 8 weeks.

Before the application to register the LPA is made, the people named as being entitled to receive notification of the application must be told by the person who wants to register it.

The Public Guardian will give notice that the application has been received to:

Your relatives will not be notified of the application to register the LPA unless you have named them as being persons who should be given notice.

Anyone who has been notified can object to the LPA being registered.

Once the LPA is registered it continues indefinitely. The LPA can be registered by the attorney after you have lost capacity.

The Mental Capacity Act 2005 created the principles on which LPAs are based:

The legislation is based upon five key principles: 

These principles are clearly correct, but the duties and obligations imposed on the Attorneys are severe.

Official Leaflets

What happens if you don't have an LPA

Apart from the extra Court fees and formal reporting:

Other booklets on LPAs