What is Power of Attorney for?
A Lasting Power of Attorney (LPA) is a legal document that enables the Donor to choose someone, the Attorney, to make decisions on their behalf about such things as finances, property and personal welfare at a time in the future should they become physically or mentally incapable to deal with their affairs. There are two types:

1. Property & Affairs and
2. Health & Welfare

Anyone above the age of 18 years old can make one. They will be able to appoint more than one Attorney. Ideally, it is favourable for the Attorneys to act as jointly and severally. They would also be able to appoint a replacement an Attorney to make decisions on their behalf if the original Attorney is no longer able to act.

The Donor can still make decisions if the LPA is registered, as long as the Donor has capacity to do so.

Who needs one?
Anyone and everyone needs an LPA!

A lasting power of attorney (LPA) gives another individual the legal authority to look after specific aspects of your financial affairs or health and welfare should you lose the capacity to do so. It’s not just for the elderly; younger people may become incapacitated through accident or illness.

If there is no LPA in place and a person later becomes mentally incapable, relatives could face a long delay and expenses in applying to the court of protection to get access and take control of their finances.

Why do you need one?
LPAs are legal documents recognised by financial institutions, care homes, local authority as well as tax, pension and benefits authorities.

What do I need to do?

Consider who you’d like to appoint as your Attorneys. You may wish to appoint more than one, ideally a minimum of 2 and a maximum of 4. Taking into account the role that they would be carrying out, particularly noting if they are willing to act on your behalf.

We will take you through the full process of setting it up:
 Firstly, we will send a questionnaire to complete then…
 Prepare the LPA(s) for signature
 We arrange with the Donors and Attorneys to get the documents signed and returned to us.
 We will send the documents to the Office of Public Guardian to register the LPA, this takes around 10 weeks.
 Once registered, the LPA documents will be returned to you as proof, and the LPA can be set up online so anyone that needs to see it can look it up.