Lasting Power Of Attorney
Made Easy

Appointing an attorney under a Lasting Power of Attorney means that someone you trust can make certain decisions for you if you’re not able to.

There are two types of Lasting Power of Attorney:

• The Health and Welfare Lasting Power of Attorney appoints one or more persons to make decisions on your everyday healthcare and medical treatments.
• The Finance and Property Lasting Power of Attorney gives someone the ability to help manage your finances.

Don’t worry, this isn’t an automatic blank cheque to take control of everything right here right now.

You can decide in your Finance and Property Lasting Power of Attorney whether the person/people you appoint can act under it on your behalf as soon as it is registered, or only when you lose mental capacity. The Health and Welfare Lasting Power of Attorney can only be used once you have lost mental capacity.

Mental capacity is defined in the Mental Capacity Act 2005. But in a nutshell it’s determined by whether you’re able to understand the following when you’re making a decision:

• The decision you need to make
• Why you need to make it
• Any relevant information that helps inform the decision
• The consequences of your decisions
• And that you’re able to communicate the above (whether that’s through speech, signs or another way).

In order to write a Lasting Power of Attorney you need to have mental capacity.

The costs of a Lasting Power of Attorney varies depending on how you get the documents sorted. You can save over 50% on the UK average when you purchase an LPA through Guardian Angel.

Registration fee with the office of the public guardian:

When you’ve completed your lasting power of attorney you have to register it with the Office of the Public Guardian. This can take up to 20 weeks, as long as there are no mistakes.

It costs £82 to register each LPA with the government. Both documents will cost £164 in total. You may be exempt from this fee and can apply for a reduction if so.

No, you don't need a solicitor to set up your lasting power of attorney. Many people can do it themselves if they are legally and financially literate.

Our service helps you by breaking down complicated jargon and helping you understand the documents, so you can complete it in your own time.

We believe that everyone needs a lasting power of attorney. It’s impossible to know when you might need it but it’s essential to have if you were to lose mental capacity. It can be more important the older you are as illnesses such as dementia become a higher risk.

The person making an LPA is called a donor. You must have mental capacity to make a Lasting Power of Attorney.

Best case scenario - you never need it, and you think - ‘What was all the fuss about’.

Worst case scenario something happens that means you’re not able to make important decisions about your health and wellbeing and/or your finances. In order for someone you love to make sure your wishes are met they’d need to:

• Apply to the Court of Protection
• The court would appoint a deputy to make choices on your behalf
• This costs around £1,000, sometimes more
• It takes an average of 5 to 8 months for a deputy to be appointed, and can take even longer.

We’re not here to scare you. That’s no fun for anyone, but given that writing your LPA today only takes 15 minutes, it really is worth it.

It makes sense to complete your Will and Lasting Power of Attorney together. Both these documents will give you peace of mind that you are prepared in case anything happens to you.

Traditionally making a Lasting Power of Attorney has meant spades of paperwork to wrap your head around. That’s where we come in. Our online form makes it easier. Fill out the form online, our expert team will collate it into the documents for you, making sure that everything is present and correct before sending it to you.

In order to make it legal there are two other steps: You and your attorney(s) have to sign it with a witness. The forms then need to be sent off to the office of the public guardian to be registered.

Short answer a Finance & Property Power of Attorney could transfer money to themselves.

But it’s not a blank cheque. There are a lot of duties that an attorney needs to observe.

Power of Attorney can only legally be made when the donor has full mental capacity to enact and consent to the document. It is possible for people with dementia to still have mental capacity and complete their Lasting Power of Attorney forms. If a person with dementia has lost mental capacity - which means they cannot understand the information needed to make decisions, retain the information and/or utilise the information to make decisions - they cannot create an LPA.

A Health and Welfare Power of Attorney only comes into effect once the donor has lost mental capacity. Whereas a Property and Finance Power of Attorney can come into effect after it is submitted or when the donor loses mental capacity - depending on what the donor choses when they fill out the forms.

The person who has made the power of attorney can cancel an LPA at any time - they don't need to give a reason. The only reason this might be complicated is if the person that made the LPA no longer has mental capacity.

It is also possible to challenge an LPA by filing a petition in court to challenge the attorney if their attorney isn’t acting in their best interest. If successful the court will cancel the LPA and appoint an alternative deputy.

If a property and financial affairs or health and welfare LPA is valid and in place, the Attorneys are able to make relevant decisions under the respective LPA.

Relevant social services workers can provide advice to the Attorneys, however, the ultimate decision-making power lies with the appointed Attorneys.

If social services workers believe the Attorney(s) is unfit or isn't operating in the Donor’s best interests, they can address this by applying to the Court of Protection, which could decide to remove the Attorneys decision-making power.

You can choose more than one attorney and they can be siblings.

Yes, dying is one of the events that terminates an LPA.

No one is automatically your attorney, not even your spouse or next of kin. You need an Lasting Power of Attorney to name them specifically in order for them to be able to make decisions on your behalf.

Lasting Power of Attorney and a Last Will and Testament are two different legal documents with different purposes and effects.

Whereas a Last Will and Testament only really comes into effect after you have died, a Lasting Power of Attorney is a legal document that is used before you die, usually when you aren’t able to make your own decisions and lose mental capacity.

The moment that you die a power of attorney ends.

An exemption is when the person making the Lasting Power of Aattorney (the donor) does not have to pay the application fee to register an LPA or the repeat application fee to register the LPA, based on whether they are receiving benefits, such as Income Support or Local Housing Allowance.

A remission is granted where the donor’s income is less than £12,000 per annum, and allows the donor to only pay half of the relevant application fee costs. Both of these can be applied for using the LPA120 form, found on the UK Gov Website (https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/power-of-attorney-fees) and should be sent to the Office of the Public Guardian alongside your LPA forms.

According to the GOV.UK website, it takes up to 20 weeks to register an LPA if there are no mistakes in the application, representing an increase in processing time taken, due to backlog exacerbated by the Covid Pandemic and delays.

With our easy to use online forms the application itself saves you acres of time, taking an average of 15 minutes.

The registration process with the government takes 20 weeks, providing there are no errors. It’s not speedy, so all the more reason to get it sorted sooner rather than later, especially with the support of our team who are on hand to make sure everything is as it should be.

A Lasting Power of Attorney, it will last indefinitely unless revoked by the donor, the attorney, the Court of Protection or until the donor dies.

In order to start acting under an LPA, once the donor has made their Lasting Power of Attorney (LPA), they need to register it with the Office of the Public Guardian (OPG)

Once registered, the rules on when you can start activating a lasting power of attorney vary depending on what type of LPA it is.

If it’s a health and welfare LPA, you can only activate it if the donor has lost mental capacity and can’t make their own decisions.

If it’s a property and financial LPA, you may be able to activate it as soon as it’s registered If the donor chose this option on the LPA. If not, then again it you can only use it if the donor is unable to make decisions on their own.

The kind of decisions an Attorney can make depends on which type of Power of Attorney they are.

There are two type for Lasting Power of Attorneys and they can make different kinds of decisions:

• A Health and Welfare Lasting Power of Attorney: can make decisions about your everyday care, health care, medical treatments and where you live and are looked after.
• A Finance and Property Lasting Power of Attorney: gives someone the ability to help manage your finance, pay bills, collect benefits/pensions and to buy or sell a house.

Any decisions have to follow the instructions laid out in the LPA documents.

There are some decisions that can’t be made by a Attorney - regardless of your wishes.

For example they can’t:

• Act or make decisions that you aren’t able to normally do yourself - such as doing anything illegal
• Allow your liberty to be taken away from you, without a legal court order.
• Make decisions that clashes with your legal guardian, e.g. where you live (this only applies if you have a legal guardian and are under guardianship)
• Make a decision that goes against the instructions laid out in the Lasting Power of Attorney application.

Making a Lasting Power of Attorney means that someone you trust can make certain decisions for you if you’re not able to, for example if you become unwell, or have an accident or if you lose mental capacity.

If you are an Attorney to someone else it means that you’re able to make certain decisions on their behalf when they’re no longer able to.

The only real difference is the time it takes to fill it in.

Both are legal once registered with the Office of the Public Guardian, and will ultimately be signed by you, your attorney(s), your certificate provider and a witness before being sent off.

Our online forms just help take the headache out of the process, with easier step-by-step instructions, without the confusing jargon and on-hand expert support, whenever you need it. Our average customer finishes these forms in just 15 minutes. Why not save yourself the time and stress too?

A Lasting Power of Attorney (LPA) is a document that allows to appoint someone you trust, as your attorney, which gives them the legal authority to make decisions on your behalf if you lose the mental capacity to do so in the future, or if you no longer want to make decisions for yourself.

Broadly speaking there are some key questions asked when filling out a Power of Attorney form:

• Your details
• Your Health and Welfare Attorney(s) details
• Your Finance and Property Attorney(s) details
• How you want your Attorneys’ to make decisions (if you have more than one attorney)
• Your Replacement Attorney’s details (optional)
• Your preferences & instructions (optional)
• Your Certificate Provider’s details
• The details of the people you’d like to notify about your LPA (optional)

This varies depending on the type of Lasting Power of Attorney and the kind of wishes that are laid out in the Lasting Power of Attorney documents.

If you are a Health and Welfare Attorney: you can only represent the persons wishes once they can no longer make their own decisions i.e. when they have lost mental capacity.

If you are a Finance & Property Attorney it depends on their wishes. In the Lasting Power of Attorney application they will have decided whether they want you to represent their views immediately after registration or only when they have lost the ability to make their own decisions (i.e. when they have lost mental capacity).

A Lasting Power of Attorney is useful in a whole range of situations, for example if you had an accident, lost mental capacity, or became seriously unwell and unable to make day-to-day decisions about your health, welfare or financial situation. Lots of these situations can come out of nowhere, without much warning.

Which is why every adult should consider having a Lasting Power of Attorney, so you’re prepared for whatever life throws your way.

The only people who can’t create a Lasting Power of Attorney are people who don’t have mental capacity, or people acting on their behalf.