LASTING POWER OF ATTORNEY

What is a Lasting Power of Attorney (LPA)?

A LPA is a document that outlines the decisions you would like your nominated Attorney(s) to make on your behalf. There are two types of LPA:

Property and Financial Affairs LPA: This allows appointed Attorney(s) to make decisions about how your property and money are managed. You can decide what power and the extent of power to give your Attorney(s) when making decisions about any of your affairs. This could include paying your bills and collecting your benefits or selling your house. Your Attorney(s) can manage your property and financial affairs whilst you still have the capacity or even if you don’t.

Health and Welfare LPA: This allows appointed Attorney(s) to make decisions about your personal welfare. This could involve some significant decisions, like giving or refusing consent to a particular type of medical treatment. Also whether you should continue to live in your own home, perhaps with help and support from social services, or whether residential care would be more appropriate.

You can only make a LPA whilst you have mental capacity. If you lack mental capacity in the future and do not have a LPA, then a friend or relative can apply to the Court of Protection to become a deputy to make decisions on your behalf. However, drawing up a LPA is a much faster, less stressful and cheaper process than applying to become a deputy.

Making a Lasting Power of Attorney

There are a number of steps to create a LPA. We can help you through this process and ensure you draw up a Lasting Power of Attorney document that accurately reflects your wishes.

This includes:

Helping you choose the right Attorney(s) for you.
Drafting and completing the LPAs including any bespoke clauses to reflect your personal wishes.
Acting as a certificate provider certifying that you have understood what your LPA entails.
Registering your LPAs with the Office of the Public Guardian.

For this full administrative service, from beginning to end, we charge £130.00 for each LPA. There is no additional VAT to pay. A further £82.00 is payable to the Office of Public Guardian to register your LPA. There are several exemptions whereby a reduced fee or no fee is payable and we would check this for you. We would also complete the relevant paperwork to support this request.

For advice about making a Lasting Power of Attorney and how we can best help you, call us now on 01603 957599. Your initial consultation is free of charge.

We are members of the Society of Will Writers