Lasting Power of Attorney

What would happen if you had a stroke, were involved in an accident resulting in a brain injury, or you developed dementia?

Who would help you to make financial decisions or make financial and medical decisions on your behalf if you lost mental capacity? Your partner or spouse has no automatic legal authority to do so.

Update: If you are waiting for the registration of a Lasting Power of Attorney, please be aware that the Office of the Public Guardian (OPG) is presently take up to 20 weeks to process the registration of documents.

What is a Lasting Power of Attorney?

A Lasting Power of Attorney (LPA) is a means of keeping control of who would manage your affairs if you could no longer manage them yourself. It is a legal document in which you name a person(s) that you trust and who knows you best to make decisions on your behalf in the event that you lose mental capacity for decision making.

LPAs can only be used during a person’s lifetime, once a person passes away the powers under their LPA end.

How an LPA can help

If you, or a family member, were to lose mental capacity for decision making another person would not be able to make decisions on your behalf unless an LPA had been created. As the property & financial LPA can be used while you have mental capacity for decision making (but only under your instruction), it can be useful in situations of poor health where mental capacity isn’t an issue.

By creating an LPA you are ensuring that someone you trust and who knows you best has legal authority to make decisions on your behalf and is able to safeguard your interests.

Our Advice Team is available to talk you through the application process and to answer any questions you may have, and if you decide to go ahead they will complete the relevant forms for you and oversee the registration of your LPAs.

How much does an LPA cost?

One LPA (health & welfare or property & financial): £176

Two LPAs (health & welfare and property & financial): £224

Four LPAs (health & welfare and property & financial for two people): £345

Prices exclude VAT (where applicable) and the registration fees to the Office of the Public Guardian.

We can also refer you to a free will writing service with every LPA completed.

Enduring Power of Attorney

If you had made an Enduring Power of Attorney (EPA) before October 2007, we can assist the attorney(s) to register this document when you lose or start to lose your ability to make your own financial decisions or manage your own money.

However, it is worth bearing in mind that an EPA does not give your attorney(s) legal decision-making power in relation to your health or welfare, this includes where you live, who cares for you, choices between any treatment options or if you need to move to a residential care home.

Useful resources

Lasting Power of Attorney - FAQs

  • If you lost mental capacity to make your own decisions, your family cannot make those decisions on your behalf unless they have legal authority to do so. An LPA gives you the opportunity to give the person/people that you trust and know you best, the legal authority to act on your behalf.

  • If your family had to make decisions on your behalf, they would have to apply to the Court of Protection for a deputyship order, which is a longer process and is more expensive.

  • Yes! The Finance and Property LPA can be used while you have mental capacity to make your own decisions, but only under your instruction. You are still in control of your own decision making.

    Note: a Health and Welfare LPA can only be used if you lose mental capacity to make your own care and welfare decisions.

  • The Health and Welfare LPA covers decisions such as where someone will live, who will visit them, and decisions about medical treatment. It allows the option for your attorney(s) to discuss and make decisions on life sustaining treatment and allows your attorney(s) to make decisions in relation to residential care, should it be relevant.

    You choose whether you want your attorney(s) to have the option to make decisions on life sustaining treatment.

  • There is no upper limit on the number of attorneys you can have, however you must consider the practicalities of your attorneys working together.

  • No.

  • Someone who is under a bankruptcy order cannot be an attorney on a Property and Finance LPA, until their bankruptcy is discharged. Someone who is subject to a debt order cannot be an attorney on a Property and Finance LPA.

  • If you appoint your attorneys jointly, the law will see them as one unit, therefore, if one cannot act the other cannot act alone. If you appoint your attorneys jointly and severally, each attorney can act alone, if one attorney could no longer act for you the remaining one could carry on.

  • You can use a solicitor, an organisation such as Diverse Abilities, or, you can use the Office of the Public Guardian (OPG) website and draft the LPA yourself.

    Whichever method you use, you will have to pay registration fees to the OPG.

Contact us.

Phone: 0300 330 5514 (calls charged at the local rate)

Phoneline open hours: Monday to Friday 9am – 4.30pm

Email: advice@diverseabilities.org.uk

Address: Diverse Abilities Central Office, The Treehouse, Merritown Lane, Hurn, Dorset, BH23 6DT