Myth-busters #8 – I am entitled to know when a family member has made a Power of Attorney

In short, there is no entitlement for anyone to know when someone else has made a Lasting Power of Attorney (LPA).

When someone makes an LPA, either for Property & Financial matters or Health & Care, until it is registered with the Office of the Public Guardian (OPG), usually only the person who made it (called the ‘Donor’) and the person or people they have chosen to be their Attorneys, will have seen it – along with the solicitor who advised the Donor about how best to set the arrangement up in the Donor’s particular circumstances.

Up until July 2015, there was a requirement when registering LPAs with the OPG, to notify at least one person of the registration, who was someone other than any of the Attorneys. Although this no longer applies, the Donor may choose to formally tell someone (or more than one person) about the registration of their LPAs by adding them as a ‘named person’ in the document itself. By doing this, the named person will receive a formal notice about the registration and will have the opportunity to raise any concerns or object to it. A Donor may also of course choose to tell anyone else they like informally.

That said, once an LPA has been registered with the OPG, this record is public and anyone can make an application to the OPG to search the register. You can search the register by completing this form.

In some cases, you may be unhappy with the arrangements someone close to you has made in their LPAs. For example, you may be upset because they have not appointed you as one of their Attorneys. If you have genuine concerns about the arrangements made, for example, that your loved one did not have the capacity to make their LPAs or were pressured into doing so; or if you think that their Attorneys are are not acting in their best interests, then you can raise your concerns directly with the OPG safeguarding team. The contact details are here.