What Do You Need to Know About Successfully Registering an LPA?

January 2025

Because of our aging population, devastating conditions such as Alzheimer’s disease and dementia are on the rise. This means that it’s becoming even more important to consider writing a Lasting Powers of Attorney.

These vital legal documents allow an individual (known in this sense as a ‘donor’) to appoint a family member or friend to act as their ‘attorney’. Once an LPA is in place, this means that if the donor is no longer able to make decisions for themselves, their attorney(s) can step in to act on their behalf.

LPAs can be highly personalised. An individual can choose whether to make a financial and property LPA, a health and care LPA, or both. Even within these options, the donor can choose which decisions they wish their attorney to be able to make on their behalf, and how they wish them to make those decisions. For example, if a donor was to appoint two or three family members to act as their attorneys, they could then dictate whether decisions can be made by individual attorneys, or whether they need to be collectively agreed.

It’s important to take into account that it’s not just the making of an LPA that matters here. LPAs also need to be registered with the Office of the Public Guardian. This is a crucial second step that, unfortunately, is often forgotten about until the last minute.

When should you register an LPA?

An LPA cannot be used until it has been successfully registered.

The good news is that you can register an LPA as soon as it’s made. You don’t have to be at the point of needing to use the LPA to do so, and you can still choose to cancel and remake the LPA if you change your mind about anything. Though there is a registration fee, this is relatively minimal at £82 per LPA. (There are exemptions available for those who would struggle to cover this cost.) Once this has been done, it means that everything is in place ready for if and when the LPA is needed.

Conversely, there can be significant downsides to waiting to register an LPA. The standard timeframe for the Office of the Public Guardian to process registration applications is 8-10 weeks, though at various points over the past few years, applications have been delayed for up to 20 weeks. If you waited to register an LPA until the donor needed support, this could result in a difficult wait of 2–5 months until their attorney(s) could step in to provide it.

There is also the issue that registrations are not always straightforward and LPAs can get rejected by the Office of the Public Guardian. Recent data shows that more than 50,000 LPA applications were denied by the Office of the Public Guardian in the 2023/24 financial year. If the donors behind these applications were in desperate need of help, a rejected application would be a real blow. Not only might they have already waited up to 5 months for a response, if the donor in question had already reached a point of losing mental capacity, they would not be able to make a replacement LPA. This could therefore leave them in a very tricky situation.

How can you avoid this situation?

We believe the lesson to take from this situation is twofold.

Firstly: it’s vitally important to choose the solicitor you work with to make an LPA very carefully. An experienced solicitor who specialises in this area will be able to ensure they draft LPAs to a high standard. This will vastly decrease the risk of your application being rejected. They will also be able to properly advise you on ensuring that documents have been correctly signed and witnessed, which, once again, will cut the risk of rejection.

Secondly: the sensible course of action is always to seek to register an LPA as soon has it has been written, signed and witnessed. Even if you don’t expect to need to act on an LPA for a long while to come, registering it right away ensures that it is ready and in place whatever might be ahead. This also ensures that in the unlikely event that your expertly-written LPA was rejected, there would be plenty of time to address the issue.

If you’re concerned about the possibility of an LPA being rejected by the Office of the Public Guardian, we’re always on hand to offer expert advice.