Powers of Attorney
We’ll guide you through the process of creating a Power of Attorney. This will ensure that your wishes will be respected if you ever become unable to make decisions for yourself. From choosing the right attorneys to registering documents with the Office of the Public Guardian, our solicitors provide clear explanations and compassionate support at every stage.
Powers of Attorney are a group of documents that allow individuals or corporate bodies to nominate family members, loved ones or business associates to act on their behalf.
There are three types of Powers of Attorney:
• Lasting Powers of Attorney (which replaced Enduring Powers of Attorney in 2007)
• General Powers of Attorney
• Ordinary Powers of Attorney
The type of Power of Attorney which is right for you will depend on a range of factors.
How can we help you with your Powers of Attorney?
A Lasting Power of Attorney (LPA) allows you to appoint a named person, or group of people, to make decisions on your behalf. An LPA usually comes into effect when the person who made it is no longer able to make their own decisions. The LPA will need to be prepared, signed and registered well in advance of this happening.
There are two types:
- Financial: This lets you choose someone to make decisions about money and property on your behalf. Often, this means help with things such as paying utility bills, collecting benefits, selling property and generally managing money.
- Health & Care: This lets you choose someone to make decisions about your daily routine and how you are looked after, medical care, moving into a care home and even decisions about life sustaining treatment.
You can choose to make either one or both types of Lasting Power of Attorney. We can talk your through all the options available and work with you to produce an LPA that’s exactly right for your circumstances.
A well drafted Lasting Power of Attorney can save you and your family an enormous amount of stress.
Have you been named as an attorney?
If you need support in your role as an attorney acting on behalf of a family member or friend, please get in touch. As specialist, experienced solicitors we can guide you through your responsibilities and help ensure you are keeping the records and accounts that are required by law.
Enduring Powers of Attorney were replaced in October 2007 by Lasting Powers of Attorney. In most cases, if you or a loved one made and signed an Enduring Power of Attorney before October 2007 it will still be valid.
We recommend you check the following:
- The date the Enduring Power of Attorney was made.
- Whether the people named in the Enduring Power of Attorney are still able to act for you.
We offer a free Enduring Powers of Attorney checking service to help you make sure your power of attorney is still valid.
Have you been appointed as an attorney in a Enduring Power of Attorney?
If you have been named as an attorney in an Enduring Power of Attorney and the person who made the document is, or is becoming, unable to manage their affairs, you will need to apply to the Office of the Public Guardian to register the document.
Our specialist solicitors can support you through this process and manage all the legal formalities on your behalf. We can also advise you on the requirements of your role as an attorney and help to ensure you are fulfilling all legal obligations.
Ordinary and general powers of attorney work in a similar way to property and finance LPAs. They can be very helpful in situations where you want to be able to legally give someone else the power to manage financial or business affairs on your behalf.
Depending on the situation, you may wish to grant a whole range of responsibilities to a trusted family member, friend, associate or business, or you may want to grant just one or two. You can also choose the length of time the power of attorney will last for, whether that’s indefinitely or to cover a certain period, such as while you’re away travelling or receiving treatment in hospital.
These types of powers of attorney can be particularly helpful if you own a business, as they allow you to legally delegate business activities to an associate.
If you think you or your business may require an ordinary or general power of attorney, please get in touch. We will be able to help assess the situation, explain all the options that are available and create a legal solution that perfectly meets your requirements.
When you write a Lasting Power of Attorney, you’ll need to name specific people to act as your attorneys. Should you become unable to manage your affairs in the future, these named individuals will have the legal power to make decisions on your behalf.
From time to time, circumstances might lead you to want to make changes to your LPA. This might be because you want to remove or add an attorney, or it might be because you wish to change the way in which your attorneys can make decisions.
The best course of action for these changes will depend on the situation. It may be that you can remove an attorney by making a legal document called a Deed of Partial Revocation, or you might need to revoke your existing LPA and make a new one.
Whatever the circumstances, our expert solicitors will be able to advise you on the options that are available to you.
Frequently asked questions about Powers of Attorney
Powers of Attorney can be complicated legal documents, and you may feel like you don’t know where to begin. We’ve put together a comprehensive list of frequently asked questions to help get you started.
The person who is making the Power of Attorney is referred to as the Donor. This is because they are giving the power to their Attorneys to make decisions for them, usually at a point in the future when they can no longer make decisions for themselves.
There are two types of LPA. You can make one for property and financial affairs and another for health and care. We recommend that you make both types of LPA because you never know what types of decisions you might need someone to make for you in the future.
Yes, but you must make sure you chose people you trust. These can be family members, friends or even a professional such as a solicitor. Appointing a professional can be a wise decision if you want someone impartial or if your other Attorneys don’t always get on. We also recommend that you chose people who are good with money and are level headed. If someone has been bankrupt, they can’t be an Attorney for property and financial affairs. Your Attorneys also need to be 18 or over.
Yes. However, all of your Attorneys will need to sign the LPAs in pen and have their signature witnessed. LPAs can’t be signed electronically yet. We routinely arrange for LPAs to be signed by Attorneys abroad and usually email the documents for them to be printed abroad, signed, witnessed and posted back to us. Once your LPAs are registered, your Attorneys can make decisions for you from anywhere in the world.
A Certificate Provider is someone from a list of prescribed people who can sign your LPAs to confirm that you know what you’re doing, no one is twisting your arm, and you understand the purpose and scope of the LPAs. One of our solicitors would usually act as your Certificate Provider if we were preparing your LPAs.
There is no set time or situation when your Attorneys take over and in many cases, they would never take over completely anyway. This is because your Attorneys sign up to the Mental Capacity Act Code of Practice when they agree to be your Attorneys and this code of practice says how they are to act for you. For more information about this, please refer to our help guides.
LPAs need to be registered with the Office of the Public Guardian before they are valid and can be used by your Attorneys. It can take some weeks to register an LPA and so we recommend that registration is done straight-away. Although in most cases, it’s not intended for LPAs to be used straight-away, if they are registered, then they can then be used at short notice in the future.
If you have an old-style EPA, we recommend that this is reviewed to ensure that it’s still valid and that no changes need to be made. EPAs only cover property and financial decisions and so you’ll want to consider making an LPA for health and care. We have more information about this in our resource section.
It can take the OPG weeks to register an LPA. If you need someone to sign something for you at short notice, or only in relation to a specific task or transaction such as buying or selling a house, you may be able to make an Ordinary Power of Attorney instead. In some cases, making an Ordinary Power of Attorney can also be helpful whilst you’re waiting for your LPAs to be registered.
You can end your LPAs at any time, as long as you have mental capacity to do so. You can also remove an Attorney but you can’t add someone. If you want to add someone you’ll need to revoke your existing LPA and make a new one.
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