Lasting Powers of Attorney Guide

There are two types of Lasting Powers of Attorney.

Property and Financial Affairs Lasting Powers of Attorney - are documents you prepare appointing a person or persons of your choosing (your Attorney(s) to look after your property and financial affairs should you become incapable of managing them yourself or you simply wish someone else to take over the reins for you or wish for someone to manage your affairs alongside you. You can retain as much input as you wish in your affairs., provided you are able to make necessary decisions. Indeed your Attorney(s) must consult you as much as is reasonably possible and enable you, as far as possible, to make your own decisions.

Health and Welfare Lasting Powers of Attorney – are documents which allow you to appoint an Attorney(s) to make any welfare decisions for you on your behalf if you should become mentally incapable of being able to make such decisions yourself. The decisions will include being able to decide what medical treatment you should/should not have, where you should live and the type of care you are to receive.

No. It is a personal choice you can prepare either one or both of the documents.

Your may choose whoever you wish to be your Attorney(s), family, friends even professional Attorneys such as solicitors – the advantage of the Lasting Powers of Attorney is that it is your choice.

Our costs for the preparation of Lasting Powers of Attorney start from £300.00 plus VAT per document. However, if you wish to have both the Property and Financial Affairs and Health and Welfare Lasting Powers of Attorney we can prepare these from £450.00 plus VAT for both. WE can prepare and register both for £700+ VAT and can offer a reduced fee if you are a couple making both types of LPA.

In order for the documents to take effect they must first be registered with the Office of the Public Guardian. The mandatory registration fee per document is £110.00. If you have any queries regarding low income or problems with the fee then please speak to one of our Probate Team as the registration fee can, in certain circumstances, be reduced or waived.

One of the main advantages of preparing the Lasting Powers of Attorney is knowing that if anything were to happen that you need someone to make decisions for you or to assist you then you have in place an Attorney(s) of your choosing to make decisions for you or to assist you. If you lose capacity to make decisions regarding your affairs and there are no Powers in place then it will mean that someone will need to make a Deputyship Application to the Court to be appointed to look after your affairs. This may be someone who would not be of your choosing. In any event the application takes a much longer time and is much more expensive. Deputyship applications can take up to 6 months or more to be approved.

No. As long as your Enduring Power of Attorney is prepared correctly, was drawn up before 1st September, 2007 and you are happy with the contents of it, it remains a valid document. However, Enduring Powers of Attorney only deal with the management of your financial affairs. You may wish to consider a Health and Welfare Lasting Power of Attorney too. It is perfectly in order to have an Enduring Power of Attorney and a Lasting Power of Attorney.