Vicki Hancox, International Event Rider, EM Eventing riding Uluru III
A Lasting Power of Attorney is a legal document that you can prepare which gives the person or people that you appoint as your Attorneys the legal authority to deal with your affairs if you were unable to do so yourself due to illness or loss of mental capacity.
There are two types of Lasting Power of Attorney – Health & Welfare and Property & Affairs. Both documents have to be registered with the Office of the Public Guardian before they can be used and once registered, the Property & Affairs document can be used straight away, but the Health & Welfare document can only ever be used if you were to lose mental capacity.
Without a Lasting Power of Attorney document in place, the alternative should anything happen to you, is for your family to apply to the Court of Protection for an Order to be appointed as Deputy. Not only is this a very stressful procedure for your family, it is also a very expensive procedure. Typical costs involved in an application to the Court of Protection for the appointment of Deputy are:
- Solicitor’s fees (recommended to assist/advise in respect of the application) are £850.00 + VAT. This fee is set by the Court of Protection.
- Court fee - £400.00
- Appointment of Deputy fee - £100. This is a one-off fee imposed by the Court of Protection for placing your details on the Deputy’s Register and carrying out a risk assessment to determine the appropriate Deputy Supervision regime.
- Security Bond – the approximate cost is £80.00 but this depends on the value of the client’s assets. The Court requires you to take out insurance to cover your Deputy’s actions as Deputy. This is payable annually, the first payment due as soon as the Court Order appointing the Deputy is made.
- A supervision fee of between £0 and £800. This is also paid annually in arrears on 31 March. The result of the Court of Protection’s risk assessment will determine how much needs to be paid annually.
- Medical Practitioner’s fee for carrying out an assessment of capacity of approximately £50.00 - £300.00.
The annual costs of an application for the appointment of Deputy will continue until the person whom the application relates to passes away.
By preparing a Lasting Power of Attorney now, you could be avoiding the costs and stress of the above procedure.
The cost for the preparation of Lasting Power of Attorney documents is a one-off payment. There will be no ongoing running costs as with the appointment of Deputy.
We are happy to discuss the preparation Lasting Power of Attorney documents with you and provide you with an indication of the costs involved. This will depend largely on how many documents you prepare, but if a couple were preparing both documents each, our fees would be £900.00 + VAT. There is also the Court fee to pay which is £110.00 per document.
Don’t delay in putting your affairs in order. By acting now, you are in control and can appoint the people that you feel you would want to act for you. If an application needs to be made to the Court of Protection for the appointment of Deputy, the Court determines who will be appointed as your Deputy and this may not be in accordance with your wishes.
You will then have the peace of mind knowing that your affairs are in order and will be dealt with in your best interest. Another consideration is that your savings/investments would be utilised for your needs and not used to pay annual running costs for the appointment of a Deputy.
If you wish to know more about Lasting Power of Attorney documents, please contact Hilda Edge or a member of our Private Client Team on 01905 721600.