A Lasting Power of Attorney (LPA) allows you to make arrangements to ensure that if an accident or illness were to affect your mental capacity to act or make decisions for yourself, your personal and financial affairs will be looked after by a person(s) that you choose.
By making a Lasting Power of Attorney (LPA) you can choose who will make decisions for you if you become unable to make them for yourself. Without an LPA in place, even your close family members do not have an automatic authority to act on your behalf and they will have to make an application to the court. The court will decide who to appoint and this may be someone you would not ordinarily choose to make such decisions.
Your attorney must always act in your best interests and follow a strict code of conduct which includes taking account of any views you have expressed in the past.
Existing Enduring Powers of Attorney (EPA) must be registered when the donor has lost or is losing, their mental capacity to deal with their own affairs. Applications must be made on prescribed forms and notices must be served on at least three people, those people being defined by a statutory list of family members.
Lasting Powers of Attorney must be registered before use, regardless of whether the donor has lost capacity. Unlike Enduring Powers of Attorney, the donor or the attorneys can seek to have a Lasting Powers of Attorney registered. Again, applications must be made on prescribed forms and notices must be served but with Lasting Powers of Attorney, those notices are served on people chosen by the donor (who are specified in the Lasting Powers of Attorney form itself).
Anyone on whom notice of the application to register a Power of Attorney is served (including the donor) has the right to object to the registration on one or more of a number of specified grounds. If, however, there are no objections the Office of the Public Guardian generally register the Power of Attorney within six to eight weeks (although it can take longer).
Our solicitors provide a range of services to support you in creating and managing your Lasting Power of Attorney application. We offer:
Our focus is always on delivering a service tailored to your specific situation, ensuring that your LPA reflects your intentions accurately.
To begin the process, please complete our LPA Questionnaire and contact one of our specialist solicitors to schedule an appointment.
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