Lasting Power of Attorney

If the worst were to happen and you were to suffer a brain injury or a degenerative illness such as dementia, who would take care of you and your finances? It is not a subject that many of us like to give much thought to, but it is important.

Losing your mental capacity can be many people's worst fear, and so it is important that you protect yourself against what might happen, should this occur. The best way to do this is by setting up a Lasting Power of Attorney. This can outline how you want your finances to be managed or the kind of care that you want to receive. 

At Loveday Solicitors, we are experts in managing the Lasting Power of Attorney. We can help you to draft your Lasting Power of Attorney and help you to think about all the things that need to be considered within it. 

What is a Lasting Power of Attorney?

A Lasting Power of Attorney is something which gives someone else that you trust the legal authority to make decisions on your behalf when you are no longer able to do so. This can either apply to your financial situation or it can relate to your care, welfare and medical treatment. It gives you the opportunity to outline what you want to happen and ensure that people will follow it even when you are not able to communicate this any longer. 

There are different types of power of attorney and so it is important that you understand what each of these are. A standard Power of Attorney can be used as a temporary measure to give someone authority to make decisions for your finances when you are not present yourself. However, a Lasting Power of Attorney. Puts permanent authority in place so that your finances, health and welfare can all be managed. This will only come into effect if you have lost the mental capacity to make those decisions for yourself. An Enduring Power of Attorney is used to manage financial affairs and property but cannot apply to personal welfare. 

By setting up a Lasting Power of Attorney, you can provide Peace of Mind for yourself and those closest to you. You can be sure that all of your interests will be taken into account and you can still have control over what happens to you and your property even after you have lost mental capacity. 

Types of Lasting Power of Attorney

Health and Welfare LPA

A Health and Welfare Lasting Power of Attorney covers all the things involved in your personal care. This can include important decisions like how life sustaining treatment will be administered and the type of medical care that you want to have. It will also apply to where you want to live, such as whether you want to move into a care home or remain in your own property. A Health and Welfare Lasting Power of Attorney can even cover your daily routine, giving you the opportunity to outline schedules around feeding, dressing and bathing and who you want to take responsibility for. 

A Health and Welfare Lasting Power of Attorney can only come into effect once you are deemed to have lost your mental capacity.

Check out our Health and Welfare LPA Services

Property and Financial Affairs LPA

You can also apply for a Property and Financial Affairs Lasting Power of Attorney. This gives someone else the responsibility of dealing with all your finances. They will be in charge of managing your bank accounts and building society accounts, paying bills and ensuring that you receive all income that you are entitled to from pensions or benefits. They will also take responsibility for any property that you own and have the power to buy or sell on your behalf according to the wishes that you have set out. When a Property and Financial Affairs Lasting Power of Attorney has been registered with the Office of the Public Guardian, it is able to come into effect immediately, even if you have not yet lost mental capacity, as long as you have given permission for this to happen.

Check out our Property and Financial Affairs LPA Services

How to Set Up a Lasting Power of Attorney 

In order to create a Lasting Power of Attorney, you first need to decide who your attorney will be. Any attorney should be over the age of 18 and should be somebody that you trust completely. They will be given a lot of responsibility over your life and your finances and so you must be confident that they will follow your wishes and always act in your best interests. Your attorney can be anybody that you deem suitable, whether they are friend or relative or even a professional such as a solicitor. It is important to ensure that they have the mental capacity to make their own decisions. 

Once you have decided who your attorney will be, you can then look at drafting your Lasting Power of Attorney. There are a number of forms which need to be completed and these can either be done on paper or online. It is important to seek professional legal advice during this process to make sure that everything is correct, and that you have considered all aspects of your decisions.

When you have completed the forms, you will need to make sure that they have been signed by yourself, the attorneys and the witnesses. You will also need a signature from a certificate provider who confirms that you are making this Lasting Power of Attorney by choice and that you are capable of understanding what you are doing. Your witnesses and certificate providers must be over the age of 18. If there is more than one attorney then they cannot witness each other's signature, but they can witness you sign or sign as the certificate provider. 

When all of the forms have been completed, they need to be registered with the Office of the Public Guardian. If all of the forms are correct, then the registration process can take up to 20 weeks. It is important that you notify all the people that you have listed in the Lasting Power of Attorney before you register, and they will then have three weeks to raise any concerns with the Office of the Public Guardian. 

There are some costs involved in registering a Lasting Power of Attorney. It costs £82 to register each one, although there are reductions and exemptions available if you earn less than £12,000 or are in receipt of certain benefits such as Income Support. 

You can confirm that any copy of your Lasting Power of Attorney is genuine by certifying it. This will involve writing “I certify this is a true and complete copy of the corresponding page of the original Lasting Power of Attorney” at the bottom of every page. You will then also need to add “I certify this is a true and complete copy of the Lasting Power of Attorney” on the final page of the copy. It is important that you sign and date every page as you do this.

Deputyship

If a Lasting Power of Attorney has not been put in place, then it may be necessary to appoint a Deputy when someone loses the mental capacity to make their own decisions. A Deputy will be appointed by the court and their powers are far more restricted than those afforded to an attorney. 

A property and financial affairs Deputy can do things like paying bills or organising a pension. A personal welfare Deputy makes decisions around medical treatment and the care that someone receives. However, you cannot become a personal welfare Deputy for someone under the age of 16. It is much harder to be appointed as a personal welfare Deputy and this only tends to happen if there is doubt about whether the decisions that are being made are in someone's best interests or if someone needs to be appointed to make decisions about a specific issue over time. 

At Lovedays Solicitors, we understand how hard a Deputyship application can be and so we have a team with expert knowledge who can assist you in this process. We can help you to put your application together and gather together the necessary evidence to prove that you are the person who should be appointed.

Once the Court of Protection orders you to become a Deputy, we can offer ongoing support throughout your time. We can advise you on how to handle challenging issues and we can also assist you in completing your annual Deputy report to the Office of the Public Guardian, which helps to explain the decisions that you have made.

Check out our Deputyship Services

How Lovedays Solicitors Can Help

Loveday Solicitors are experts in Lasting Power of Attorney. We understand all of the things that you need to consider as part of this process and can help you to draft any forms that are necessary. As part of our consultation process, we will look at your situation and why you feel a Lasting Power of Attorney is necessary. We can help you to understand who the best person to be your attorney is and we can help you to look at the things they might need to consider. 

By helping to ensure that you have a Lasting Power of Attorney in place you and your family can enjoy a sense of peace of mind knowing that if the worst happens, you have put things in place to help manage your care for the future. We can offer ongoing support allowing you to change your attorney or the terms in which you have written your Lasting Power of Attorney. We can also support your attorney to make sure that they're making decisions in your best interests and in line with what you wanted. 

Get in touch today to find out more about our experience as Lasting Power of Attorney Solicitors.

Conclusion

Putting a Lasting Power of Attorney in place can be very important. We never know when disaster might strike, and we lose the mental capacity to decide what we want to happen to ourselves or our finances. By ensuring that these decisions are left to somebody that you trust, you can feel confident that you will live out your life in the way that you want to.

You can also ensure that your financial affairs and your property are taken care of and that your family will be protected. When it comes to such an important subject, it is vital that you seek professional legal advice from the fantastic team at Loveday Solicitors. We are here to support you with all of your Lasting Power of Attorney needs and can ensure that you receive expert, impartial advice.