Lasting Power of Attorney, explained

What a Lasting Power of Attorney does

A Lasting Power of Attorney is a document in which you — the donor — appoint one or more people you trust, called your attorneys, to make decisions on your behalf. It exists for the day you cannot make those decisions yourself, whether because of an accident, a stroke, or an illness that comes on gradually.

The crucial thing about it is the timing. You can only make one while you still have the mental capacity to understand what you are doing. It is not a document you can put in place once it is needed; by then it is too late, and the family is left with a much slower and more expensive route through the Court of Protection.

Attorney here has nothing to do with the American use of the word. It simply means the person you have authorised to act.

There are two types, and they are separate documents

A Property and Financial Affairs LPA covers money and property: paying bills, running bank accounts, dealing with pensions and benefits, and selling a house if that becomes necessary.

A Health and Welfare LPA covers care and treatment: where you live, who visits you, day-to-day arrangements, and — if you choose to give them that authority — decisions about life-sustaining treatment.

They are two different forms, registered separately, each with its own registration fee. Making one does not give anybody authority over the other. Many people make both, because the two halves of a life do not come apart neatly: the person arranging a care home usually also needs to be able to pay for it.

When each one can be used

For a Property and Financial Affairs LPA you choose. You can say it may be used as soon as it is registered, with your permission — useful if you would simply like help with the banking while you are perfectly capable of doing it yourself — or you can say your attorneys may only act if you lose mental capacity.

A Health and Welfare LPA has no such choice. It can only ever be used when you cannot make the particular decision yourself. While you can decide where you live and what treatment you accept, nobody else can decide it for you, whatever the document says.

Capacity is also decision-specific and can come and go. Somebody may be unable to decide whether to sell a house while remaining perfectly able to choose what to have for lunch. Attorneys are expected to let you make every decision you can still make.

It has to be registered before it can be used

An LPA is not usable the moment it is signed. It has to be registered with the Office of the Public Guardian, and until that is done it does nothing at all — a bank will not look at it, and a care home will not accept it.

Registration is charged for, and that fee is the Office of the Public Guardian's, not ours. It is currently £92 for each LPA — £184 if you are registering both — and it is payable whether you prepare the document yourself, use the Office of the Public Guardian's own free tool, or have it prepared and checked here. Fee reductions or exemptions may be available in some circumstances.

Registration is not instant. Allow months rather than weeks, and check the current timescale on GOV.UK before making plans around it — the practical consequence is that the sensible time to register is now, not at the point somebody needs it.

Registering early costs nothing extra and changes nothing about who is in control. A registered Property and Financial Affairs LPA that says your attorneys may only act if you lose capacity still sits in a drawer doing nothing until that day comes.

What happens if there is no LPA

Nobody gets these powers automatically. Being married does not give a husband or wife the right to deal with the other's bank account, sell a jointly owned house on their own, or consent to treatment for them. That surprises almost everybody, and it is usually discovered in the week it matters most.

Without an LPA, somebody has to apply to the Court of Protection to be appointed deputy. It takes months, it costs considerably more than an LPA, the deputy is supervised and has to report each year, and the court decides who gets appointed — which may not be the person you would have chosen.

In the meantime, bills still arrive and care still has to be arranged. That gap is the real argument for making an LPA while it is a routine piece of paperwork rather than an emergency.

What an LPA does not do

It does not survive you. An LPA ends the moment you die, and from that point your executors, acting under your Will, take over. The two documents do different jobs and one is not a substitute for the other.

It does not hand over your affairs wholesale. Attorneys must act in your best interests, must help you make your own decisions wherever you still can, and must keep their money and yours apart. The Office of the Public Guardian supervises them and can investigate.

It also does not tie your hands. While you have capacity you can change your attorneys or cancel the LPA altogether, and attorneys cannot make or change your Will for you.