Lasting Powers of Attorney

A Lasting Power of Attorney (LPA) allows your loved ones to take care of you and your finances if you become unable to do so yourself.

There are two types of LPA:

A “Property and Financial Affairs" LPA allows your loved ones to deal with paying your bills, buying and selling your property and managing your bank accounts and investments.

A “Health and Welfare" LPA covers decisions about health and care and even deciding where you are to live. This can only be used if someone is incapable of dealing with such matters themselves.

An LPA ensures that, should you be unable to manage your own affairs, the people you have appointed can manage your financial life on your behalf. This can save a great deal of money and distress, and will ensure that, as a vulnerable person, your affairs will be handled correctly and quickly.

Reasons for setting up Lasting Power of Attorney can be as follows:

• You can choose your Attorneys.
• You can appoint different types of Attorneys and how they will act.
• You can appoint replacement Attorneys.
• You can choose when the Property and Financial Affairs LPA becomes active – from the moment it is registered with the Office of Public Guardian (OPG) or only when you lack mental capacity to make decisions yourself.
• It is a chance for you to specify your instructions and preferences on how you would like your affairs to be handled when you no longer have mental capacity – this can include what your daily routine should be, requirements for medical treatment to continuing to make charitable donations you made when you did have mental capacity.
• Having an LPA in place is a cost-effective way of protecting your affairs when compared to the Court of Protection route (see below).

Risks of not having an LPA

If you lose mental capacity without an LPA in place, your family must apply to the Court of Protection to have a deputy appointed to deal with everyday financial matters. This is a slow and very expensive process, costing thousands of Pounds and can take up to a year for a deputy to be appointed. If you have to use a solicitor / lawyer, it could cost a lot more. By having an LPA in place, this will not be necessary.

Joint bank, building society and business accounts can be severely restricted if ONE of the account holders loses mental capacity and there is no registered LPA in place.

If one joint account holder loses mental capacity, banks and building societies can decide whether to temporarily restrict the use of the account to essential transactions only.

The restricting of a joint account may have severe implications as the joint owner cannot freely withdraw what is in effect their own money without an order from the Court of Protection. This could have severe financial implications, especially if the joint owner has their only form of income, such as their pension, paid into this joint account.

Ward Williams can assist you with preparing the Lasting Powers of Attorney. For more information contact Dipesh Parmar on 01932 830664 or email dipesh.parmar@wardwilliams.co.uk.