Creating a Lasting Power of Attorney

There are many different types of documents and powers of attorneys, this page covers registered powers of attorneys in the UK which are registered with the Office of Public Guardian. For enquiries on other types of powers of attorney’s (for example specific powers of attorney’s), please call us to enquire further.

What is a Registered Power of Attorney??

There are two types of registered Lasting Powers of Attorney (“LPA”):

  1. Health and Care Decisions, and
  2. Financial Decisions.

These are legal deeds that enable an individual, known as a ‘Donor’ to appoint one or more persons, known as ‘Attorneys’, to make decisions on their behalf.

A Health and Care LPA can only be used by the Attorneys in the event that a Donor loses capacity and/or does not have the capacity or means to communicate their health and welfare decisions. In such circumstances their Attorney’s may have the right to step in and advocate for the Donor. A Health and Care LPA also allows the Donor to specify whether their Attorneys or whether their doctors/medical team make decisions relating to life sustaining treatment such as resuscitation.

By contract a LPA for Financial Decisions can be used as soon as it is registered, if the Donor chooses so, this is something that our team will discuss with the Donor to understand the Donor’s intention and wishes.

Things to consider

  • When creating a Health and Care LPA, it is important to note that the Attorneys can only make decisions if the Donor lacks capacity to make those decisions
  • An Attorney for a Financial Decisions can use the LPA, with the Donor’s consent, as soon as the LPA is registered, if the Donor registers it in this way
  • It is important for the Donor to discuss their wishes and preferences with their Attorneys to ensure that their wishes are known, you can also insert your preferences and/or instructions within the LPA
  • By creating a LPA, you will have the peace of mind of knowing that you have selected your Attorneys and people to manage your affairs if you are unable to, as an LPA can only be created whilst the Donor has capacity, if one is not registered and an individual loses capacity without appointing their Attorneys, then the family members of the person may have to apply to the Court of Protection for a Deputyship order to manage that persons affairs. This can be a costly and timely procedure and so creating an LPA while you have capacity is advisable.

How long does the conveyancing process take?

We understand that an LPA may be required at short notice, and subject to our availability we may be able to offer you an expedited service on short notice. On average however it usually takes about 3 days from instruction for us to draft the LPA documents. We will then need to either meet the Donor and Attorneys to attend to signatures of the LPA, or we will have to post the documents to the relevant parties for signature. Once we have the duly signed LPA back, we send this to the Office of Public Guardian for registration, their processing time varies and their current processing time can be seen here

Our Costs

For more information in regards to our costs, please click here.