Lasting Powers of Attorney

Lasting Powers of Attorney may be made by anyone over the age of 18 and with the mental capacity to understand what they are doing. The intention is to appoint someone else to manage the affairs of the donor when they become incapable. There are 2 different types:

The Property and Financial Affairs document allows someone to make decisions about things such as your property and finances, this document may be used whilst the person concerned still has mental capacity but is possibly physically unable to manage their affairs, and The Health and Welfare document allows someone to make decisions about things such as your healthcare and treatment, where you live, and day to day decisions regarding what you eat and wear. This document can only be used once the person concerned has lost mental capacity and the document has been registered with the Office of the Public Guardian.

Both of these documents must be registered with the Office of the Public Guardian before they can be used and both may be used once someone has lost mental capacity. If the person wishing to make the Power has lost the capacity to make the document then it is not possible to go down the Power of Attorney route and instead the provisions for appointing a deputy to act must be followed.

The previous mechanism for making this type of power of attorney was the Enduring Power of Attorney.  These are still encountered and existing powers are capable of registration.  However, new Enduring Powers have not been capable of being made since October 2007 when the Lasting Power of Attorney system was introduced.  It is not possible to amend an Enduring Power of Attorney and it is now necessary to replace it with one of the Lasting Power types if, for example, your attorney has passed away.

If you have an Enduring Power of Attorney that needs registering we are able to do this for you including drafting and serving the papers as well as all correspondence with the Office of the Public Guardian.

We have Consultants and office based staff who are appropriately qualified to act as professional certificate providers for the purposes of creating a Lasting Power of Attorney.  We are also able to undertake the registration of lasting Powers of Attorney with the Office of the Public Guardian.