Legal clinic round up – April 2018
Every month we hold free legal clinics in Kingsbridge, Totnes and Dartmouth.
We are often asked about Lasting Powers of Attorney, a legal document that allows you to appoint someone else to help you to manage your affairs. Before your attorney can use the lasting power of attorney it must be registered with the Office of the Public Guardian.
We have spoken to several people recently who have made a lasting power of attorney but have not registered it.
Our advice is you should register the lasting power of attorney when it is drafted, so that any issues identified by the Office of Public Guardian can be remedied immediately. If the lasting power of attorney is not registered until the person appointing the attorney has lost capacity, should the registration fail to be completed, a deputy will need to be appointed, which can be a costly and time-consuming process.
It is also important to remember that the registration process can take six weeks, far from ideal if the attorney needs to act in an emergency.