Power of Attorney and Deputyships

A Power of Attorney is the legal document that you can use to officially appoint a friend or relative to help you to manage your finances with your consent, or to take over looking after your finances and make health and welfare decisions when you are no longer able to make decisions yourself.

Unless you have appointed an attorney, if something happens that prevents you from looking after your own affairs, no one, not even a relative is legally entitled to access your money, even if it is to pay for your care. Not even your spouse can access your money unless it is held in a joint account. Money or investments held in your sole name and even your property, if held as Tenants in Common, cannot be dealt with unless you have the appropriate legal documents in place.

In the UK someone develops dementia every three minutes, and there are other reasons why you may lose the ability to look after yourself temporarily or permanently, for example, an accident or sudden illness.

Unless you have a Power of Attorney already, anyone that wants to help you will have to apply through the court to be appointed as your deputy, a process which can be long and costly.

If you change your mind about who you have appointed as your attorney, there is a formal process to revoke the LPA.

By appointing an attorney or attorneys to help manage your affairs it will give you and them peace of mind that appropriate measures are in place to ensure that you and your affairs can be looked after if you were to lose capacity through an accident or illness.

You can ensure that the person or people that you want to help you is able to do so should the need arise.

If you do not have an LPA in place and you lose capacity anyone who wants to help you to manage your affairs will have to apply to the Court of Protection to be appointed as your Deputy. The court process takes time and is far more expensive than the cost of preparing an LPA. You do not have any control over your applies to be appointed as your deputy.

Which kind of LPA do you want to use?

There are two different kinds of Lasting Power of Attorney.

Health & Welfare - Appoints a person or people to make decisions about your day to day living arrangements and health and medical needs. Your attorney(s) can only make decisions for you when you no longer have mental capacity to make decisions yourself.

Property and Finance - Appoints a person or people to make decisions about your property and finances, to liaise with financial institutions, pay taxes or buy and sell property. An attorney can act with your consent or when you no longer have capacity to make decisions yourself.

Who to appoint?

The ideal attorney is someone that is well organised and used to dealing with their own affairs. Someone who has time to help you and talk to you about what they are doing on your behalf.

One or more attorneys?

You should consider if you want to appoint more than one attorney. If you only appoint one person the LPA will fail if that person is unable or unwilling to act or has died before you need them to help you.

Jointly or severally?

If you are appointing more than one attorney you can specify whether you want them to do everything together (jointly) or whether you would be happy for one to make decisions without consulting the other (severally). You could appoint one attorney to act in first instance with the other to act as a replacement.

We can assist with all of the following:

Prepare a property and financial affair Lasting Power of Attorney for you
Prepare a health and welfare Lasting Power of Attorney for you
Register Lasting Powers of Attorney
Administer a Lasting Power of Attorney on behalf of the donor
Register an Enduring Power of Attorney
Set up a general Power of Attorney should you need someone to look at your affairs for example while you are out of the country or physically incapacitated for a time
Prepare a Deputyship application should an individual not have set up a Lasting Power of Attorney and they are no longer able to manage their property and financial affair or make decisions about their healthcare needs
Apply for additional Deputyship Orders should you need to sell a patient’s property
Submit tax returns
Submit annual reports
Make an application to the Court of Protection for a statutory Will on behalf of the patient
Make an application to the Court of Protection to set up a Trust on behalf of the patient
Revoke an LPA

FAQ

Costs

If you need assistance with any of the above, please contact Rebecca Bristow on 01548 288008 or at rb@startpointlaw.co.uk