As well as making a Will to take care of your assets after you die, it is vital to put in place a Lasting Power of Attorney (LPA) to keep your assets safe whilst alive.

What is a Lasting Power of Attorney?

A Lasting Power of Attorney (LPA) is an important legal document that allows you (the Donor) to choose someone now (the Attorney) that you trust to make decisions on your behalf about things such as your property and financial affairs or health and welfare at a time in the future where you may lack the mental capacity to make those decisions yourself, or would prefer someone to make these decisions or you.

What are the benefits of makeing an LPA?

It allows you to appoint someone to manage your property and affairs should you decide that you do not wish to manage them yourself, or if you become incapable of managing them.

• You choose the person or people (the Attorney) that you wish to make those decisions.
• You can set down how you want the Attorney to act and the factors that they must consider at the time.
• Choosing who you want to act and how puts you in control of decisions eventually made on your behalf.
• If you do not complete an LPA and lose mental capacity, the Court of Protection will appoint someone to manage your finances who might not be the person you would choose. Having an LPA means you choose who you want, and you decide how you want the Attorney to make those decisions and the factors they must consider.
• The costs of an application to the Court of Protection are substantial. The exact amount depends on the size of your estate and other matters, but in most cases it will run into several thousands of pounds.

What types of LPA are there?

There are 2 different types of LPA

1. Health & Welfare LPA – this allows you to stipulate, amongst other things, circumstances where you might not wish to receive life-sustaining treatment and gives authority to your Attorney to put your wishes into effect.
2. Property & Financial Affairs LPA – this gives your Attorney authority to make decisions on your behalf in respect of your financial affairs.

What happens if I fail to make an LPA?

If you do not have an LPA, then if for any reason you suddenly become unable to manage your own affairs, e.g.

• You suffer an accident and are confined to bed or hospital
• You suffer a more serious accident which permanently incapacitates you
• You become mentally incapacitated as a result of old age or for some other reason
 

… then the only way that your financial affairs can be managed is by an application to the Court of Protection. This can take up to 10 months and can cost several thousand pounds – during which time your finances could be seriously damaged – and the person authorised to handle your affairs on your behalf is not only unlikely to be who you would have chosen, but may even be a Court Official – who will charge every time he/she acts for you.

If you have an LPA, your chosen representatives can act for you straight away if you become unable to handle your own affairs or if you become mentally incapacitated.

Note that you must be mentally capable to make an LPA. Therefore - just like a Will - if you don't have one then by the time you really need one, it may be too late.

Prices

We believe it is vital to put in place an LPA which is why we have tried to make our prices as competitive as possible. Registration of an LPA costs £120; this is payable in all instances and your LPA will not be valid until registration has taken place.

The fees payable to Cuff & Gough LLP are as follows:

If you need any further information with regard to any aspect of the above then Jeremy is always happy to have an initial chat on the phone to discuss the best way forward. Call Jeremy on 01737 851827.

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