Why a Lasting Power of Attorney is Important for Us All - Part III
In this newsletter, I wanted to continue to explain how you can go about setting up Lasting Powers of Attorney (‘LPAs’). As I’ve mentioned last quarter, you can choose to create either a Health & Welfare or Financial Affairs LPA (if you missed the previous newsletter, you can read the article here). In short, the Health & Welfare governs all choices that impact your life and only comes into action once you’ve lost the power to make decisions for yourself. A Financial Affairs LPA is invoked when you chose to use it and only covers financial decisions, such as what the right risk profile is for your investment management account or how much cash to keep in your current account. In both cases you, the ‘Donor’, might identify the right people to look after your affairs (the ‘Attorney’). And to confirm that you’ve freely made the decision, the ‘Certificate Provider’ will be contacted by the Office of the Public Guardian (the ‘OPG’) before an LPA is in play to check that you are of sound mind and the decision to have an LPA is your own.
So, you’ve decided to set up an LPA and the people that you want to act as attorneys have agreed to act. As we have previously mentioned, we’d always advise appointing at least 2 people to help you. It’s up to you whether they have to make all decisions together (’jointly’) or can decide individually (‘severally’). What next? In many cases, donors are happy to complete the online form available at https://www.gov.uk/power-of-attorney/register. There is a handy guide alongside the form that makes it easy for you to understand which bits apply to you and the type of information needed. If you’re not too confident doing this on a computer, you can also print the form and the guide out or write to the OPG to request a form. The fee for registering the LPA is £82, but in cases of real hardship this can be reduced. And it’s a one off fee; if you need to vary the LPA in future, say by adding a new attorney to help, you don’t need to fill the whole form again and pay another £82.
Once you have submitted the LPA to the Office of the Public Guardian, here comes the hardest bit; you need to wait for the form to be processed. Unfortunately, since 2020, this has been taking longer and longer and currently our experience is that at least 6 months between applying and registering is perfectly normal. I work with an industry body supporting vulnerable clients and we’ve certainly raised the problems that this creates to the OPG as, I’m sure, have many other bodies. There’s no magic fix in sight right now but this is just another reason why I encourage everyone to view LPAs like a will and put them in place early, before there is any sign that they might be needed. If you were helping a relative to make an application and that person became very frail whilst the OPG was processing it, you can certainly chase up and explain how urgent the matter is. Provided that your aunt or father had capacity to apply, losing the ability to make decisions whilst the application is being processed should also not affect it or make it invalid. And many in our industry will do their best to help in this situation, sometimes even taking the instructions of the attorneys to help with affairs prior to the application being completed. For example, if there was the urgent need to raise funds for a care home.
When the process has been completed, the registered LPA will have its own unique number and you can set up access. Rather than make lots of copies, you can just supply this reference to anyone that you want to be aware of the LPA and they can view an online version. Most firms now don’t need you to supply paper copies of the registration document; they are happy just to access the electronic record, but this is worth checking if the LPA is being invoked to make sure that everything goes smoothly.
What if you would like to know whether there is an LPA available to cover somebody about whom you have concerns? Maybe it’s an elderly neighbour who seems very fragile and forgetful but is extremely defensive when you ask if all is okay. You can make an online search to find out whether an LPA has been registered in complete confidence at https://www.gov.uk/find-someones-attorney-deputy-or-guardian. This can take up to 6 weeks but, in our experience, the results can be obtained much more quickly. In the case of that neighbour, if an LPA exists, you’ll receive contact details for the attorney(s) and information about the type of LPA in place.
If you have any concerns about someone who is the subject of an LPA you can also contact the Office of the Public Guardian and request that they investigate. All reports are taken very seriously and looked into thoroughly. In the case of that neighbour, if you found that a Health and Welfare LPA had been set up but your neighbour really never receives visitors and is clearly struggling, you might chose to report that so the OPG can become involved to remind the attorneys of their responsibilities. I’ve covered a lot of form filling detail here, but the best interests of the person who needs assistance are the priority here and the OPG is there to make sure that they are looked after.
In my next newsletter, we’ll look at the situation that arises if someone needs help and doesn’t have an LPA in place. Perhaps your aunt has been unwell and can’t cope but you don’t have the right arrangements in place to help. As I’ve said in the past, the LPA route is ideal but help is still available and I’ll explain how you can access it.
This article was prepared by Tracy Coghill, our Client Experience Manager. We always appreciate your feedback. If you have enjoyed this article or have any specific topics you would like to see addressed in future newsletters, please email us at FPTeam@city-asset.co.uk.