Powers of Attorney
Lasting Powers of Attorney
These are documents that enable you to give legal authority to a person or persons who you trust, called Attorneys, to manage your affairs for you or make decisions on your behalf, when you are not in a position to do so yourseld, for example, following an accident, stroke or the onset of dementia.
A Lasting Powers of Attorney is a very beneficial legal document and is usually seen as the final piece of the process in planning and protecting your estate. If A Lasting Powers of Attorney has not been drawn up, joint assets can be frozen while your family applies to the Court of Protection for a procedure known as receivership – an expensive and cumbersome process.
There are two kinds of Lasting Powers of Attorney, (LPA), one that deals with your Property & Financial Affairs & one that deals with your Health & Welfare. The former would enable your Attorneys to do things like draw your pension or pay your bills or sell your property on your behalf. The latter would enable your Attorneys to make decisions related to your health & personal welfare, for example what sort of care you receive, but this type of LPA can only be used once you lose mental capacity.
Both types of LPA must be registered by the Office of the Public Guardian, (OPG), before they can be used by your Attorneys.
Athough we all tend to think of Wills & Lasting Powers of Attorney documents as useful in later life, it's important to think of what would happen now if you were unfortunate enough to have an accident or serious illness.
