A Lasting Power of Attorney (LPA) is a legal document which gives another person authority to act on your behalf if you are physically or mentally no longer able to deal with your own affairs.

With the population getting older and more people suffering from conditions such as dementia, an increasing number of people need someone to be able to deal with their affairs for them.

If a person loses their mental or physical capacity and do not have an LPA in place, the family of that person (the Patient) are required to apply to the Court of Protection to be appointed as a Deputy for the Patient, which costs several times more than an LPA, takes a much longer time, and ultimately means that the Court of Protection, rather than the Patient themselves, are deciding who to appoint to deal with the Patients affairs.

If you choose to make a Lasting Power of Attorney, the benefits are:

1. You can choose your own attorneys – people you know you can trust completely
2. You will pay substantially less than if you were required to apply to the Court of Protection, and the costs of an LPA are a one-off fixed fee payment, whereas there are ongoing annual costs when dealing with the Court of Protection
3. Your LPA can be registered immediately while you still have the capacity, and then should you lose capacity the LPA will be ready for immediate use, meaning there will be no ‘gap’ in the running of your financial affairs, whereas an application to the Court of Protection could take several months, meaning your family could struggle financially to keep you whilst the Court application is in the process
4. You can put limits on what your attorneys can do, so if there is anything you particularly do not want your attorneys to deal with you can clarify this from the outset, rather than leaving it up to the discretion of the Court of Protection, who have no real knowledge of what you personally would want

If you would like to discuss a potential matter or would like any further information then please contact Mr Priestley’s department.

Court of Protection

A Court of Protection Order appointing a person to be a “Deputy” for an incapacitated person will be necessary if someone loses their mental faculties, yet they need to have someone control and protect their finances.

The Court of Protection process is a quite meticulous process and should be started as soon as possible into someone’s mental incapacity so that the Order can be put in place as soon as possible. The Deputy can then go on to manage the affairs of the incapacitated person.

The Court of Protection process requires various people to be advised about the Court application, including a set list of relatives. All of these people will get the chance to object to the appointment of a person as Deputy if they feel that the Deputy is not an appropriate choice.

A doctor’s certification will be required in order to establish that a person has definitely lost their mental capacity. The doctor is likely to charge a fee for preparing such a report, and the fees tend to vary from one doctor to the next.

The Court requires an insurance bond to be taken out by the Deputy so that if they abscond with any money or assets then the person who has lost capacity can be reimbursed.

From the outline above it can be seen that help may be required to enable you to deal with an application to the Court of Protection. If you would like to discuss a potential matter or would like any further information then please contact Mr Priestley’s department.

Contact

Neil Priestley - npriestley@hattersleys.co.uk - view profile