Lasting Power of Attorney

Although this is sometimes considered to be a time consuming, expensive or daunting task, not having powers of attorney in place when you need them can be very disruptive.

A lasting power of attorney (LPA) gives another person or persons (known as your “attorney(s)”) the authority to act for you if you are unable to do so yourself. That authority continues even if you lose the mental capacity to make decisions for yourself. If you do not have an LPA in place and you lose mental capacity, it will be necessary for someone to make an expensive and time consuming application to the court of protection in order to act on your behalf. The court of protection estimates that this would take between 8 and 14 weeks for applications with no issues or objections. It is not uncommon for these applications to take up to 6 months.

so even though it seems like a lot of work, it will be lower cost and less disruption than leaving it until someone has lost capacity