Anyone done all the paperwork for the lasting power of attorney under the present scheme administered by the Office of the Public Guardian?
I am looking into it for my mum and don’t really want to pay a solicitor if it is easy. I have read the guidance notes and it seems bureaucratic but relatively straightforward.

Did it a few years ago for my mum, who is suffering from dementia. Financial power of attorney set up, to stop the scum from preying on a vulnerable person. As I recall it wasn’t difficult at all to do, just comprehensive form filling & no solicitors involved. Once in possession of the document, I think the most long winded process was dealing with the banks etc.
I would recommend everybody to set up POA, whilst in possession of your marbles, as the subject of POA has to fully understand what they are signing. Saves a lot of heartache if it’s set up – dementia is a massive problem for our ageing population.

We discussed this with solicitors when we sorted our wills. Parents were already done under the old scheme, but wondered about doing it in case one of us suddenly ended up in a coma or something.

The solicitor suggested we do it ourselves. She said it was time consuming but the guidance was straight forward, and it would save us a few hundred pounds in her fees.

We still haven’t actually got around to it, mind 😳

You can do it online rather than paper, which is much more simple. There are two kinds – Property and Affairs and Health and Welfare. DO NOT leave it too late or you end up going through the Court of Protection and costs hundreds more £s and the person losing their capacity has no choice as to who is appointed to look after their affairs.

Search Ipsos Mori ‘The future of lasting power of attorney’ for a research paper about it all in society.

The Office of the Public Guardian deal with both LPAs and deputyships.

These powers ARE NOT just for the older of us.

I’ve recently been given powers potentially over both my parents for both financial and medical decisions.
They organised and paid for it all, as they’d become concerned over the sudden decline in health of a number of their friends. As far as I can tell whilst having it set up by solicitors gives reasonable confidence in its legality it was painful because, well, they’re solicitors. The biggest cost was in relation to the registration fees required.

Yep I have it for my Dad. Neither of us have it for my mum as she has dementia so it’s the social workers that make life-affecting decisions for her now 🙁
He used a solicitor to do it but that’s just so he knew it was all done properly.

. (double post?!)

Just done this with my folks, as above used our Solicitor to make sure.

£500 for both, all in.

Yep, did it myself last year for my mum, no need for solicitors – it’s really not that hard, and if you don’t do it properly they’ll just reject it. Glad we did it – would still be possible to do now, but getting more difficult.

As well as a POA I’d recommend a joint bank account. Did this with my dad and it makes banking matters so much easier. Also when the person dies the account automatically switches to the remaining account holder so you have access to the account to pay for funeral expenses.

In fact if you don’t have a joint account with your wife/hubby/partner I’d recommend setting one up at any age (assuming you trust each other). If the main breadwinner has an accident or sudden illness so they are no longer able to make decisions the other partner can have terrible problems getting access to their account to pay bills.

Like aP mentions, there are financial and medical versions. We thought we had both for my mother but, when we needed it, found out it was just financial. Got to the right point in the end but there were many hoops to go through without the right papaerwork.

As a solicitor, I would agree that (as with many things) a non-idiot with a reasonable concentration span can save themselves solicitor’s fees easily enough on this operation. A decent solicitor ought to be able to save you a long read of some boring documents if you have more cash than time.

🙂

Got the financial ones for my parents, never quite understood the medical one as we were asked about to make choices for my mum (whether she should have radiotherapy, what nursing home she was to go to etc) regardless of not having it.

The advice about a joint account is very wise as the LPA stops on death, so no bill payments etc until after probate.

Did it – or rather my dad organised it – many years ago for my parents. Was very very handy, like a magic wand or at least insurance that something was in place.

We like the idea that we set it up for ourselves not long after – at that stage we were both under 50 but saw what the consequences would be of incapacity. Solicitors route wasn’t that expensive to be honest.

And agreed on the joint account although we have that anyway. Colleague of my wife had terrible problems when husband became incapacitated and then died, as without access to cash things became quite awkward for a long time.

Thanks for the replies.

I need to start reading my way through it all again to try and understand it for my mum. May well sort it for the wife and I too.

I assume I can’t set out the terms under which I would like a one way holiday to Dignitas …

I am a little late to this, but would just say that the Joint Account thing is a bit of a red herring, if a bank becomes aware that one party to a joint account has lost capacity then the British Bankers Association guidance is to restrict access to the account and the functionality of the account for all parties.

https://www.bba.org.uk/publication/leaflets/you-and-your-joint-account/

This means that a Lasting Power of Attorney is still essential.