New power of attorney guide

pphillips

I understand that if one of your attorneys dies the OPG will amend the LPA and all the certified copies you send them by stamping "This attorney can't act" on each and every copy. Hence you will not have to redo your LPA or make new certified copies.

donmaico

can someone please advise me on this?My wife and I are seriously considering taking out an LPA to cover each other in the EVENT that something might happen as in an accident or suffering dementia sometime in the future .At the moment neither of us are sufferers but it just seemed to us one of those sensible things we should consider at our stage in life( we are both in our early 60s).No need for us to go through solicitors as Gov UK provide the necessary forms and as long as we fill the forms correctly and in the right order, there shouldn't be any problems .We would be each other's donor/attorneys and then we would have two replacement attorneys and a certificate provider.Seems straightforward enough but I am receiving comments from people we know telling us we dont need them provided our accounts and assets are held jointly and that we remain married.According to one well-meaning friend if a doctor signs one of us as mentally incapable then the other assumes automatic control of all assets.I am not at all sure that is right .Obviously, I dont wish to spend money if I can avoid doing so but Gov Uk has dropped its prices to about £82 per lPA so four would cost us £328 which is still a hefty sum but a lot cheaper than the £950 + VAT a local solicitor would charge.Maybe I mam preempting things unnecessarily but I don't wish my wife or myself to end up with a nightmare scenario.Thanks

Primrose

What happens if you and your wife were both seriously injured in a car crash or similar incident for example and both needed to spend a prolonged period in hospital? Who would look after your affairs for you then? Having joint ownership of bank accounts etc would be no help to you in those circumstances.

If you have LPA's and appoint replacement attorneys who were to step in in such circumstances, I'm not sure you and your wife would thembe able to start acting for each other again if you recovered. You would need to seek legal advice on that arrangement.

Would it be better to have the spouse as primary attorney and your other two selected individuals as second and third attorneys and for everybody to act "jointly and severally". That way spouses can normally act for each other with the other two stepping in only if needed at some later point. Obviously they would have to be individuals in whom you had implicit trust but remember, as long as you have mental capacity any attorney can only act with your agreement.

If one of you loses mental capacity it would probably be necessary for the joint accounts to be dissolved anyway. The individual needing any "paid for". care, whether at home or in a care home will be assessed on their financial assets so it might be sensible to split assets so that the "well" spouse does not have their own finance or income taken into account in any assessment. Also many financial institutions won,t allow a joint account to operate when one of the holders is mentally incapitated.

£328 is worth paying for the peace of mind it provides. Remember that many life incidents like strokes etc happen unexpectedly and it is better to be prepared while in good health and not be forced into trying to set them up while you are in the middle of a crisis. If you pay out and your LPAs are never needed, regard that as an insurance policy worth paying for. If you are going to rely on others to help you out when you become old and infirm, you owe it to them to make it as easy as possible for them to do so.

donmaico

Primrose wrote: »

What happens if you and your wife were both seriously injured in a car crash or similar incident for example and both needed to spend a prolonged period in hospital? Who would look after your affairs for you then? Having joint ownership of bank accounts etc would be no help to you in those circumstances.

If you have LPA's and appoint replacement attorneys who were to step in in such circumstances, I'm not sure you and your wife would thembe able to start acting for each other again if you recovered. You would need to seek legal advice on that arrangement.

Would it be better to have the spouse as primary attorney and your other two selected individuals as second and third attorneys and for everybody to act "jointly and severally". That way spouses can normally act for each other with the other two stepping in only if needed at some later point. Obviously they would have to be individuals in whom you had implicit trust but remember, as long as you have mental capacity any attorney can only act with your agreement.

If one of you loses mental capacity it would probably be necessary for the joint accounts to be dissolved anyway. The individual needing any "paid for". care, whether at home or in a care home will be assessed on their financial assets so it might be sensible to split assets so that the "well" spouse does not have their own finance or income taken into account in any assessment. Also many financial institutions won,t allow a joint account to operate when one of the holders is mentally incapitated.

£328 is worth paying for the peace of mind it provides. Remember that many life incidents like strokes etc happen unexpectedly and it is better to be prepared while in good health and not be forced into trying to set them up while you are in the middle of a crisis. If you pay out and your LPAs are never needed, regard that as an insurance policy worth paying for. If you are going to rely on others to help you out when you become old and infirm, you owe it to them to make it as easy as possible for them to do so.

We are almost 90% decided we shall proceed for the reasons you gave and I am thankful to you for further reinforcing that.
I must admit I am not entirely certain what the difference between a replacement attorney and a second or third attorney are.The ones we selected we have complete trust in and I am assuming that if my wife or I recovered from whatever incident caused us to be mentally incapable then we resume control.
As far as our financial assets are concerned we do have separate accounts bar one.Having said that we also have two properties we let which are held jointly and it what we do with those that is more crucial.We had been considering having one property each to our names so that if a council came to assess our financial circumstances they would see us as individual rather than joint owners.

Primrose

donmaico wrote: »

I must admit I am not entirely certain what the difference between a replacement attorney and a second or third attorney are.The ones we selected we have complete trust in and I am assuming that if my wife or I recovered from whatever incident caused us to be mentally incapable then we resume control.
.

No, from my reading of the Guide, that would not prove to be the case.


From the Official Guide:


A replacement attorney will step in if one of your attorneys


- dies
- loses mental capacity
- decides they can no longer act on your behalf
- was your wife, husband or civil partner but your relationship has legally ended
- becomes bankrupt or subject to a debt relief order.




A replacement attorney can only act if the original attorney they're replacing is permanently unable to make decisions for one of the reasons above.




A replacement attorney
- can't temporarily stand in for an attorney who is still able to act (for example, while the first attorney is on holiday)
- can't replace a replacement attorney


If your attorneys have to make all or some decisions jointly and one can no longer act, your replacement attorneys make those joint decisions instead. Both your remaining original attorneys and your replacements can make any decisions that don't have to be made jointly.


Replacement attorneys usually step in as soon as one of your original attorneys stops acting for you. In you include more than one replacement attorney in your LPA they all start at the same time unless you've:
1) appointed your attorneys to act jointly and severally
2) stated the order in which your original attorneys will be replaced."


If you can think of any personal circumstances which might occur in your lives where these conditions might restrict how you want attorneys to operate, perhaps you should seriously consider having all your attorneys as Attorneys 1, 2 and 3 rather than appointing two of them as replacements.

If for example you were both ill/incapacitated for several months at the same time and spouses were unable to act for each other, a replacement attorney might be able to step in under the "attorney deciding they can no longer act for you" criteria, but it seems that this would then be a permanent arrangement and the spouse attorney would not then be able to resume control at a later date. Is this what you would really want to happen as the resigning attorney would formally have to "disclaim their appointment")

You could well have a situation when you and your wife are the only two attorneys who ever actually need to act for each other but having other prime attorneys seems to me to be a more flexible arrangement than having replacement attorneys.

Have you read the full online guide? It will make your head buzz but will hopefully help you better understand and rule in, or rule out specific options.

silvercar

Sope wrote: »

How long was it between posting the forms and receiving this confirmation?


I was under the impression that each certified copy must be signed individually (ie. bearing an original "wet" signature) rather than being a copy of an exisiting signed copy... if that makes sense :huh:

About 2 weeks.

I don't know how you distinguish a wet signature from a print out of scanned signed copy.

I can't see how having changed addresses could invalidate someone being an attorney. My (adult) kids are replacement attorneys, they are both in rented flats and could potentially move home every 12 months.

Sope

silvercar wrote: »

About 2 weeks.

Thanks.... in that case it would mean I should be hearing back any day now with any luck.

silvercar wrote: »

I don't know how you distinguish a wet signature from a print out of scanned signed copy.

I guess it depends on the quality of the printer and how fussy the person checking it is?

I must admit, I haven't found anything on the OPG website that specifically says each certified copy in use must be individually signed, as opposed to being a photocopy of an originally certified copy.
Maybe it depends on what policy the financial institution applies when accepting an LPA.

In my place of work we have a very good copier that makes differentiation between copy and original remarkably difficult, once its had time to cool that is. I can usually determine the original from the indentations that the pen pressure has left. A tad fussy, but a requirement in my line of work.

silvercar wrote: »

I can't see how having changed addresses could invalidate someone being an attorney. My (adult) kids are replacement attorneys, they are both in rented flats and could potentially move home every 12 months.

My assumption was that when an attorney presents the LPA to a financial institution they would require proof of ID including current address from them before they would allow them to make any transactions on the donor's behalf?
I'd be interested to hear the experience of someone who's been through the process although I suppose it may again depend on the particular institution involved?

Mav6215

When both LPAs for my mother were registered I scanned each document in full. I then printed 3 copies of each and was able to get her to certify them. Took a little while but pleased we did that early on saving a sum from using solicitors.

Some services (utilities in particular) were happy to receive a pdf file of the original via email for their records. Others, such as financial institutions preferred to see the original or a certified copy of which they took their own copy.

pphillips

You may have a meticulous institution that may check the document. I don't see why you can't type and print the required statement on every page and sign every page by hand underneath it. Unless of course there are still some institutions that will only accept the original or a solicitor certified copy.

Primrose

pphillips wrote: »

You may have a meticulous institution that may check the document. I don't see why you can't type and print the required statement on every page and sign every page by hand underneath it. Unless of course there are still some institutions that will only accept the original or a solicitor certified copy.[/QUOTE


Perhaps I was unlucky with the two P of A's I had to administer but some organisations are notoriously casual about the way they handle peoples' valuable original documents. On two occasions where I could not present them in person I had to resort to sending them by registered post. On both occasions they were returned to me by ordinary mail, despite a request that they be sent by registered mail.