New power of attorney guide

Primrose

The certificate provider can witness the signatures of the donor in a lasting power of attorney. Ours did.

If you have more than one attorney in the lasting power of attorney they don,t have to sign the document in the presence of each other. Our two attorneys live 100 miles from each other. They can each use their own personal witnesses. Ours did. .

If this is the case send them the relevant document to be signed and witnessed by their own local witness by registered post and make sure you make it easy for each for them by enclosing a large self addressed envelope to yourself with a £5 or £10 note to cover the cost of them returning the signed document to you by registered post.

It,s a pain but the only other alternative is to pay your attorney a personal visit to sign the document and make sure they have a witness lined up.

When all signatures are completed, send the documents off to be registered right away and then it's all done and you can file the document away safely in a drawer and hope they're never needed.

But be sure to give your attorneys a certified copy straight away so there is no delay if they need to act for you in an emergency. You can do this yourself by hand writing the specific declaration on each photocopy, the wording for which which will be provided to you when the registered original is returned to you by the Office of Public Guardian. It takes 6 - 8 weeks for documents to be registered.

You don,t necessarily have to complete the section for relatives to be informed. That's optional.

cherry76

Thanks Primrose. Plan to use my neighbour as certificate provider so she can witness my signature as well. Can she also witness three other attorneys signature which will be my husband and adult children? I might try to get them all together on a special occasion. Did you create yours? If you did is it better to type the name and address in advance? Thanks

Primrose

I'm not certain if the Certificate provider can be the witness to your three other attorneys. I think not as this is the person who has to witness that you fully understand what you're committing to. Our Certificate provider witnessed our respective signatures on a separate occasion first as we both did online P of A's together. Then we sent the paperwork off to our separate attorneys for them to do their bit a week or so later.


Yes, I did ours online. It wasn't hugely difficult but there's a lot to think about and the site gives a lot of guidance notes. You just have to be careful to do everything in the right order. or you will invalidate the process and have to start again.


When you do them online, you create a password for yourself and then start filling in all the details. You don't have to do this all in one go if you find you need to think about things. You just save the document and when you go back onto the site and log in with your password all the previous information is there,


I recommend you do both the Finance and Health & Welfare P of A's. There's probably more to think about in the Health one, including perhaps what you would like your attorneys to do if you needed serious medical attention and were not of mental capacity to decide for yourself, whether you want to be resussitated, whether you would like to die at home or in hospital, what sort of care home you would like to be in, ie near where you live or in an area close to your children. etc.etc


They are not documents easily completed in 24 hours They take a lot of thought if you're going to get it right so best to do them when in good health and you don't have a pistol pointed to your head trying to do them in an emergency.


Our two attorneys didn't know each other but some months after getting everything signed and registered we organised an informal dinner so they could meet and get to know each other, just to break the ice. It seemed a sensible thing to do so that if ever they had to work together they had at least had a chance to meet.

cherry76

Thanks I found this on their website. "Your certificate provider can witness your and your attorneys!!!8217; signatures". Are you allowed to staple all the forms together? With a will it is not advisable. I will not create the health one, I trust my adult children will do the right thing I do not want to be resuscitated or my life prolong. I am 70 and hubby 77. My friend just spent loads to have hers created. They are in storage with the solicitor she told me there were loads of forms to sign and she thinks they are more complicated than the enduring ones. I had a look but did not find the forms complicated. My printer is playing up I read you can ask them to print and post the filled forms back. Also once the forms are filled and signed you do not need to have it registered straight away although it is advisable to do so. Thanks again for your help.

badmemory

cherry76 wrote: »

I will not create the health one,

If you don't create a health one then GPs & hospitals are not obliged to tell them what is going on. They are not obliged to listen when they say but they don't want to be resuscitated. The less instructions for your attorneys that you put in the POAs the better as it avoids the law of unintended consequences.

Primrose

Yes, you are allowed to staple the forms together, otherwise you end up with a lot of loose sheets and it would be easy for one to go missing which would 8nvalidate the whole document. I specifically contacted of Office of Public Guardian over this as we,d previously had a problem with a deceased relative,s Will where the original couldn,t be found and only a stapled photocopy was discovered.

I would urge you to think again about not doing a Health & Welfare P of A. There could be some situations where even your next or kin might be powerless to make decisions on your behalf, especially in a difficult situation unless you have specifically given them a legal right to act on your behalf. This might apply in a hospital situation or possibly a Care home environment where perhaps your Care might not be being as well supervised and provided as well as you might like. Giving them the legal power to act will add more weight to their efforts on your behalf.

I can say this from experience where in the case of my now deceased father, I felt standards in his Care home had been very slack . When i started reminding them that I was acting in my legal,position of his attorney and would take whatever measure were necessary to have certain issues addressed, things quickly smartened up. It,s sad that one should have to react in this way but the reality is that if you have to go into a Care home, standards are variable and your children or relatives may need every power at their disposal to ensure you are best cared for as you would wish, especially if you're incapable of articulating this for yourself. Don't disarm them of one of the most valuable tools they could have.

badmemory

The only problem with stapling the docs is that everywhere you want to use them unstaples them to copy them & you still have to count them when you get them back. One bank left a page in the photocopier!

Primrose

badmemory wrote: »

The only problem with stapling the docs is that everywhere you want to use them unstaples them to copy them & you still have to count them when you get them back. One bank left a page in the photocopier!

Yes this can be a problem. Maybe the only response is to say to the assistant concerned."there are x pages here and I want you to confirm that there are x pages when you return the document to me, in case anything is accidentally left in a photocopier.

This is Ok if you go to register the document in person but it won't work if you have to send it through the post.

Mav6215

One thing you can do once you've received the PoAs back from the OPG is to scan and print out a couple of each (Finance and Health & Welfare) then get the donor to certify each with the following at the bottom of each page:

“I certify this is a true and complete copy of the corresponding page of the original lasting power of attorney.”

On the final page of the copy, you must also write:
“I certify this is a true and complete copy of the lasting power of attorney.”


Then sign and date every page.


It can be a bit of a hassle but then at least you can send those out and keep the original(s) in a safe place.

Primrose

Mav6215 wrote: »

One thing you can do once you've received the PoAs back from the OPG is to scan and print out a couple of each (Finance and Health & Welfare) then get the donor to certify each with the following at the bottom of each page:

“I certify this is a true and complete copy of the corresponding page of the original lasting power of attorney.”

On the final page of the copy, you must also write:
“I certify this is a true and complete copy of the lasting power of attorney.”


Then sign and date every page.


It can be a bit of a hassle but then at least you can send those out and keep the original(s) in a safe place.

This is what we did with ours. If.both of you are doing Finance and Health & Welfare Pof A's, reaerve a morning or afternoon in your diary for the chore and fortify yourself with tea and biscuits! . You will need it! It felt like doing 100 lines back in detention at school but is worth it in saving expensive solicitor's fees for doing the same chore with a rubber stamp.