D-i-y Lasting Power of Attorney

Barbarella2

My husband and I are in our sixties and think we should both organise Lasting Power of Attorney - both types - finance and health and welfare - so that if either of us becomes incapacitated (and only then) the other can act on our behalf. We would like to arrange it so that when one of us dies, the LPA for the survivor would be taken over by our two children. We have been quoted £2800+VAT plus £110 x 4 document fees by our solicitors and our Independent Financial Adviser has quoted £1012 + £110 x 4. We know it is possible to do it ourselves by downloading the forms online and we would then only pay the document fees but is this advisable? Would be interested to know if anyone has gone down this route and found it straightforward and would recommend it. It is important that we have the option for the attorneyship for the survivor to devolve to our children when the first one of us dies, without having to drawn up a new LPA.

jackyann

We have done this with the downloaded forms.
They look a bit daunting, but all you need is time, patience, and a large table or other area on which to spread everything!
I also found coloured post-its useful so I could keep track.
I would say that it is quite straightforward, but allow plenty of time and double check everything.

Keep_pedalling

I've done it both ways, I did one for my mum DIY and we had ours drawn up by a solicitor. My mum's finances are fairly simple and it was fairly staight forward. I was also going to do ours, but my better half get fed up me keep putting it of so we ended up getting them done at the same time as our wills.

We only did the finance ones but the price you have been quoted seems very high. The thing a solicitor brings to this is making you aware of the pitfalls of getting the wording absolutely correct so that you don't hit trouble down the line. I think I would get some alternative quotes.

Yorkshireman99

That is a total rip off! You can do it yourself online and then print the forms off and get them signed. £220 each. I did mine a month ago. Easy.

frogeyesimon

My parents both did d-i-y LPAs. I'm now acting as attorney for my father. No problems.
If you can fill out a passport application then you can fill out the LPAs they are very simple.

Barbarella2

Thank you everyone - glad to know there's no legal mystique about this. We can certainly do form filling! Frogeye Simon - did your parents appoint each other Attorney in the first place and did it automatically devolve to you when your mum passed away? Were you named in the original application or did your dad have to do a new application naming you as Attorney?

bouicca21

I'm intending to do this DIY too (was quoted £800 by solicitor). The only problem I thought I'd have, DIY or solicitor, was working out what my two attorneys could do singly and what should be joint. Short convo convinced me that everything should be singly. What if one is trekking in the Kalahari? Or ill themselves? Having made that decision I reckon filling in the forms is pretty straightforward.

frogeyesimon

Barbarella2 - Both of my parents set up LPAs with me as the sole attorney. My brother is named as the replacement attorney to cover the situation should I become unable/unwilling to act. Prior to my father's dementia, he held the original documents and then passed them to me at the point at which he felt he needed assistance.

To clarify, my mother is still able to manage her affairs and does so. I have POA for her too but do not currently use it (long may it continue)

Yorkshireman99

Singly is seldom a good idea. In fact it is almost always a bad one.

Keep_pedalling

Yorkshireman99 wrote: »

Singly is seldom a good idea. In fact it is almost always a bad one.

Jointly can also be a bad idea, it requires more than one person to agree which can lead to stalemate making the LPA worthless. It can also be a real pain if the attorneys live along way apart.

Our back-up attorneys are our children and can act jointly or severally on all decisions. There are however very close, and have very similar outlooks on life otherwise we may have done it differently.

frogeyesimon

"Singly is seldom a good idea. In fact it is almost always a bad one."

Utter nonsense!!