Lasting Power of Attorney

DEBCON

I am currently preparing for me and my wife, online via the government website, Lasting Power of Attorneys for both Property & Finance and Health & Welfare. Our house and most of our finance is in joint names (my wife has a larger share of the finance for tax reasons) so my question is - do we actually need a LPA for Property & Finance? I accept that the LPA for Health & Welfare is a different matter.

helcat26

Maybe ask your bank about how readily they would grant access to one partner for really significant changes.
I can imagine you would need it for things like Inland Revenue, or if you sold your property.
It is really easy to do online yourself now and also you can notarize copies yourself so unless you are saving the fee I would go for it. Better than finding out later that it would have been useful and not being in a position to do it.

Primrose

I think you should both complete both P of A,s for both of you.

If one of you had a severe stroke or developed dementia for example and ended up having to move to a care home you would probably have to separate your finances for financial assessment about self funding or needing Social services support. In such a scenario you would probably need to set up separate finances for yourself and yiurnspouse and at that point a Financial P of A would be essential.

You need to think through how you would operate in worst case scenarios, rather than simply just carrying on as now where either of you can simply sign a cheque, etc. Also, if you have ISAS, Premium Bonds or the old National savings Certificates, they will be of necessity in individual names and you wouldn,t be able to cash in or do anything with each others' Investments without A financial P of A, nor would you be able to deal with each other's pensions, (state or occupational) which are in single names and Inland revenue tax affairs. You will not be able to negotiate anything to do with the State pension or other state benefits for each other without a P of A.

These are documents you take out to ensure peace of mind that finances can be sorted out in the event that things go wrong in the future. If you!re going to take out that insurance you should cover all eventualities.

We have just done ours online. it took about 8 weeks to complete the registration process and we will be certifying copies ourselves using the written guidance given to us on how to do this in the letter sent to us confirming our documents had been registered.

Just be very careful to get everything signed, dated and witnessed in the correct order. If you're doing both P of As for both of you each document is about 15 pages along and it's easy to get distracted.

Keep_pedalling

If you both have your own assets then yes do them. Even if everthing was jointly owned I would still do them, to cover the possibility that both of you could be incapacitated at the same time through an accident, or that one of you may be incapacited for a long period during which time you may want to sell jointly held assets like your house.

We have financial LPAs in place but not welfare ones, which from experience of being my mother's attorney is more important. Life would be very difficult without the financial LPA, but even though she does not have a health one in place I am still consulted where health issues are concerned.

We each have 3 attorneys, each other and our two children, all who can act jointly and severally. I will however be sorting out my health one very shortly.

troubleinparadise

If a crisis occurred and your wife was left incapacitated, you would need to apply for Deputyship to handle her affairs if you have no LPA.

This takes months, costs a lot, and you need to annually report to the OPG about your actions as Deputy.

All that at a time when you are probably least in the right frame of mind for administration.

Applying for the LPA online costs £82, not a lot for peace of mind.

Primrose

I regard having Powers of Attorney as an insurance policy for old age. You're paying for something you hope will never happen but like household insurance, if the roof falls in, you will never cease regretting that you didn't pay out and get it.


The Health & Welfare one is important and you may wish to include instructions that your attorneys must be given access to your medical records, the circumstances in which you would not wish to be resuscitated, what sort of care home (and location) you would wish to be in if this were necessary, whether you would prefer to die at home or in hospital, and other such issues. Some people find it hard to discuss such issues with their families. Leaving your instructions in writing leaves no doubt for misunderstanding, and as different health bodies may have different data protection rules, it's not worth risking being outside the communication loop.

DEBCON

Thanks everyone for your input. It looks as if for peace of mind I'd better do the LPAs for both Property & Finance and Health & Welfare.

Just one more question that has been bugging me; Why do you need to register LPAs which is signed by all parties, but you do not need to register a will that is again is signed?

Primrose

I don't know the answer to that one. It would certainly seem sensible to register a Will as it would make it easier for the relatives to administer if its existence were known. However, people can make wills in all sorts of ways, ie on proper forms, on sheets of paper, etc. and it might be impossible to register one with an authority when there might be 20 different versions. For example, an eccentric relative of mine wrote about 10 different wills apparently and keeping track of them and finding and executing the latest one was a nightmare.


With Powers of Attorney, the forms follow a specific format and having them registered ensures that that there is no misunderstanding about what the donor wishes to happen. if you do it yourself, it's a lot easier (and cheaper) to rewrite a new will and get it signed and witnessed than it is to re-do a Power of Attorney.

Keep_pedalling

DEBCON wrote: »

Thanks everyone for your input. It looks as if for peace of mind I'd better do the LPAs for both Property & Finance and Health & Welfare.

Just one more question that has been bugging me; Why do you need to register LPAs which is signed by all parties, but you do not need to register a will that is again is signed?

A will does not come into effect until you die at which point the death needs to be registered, and if the estate is big or complex enough the executors will need to apply for probate. An LPA however gives your attorneys powers over your finances while you are still alive and are overseen by the office of the public guardian. The application has to be checked to make sure it is valid, at which stage quite a few fail and have to be amended and then resubmitted.