Lasting power of attorney costs

shilts

I have been quoted a figure of £950 plus vat for four lasting power of attorney’s . Financial and health / welfare for me and my wife . On top of this there is a registration fee of £82 for each of the POA’s . Firstly is it advisable to get a solicitor to do this or is it something that can be done another way ? Secondly does this seem a fair price as a total of almost £1500 seems to me quite expensive . Thanks for any help .

Tom99

Do it yourself for the £82 reg fee.

https://www.gov.uk/power-of-attorney

martinthebandit

Tom99 wrote: »

Do it yourself for the £82 reg fee.

https://www.gov.uk/power-of-attorney

Is the right answer and, to be honest, if the persons who are being given power of attorney to are not savvy enough to realise this then perhaps you should have a rethink.

RADDERS

Very easy to do yourself, just work through the forms slowly and then print out get signed and sent off, think ours took around 2 months to come back.

MisterNick

I had POA for an uncle, where I was also Executor and a beneficiary of the will.
I had a solicitor draw up the POA. He had dementia, but still had capacity. She confirmed my uncle was of sound mind at the time of completing. She also helped with some of the questions, and explained to him the implications of what he was doing.I felt far more comfortable doing it this way, although I don't think the fee was £1500.00.
I am not saying that DIY is not right for most cases, but I don't think is black and white

Malthusian

martinthebandit wrote: »

Is the right answer and, to be honest, if the persons who are being given power of attorney to are not savvy enough to realise this then perhaps you should have a rethink.

a) The persons who are being given power of attorney don't know what the OP has been quoted (unless they've told them) - I am POA for a relative and I have no idea how much they paid. The donor pays the solicitor, not the attorneys.

b) Even if they were asked, not knowing the best rate for a solicitor to draw up a POA does not make someone a bad attorney. Anyone who is capable of managing their own affairs should be capable of managing someone else's, providing they take professional advice when it comes to something outside their area of expertise (e.g. an IFA for investment decisions).

DIY is the right answer providing the OP knows to make the attorneyship joint and several, knows to register the POA as soon as it's been completed so the OPG can check for mistakes, knows not to insert silly restrictions, and won't bodge the job in some other way.

The cost is £367 per power of attorney, of which £237.50 is for professional advice and the right to redress should anything go wrong. (The rest goes to the Government.) On a per-item basis, that's reasonable, but if I was going to use a solicitor I would get a couple more quotes, as I would have thought a solicitor should be able to do the whole job for less than that. Personally, I would DIY.

where_are_we

DIY was OK for my wife and I. Get good help from the Goverment POA phone line to ask any questions you will probably have. Read thoroughly and take your time to work through everything. It will take more than one session at it, but you can save your work and do it over several days. Look at MSE forum for guidance. You will need an independant professional person (eg a teacher) to witness the signatures. Lots of printing to be done once you have completed the online form filling prior to signing or you can pay extra for POA to print and post your forms. Tip for those who paid the higher fee ! - We did ours before the price reduction and you have to go back to the POA website and claim back the £45 reduction in fee plus you get interest depending on how long ago it was.

Shedman

£950 plus VAT sounds way too expensive for solicitors fees for POAs unless you intend something really complicated. As others have said DIY is pretty straightforward just read the Help pages carefully. However Which offer an assisted online service with legal cross check for a lot less (Which also have a set of guides if you Google for Which Guide to POA (other search engines are available )

AnotherJoe

Its very easy to DIY just work through it slowly.

Shedman

where_are_we wrote: »

DIY was OK for my wife and I. Get good help from the Goverment POA phone line to ask any questions you will probably have. Read thoroughly and take your time to work through everything. It will take more than one session at it, but you can save your work and do it over several days. Look at MSE forum for guidance. You will need an independant professional person (eg a teacher) to witness the signatures. Lots of printing to be done once you have completed the online form filling prior to signing or you can pay extra for POA to print and post your forms. Tip for those who paid the higher fee ! - We did ours before the price reduction and you have to go back to the POA website and claim back the £45 reduction in fee plus you get interest depending on how long ago it was.

You don't need an independent professional person to witness it...it can be anyone over 18 who is not named as an attorney.


An important issue is to make sure that the various pages that need signing are dated in the correct order but there is a helpful checker on the online site.

badmemory

If you follow the instructions as you do it online it is very hard to make mistakes, also you can't miss bits out as you could before. Tying your attorney(s) up with too many restrictions can lead to unintended consequences or leave them unable to deal with an issue. I believe a professional is only needed if there are already some signs of dementia! I certainly didn't use a professional & had no problems.

The really important thing is finding an attorney that you can trust implicitly to do what YOU would wish with your money & health & not what THEY might wish. So don't pick someone who borrows money from you & doesn't pay it back or someone who thinks everyone over 40 should be euthanised.