Power of attorney online

ceewash

Some advice please. Want to sort out POA for me and husband. Also have parents age 86 and 89 and want them to do theirs as well. Need to get it clear in my mind before I try to explain it all to them. So first question - Is a solicitor needed or can I do it online? What are the pitfalls? Looking briefly I saw a solicitor's quote of £400+vat + registration of £85. I suppose that will be each person. Any thoughts please or direction to a good site for advice.

Stubod

You can do on line for about £82 each (I think that's the cost). Ideally you need to do 2 for each person, one for health and another for wealth.

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

SevenOfNine

I did mine & husbands on-line, no need for a solicitor.

You don't have to keep entering data into both forms (health & wealth), what you put in for the first can be 'dropped' into the second.  After I did mine my husbands was even easier as all the info from mine could be easily switched around to drop into his, the system is geared for completing subsequent PoA's so not much re-entering necessary.

I later did my my elderly mother's application as well, hers was free of charge, & mine was half price because I only worked part-time on a mediocre salary, I wasn't asked what I had in savings, nor what our actual household income was!

I'd say it's just about being organised & methodical, the system gives bits of advice as you go along, have all the assorted names/addresses ready to input. 

The disadvantages, none. The advantages, no inflated solicitor's fee.

Make sure you are in .gov.uk as stubod has given.

Savvy_Sue

Disadvantages of DIY: that you might make an error in witnessing or statement providing so be meticulously methodical.

I definitely messed up the old style, which fortunately didn't matter...

SevenOfNine

Savvy_Sue said:

Disadvantages of DIY: that you might make an error in witnessing or statement providing so be meticulously methodical.

I definitely messed up the old style, which fortunately didn't matter...

Actually, that did happen on one of my mother's forms. My gormless brother put the wrong year (forgotten which page) & it was sent off to be registered unnoticed.  They sent it back with a note & told us to re-do just that section & also a part that my mother had to sign had to be re-done as well because of his error, so 2 pages replaced. Probably added about 2 weeks to the completion timescale. 

badmemory

If you can choose an attorney(s) that you can trust implicitly, which is what you should do, then it makes filling them in even easier as you do not need to put in a lot of ands, buts & maybes.  This saves accidental slip ups when they come to be used.  Put another way - keep it simple.