Advice on Lasting Power of Attorney forms - can/should replacement attorneys be same as attorneys?

Emanef

Hi all

I'm just looking at doing our LPA forms and am a little confused on the attorneys/replacement attorneys issue (I'm looking at the health LPA first). 

The options for attorneys decision making is joint & severally, or jointly, where they have to all agree, but if the second choice, if any one of those dies the whole LPA become void, unless you've appointed replacements. 

So, say I appoint my wife, my sister and my mum as my attorneys and need to make joint decisions (so one can't pull the plug without the others' agreement!) and one of them died, can I have then appointed those same three as replacements but to act joint and severally if? 

Would that be allowed/valid for an LPA? 

I don't really have any alternatives and those are the three I'd like, so if one of them died I'd still like the remaining two be my attorneys.

I guess if one does die then I complete a new form giving the remaining two joint and then appointing them both as replacements with j/s decision making if one dies, leaving the last one - hopefully by that time our daughter will be older (ideally much older!) and she can be added.

Hope that makes sense! 

Thanks

Brie

My mom's LPAs list myself and my 3 brothers as attorneys and state that any 2 of us can act.  

Keep_pedalling

If all three attorneys can act jointly and severally you don’t need back-up attorneys, and the LPA does not become redundant if one of them dies. My wife and two children are my attorneys.

I would also prioritise the financial LPA over the health and welfare and for that I would appoint my wife as the primary and your sister and mother as back-up attorneys as you will almost certainly have joint assets with her.

Emanef

But if they're all joint and several on the health one, doesn't that mean only one needs to decide to turn my life support off?! 

Makes sense on the financial one, thanks!

Malthusian

Emanef said:

But if they're all joint and several on the health one, doesn't that mean only one needs to decide to turn my life support off?! 

No. If one says "turn it off" and one says "leave it on", the machine stays on and ultimately the Court of Protection will decide if it should be turned off.

If you don't trust your family members to not say "turn it off" in a situation where you would have wanted it left on, don't appoint them and leave it up to the state.

(The same applies if you are worried that one of your Attorneys might insist on the machine being left on when you wouldn't want it to be.)

You can also make a living will that says you want life-sustaining treatment to be given whenever it is available. People usually complete living wills to say the opposite (i.e. when they want to refuse life-sustaining treatment), but as far as I'm aware there's nothing to stop you making one saying you don't ever want to refuse treatment.

*edit*

It's exceptionally unlikely that how you complete your LPA - and/or living Will - will determine whether you live and recover, or die. Attorneys cannot tell doctors to withhold treatment that actually has a realistic chance of making you better. (That would violate both their duty and the doctors' duty to act in your interests.)

It is more likely to affect how long you spend hooked up to a machine before they turn it off.

Keep_pedalling

I have to agree with the above, you should not be appointing an attorney who will not perform the task how you would want them too. Having attorneys who can only act jointly can cause major problems if the either can’t agree or one of them is unable act for any reason. 

msb1234

If I recall correctly, when my mother in law completed hers, she wrote detailed instructions over what to do / not to do in different situations. However, whether to ‘turn the machines off’ or not is in most instances down to the doctors, not the family. If you were being kept alive by machines, have stated on your LPA that the machines are not to be turned off, and your attorneys agree with this, if the doctors don't believe it to be in your best interest to keep them on, they would likely be turned off. 

elsien

Emanef said:

But if they're all joint and several on the health one, doesn't that mean only one needs to decide to turn my life support off?! 

Makes sense on the financial one, thanks!

Make an advance decision, otherwise known as a living will. Then it won’t really be about them deciding whether to pull the plug or not, because your wishes will be clearly set out and will have to be followed. with the caveat, as above that the medical professionals cannot be forced to offer a treatment that is either not going to work, or they feel it’s not in your best interest. That’s why at the end of day a do not resuscitate decision (for example)  is always a medical one if it’s going to be futile regardless of what the person wants. 

There are certain treatments that I know I would not want, but which I feel the doctors would probably say were in my best interest to keep me alive. So my advance statement is going to say do not keep me alive with antibiotics or artificial feeding in specific circumstances.