Getting certified copies of Lasting Power of Attorney docs

Broseley

My 84 year old mother-in-law finally got LPAs for herself and her husband for Property and Finance online and had them registered after lots of nagging from us. I advised her she should have at least one certified copy (from experience with my own parents). However, getting a copy is not so easy! The Gov.uk website says to go via a solicitor. I phoned all three solicitors in the town where they live. Only one said yes, they could do copies, but because she hadn't used them to get the LPA in the first place, they would charge twice the going rate, i.e. £70 each. The alternative according to Gov.uk is to photocopy them and write a long sentence on each page and sign and date. I can't expect my mother-in-law or her husband to do this - they are both quite frail. One solicitor said the Office of the Public Guardian will do them. I phoned the Office of the Public Guardian. They said they can only do a copy if the original has been lost.
What a sorry state of affairs! This situation is appalling. We are encouraged to get LPAs yet obstacles such as this don't exactly encourage it! Fine if you've got loads of money, and like my parents, went through a solicitor who charged them a total of £1500 for both LPAs each and 2 copies. 
However there is a solution I read on another forum: you can buy self inking stamps on Amazon (there are a variety - check the wording is correct before buying) so that each copied page can be stamped and the donor only has to sign and date each page. I have ordered one of these. We'll see how good it is.

KxMx

I found a local solicitor who charged a much more reasonable £25.

Keep_pedalling

The gov website does not tell you to get a solicitor to make one, it tells you how to do it yourself and says you can also get it done by a solicitor or notary.

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

carolpotter

I managed to get my mother’s LPA copied and certified at the local job centre. This was a number of years ago. I believe there is now LPA a portal to allow users to view the LPA’s. 

sheramber

The alternative according to Gov.uk is to photocopy them and write a long sentence on each page and sign and date. I can't expect my mother-in-law or her husband to do this - they are both quite frail

Could you not write the sentence and get them to sign it?

p00hsticks

carolpotter said:

I managed to get my mother’s LPA copied and certified at the local job centre. This was a number of years ago. I believe there is now LPA a portal to allow users to view the LPA’s. 

Yes, with the recent ones you can register an activation code online and then allocate codes to individual institutions to view the PoA online - the Attorney and Donor should have been sent details when the PoAs were registered. 

It probably reduces the need for further copies but I've found that some of the smaller / old fashioned organisations (GP surgery, local building society) still wanted sight of the paper original. 

Broseley

sheramber said:

The alternative according to Gov.uk is to photocopy them and write a long sentence on each page and sign and date. I can't expect my mother-in-law or her husband to do this - they are both quite frail

Could you not write the sentence and get them to sign it?

Yes but we live 2 hours drive away and hardly see them. We did this for our own LPAs and it took forever. You do have to really concentrate as it's so easy to make a mistake after writing on 50 odd pages. The stamp from Amazon should do the trick. I just wanted to flag this up as an alternative.

Broseley

p00hsticks said:

carolpotter said:

I managed to get my mother’s LPA copied and certified at the local job centre. This was a number of years ago. I believe there is now LPA a portal to allow users to view the LPA’s. 

Yes, with the recent ones you can register an activation code online and then allocate codes to individual institutions to view the PoA online - the Attorney and Donor should have been sent details when the PoAs were registered. 

It probably reduces the need for further copies but I've found that some of the smaller / old fashioned organisations (GP surgery, local building society) still wanted sight of the paper original. 

That's useful. I don't think my in-laws ones said this, I'll have to read it again. They did theirs last year.

Broseley

Keep_pedalling said:

The gov website does not tell you to get a solicitor to make one, it tells you how to do it yourself and says you can also get it done by a solicitor or notary.

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

Yes, that's why I said Gov.uk said the alternative is to do it yourself in my post.

Keep_pedalling

Broseley said:

sheramber said:

The alternative according to Gov.uk is to photocopy them and write a long sentence on each page and sign and date. I can't expect my mother-in-law or her husband to do this - they are both quite frail

Could you not write the sentence and get them to sign it?

Yes but we live 2 hours drive away and hardly see them. We did this for our own LPAs and it took forever. You do have to really concentrate as it's so easy to make a mistake after writing on 50 odd pages. The stamp from Amazon should do the trick. I just wanted to flag this up as an alternative.

When I did this for my mother’s LPA, I scanned in all the pages to my PC added the text to the images then printed out all the pages for her to sign. 

frogeyesimon

My main post office did this for me.

I think that they charge £12.

If you tell them that you need it for a PO savings account, they waive the charge.