Using your Lasting Power of Attorney

If you or one of your family members have a registered Lasting Power of Attorney (LPA), it is sensible to lodge the LPA with the organisations where you intend to use it as soon as possible to prevent delay or any additional stress, particularly if the donor (the person who made the LPA) has lost or is starting to lose capacity to deal with matters themselves.

Previously, this could only be done with the paper document and a face to face meeting, whereby you would take the LPA into the organisations and they would take a copy of the document. However, if you have an LPA which has been registered since the 17th July 2020 there is a new system implemented on the gov.uk website that enables the LPA to be lodged online. The system creates a summary of the LPA which will be accepted by the organisations without the requirement for them to see the paper copy.

In addition to providing an LPA summary for organisations, it also;

• Enables both the donor and the attorney to keep track of which people and organisations have been given access to the LPA
• See how many people named on the LPA are using the service; and
• Allow the attorneys and donor see an LPA summary

The website link for the service is here: https://www.gov.uk/use-lasting-power-of-attorney

If you do not have a Lasting Power of Attorney but would like to discuss making one, please contact the office and ask to speak to a member of the Private Client Team.