Lasting Powers of Attorney

Imagine you’d reached a stage in life where you couldn’t act for yourself and because of data protection, even your partner couldn’t step in to help. Banks and other companies will refuse to speak to your partner if the account is in your name only. When this situation occurs, your financial affairs are taken out of your family’s hands and dealt with by the ‘Court of Protection. This is often a messy, inefficient and expensive process and can often cause complications and even family arguments.

This doesn’t only apply to your finances – a similar process applies to medical decisions too. If you lose your mental capacity, as defined by the Mental Capacity Act 2005, the Court of Protection and the Local Authority can make decisions about your future. They don’t even need to consult with your family!

How can you avoid this happening? The answer is to set up Lasting Powers of Attorney

Lasting Powers of Attorney (LPAs) are legal documents that allow you to authorise one or more trusted people ‘the Attorney(s)’ with the power to deal with your affairs should you become incapable of doing so yourself. 

Whereas a Will states what is to happen after you die, an LPA gives you protection during your lifetime. We would strongly advise that everyone over the age of 18 has one.

“I would like to say how happy I am with the service you provided for me and my wife Tania in helping us sort out both our wills, in just two very short meetings you made it very easy for us to understand all the pitfalls and implications of leaving things untouched with our current will set up. Thank you for explaining things in plain English.”

Leon Coppola - Director at First Image Ltd