Lasting Powers of Attorney

Lasting powers of attorney

Lasting powers of attorney allow one or more persons to make decisions on behalf of another person when that person has lost mental capacity to make such decisions, or during their lifetime if desired. There are two types of lasting powers of attorney – one for decisions about property and financial affairs, and another for decisions about health and welfare matters.

Things to consider

There are a number of matters to consider when making a lasting power of attorney in order to ensure that the right decisions are made on your behalf when you no longer have capacity to make those decisions yourself, and to avoid the risk of misuse of the power by your appointed attorneys. It may also be necessary for a mental capacity assessment to be made to ensure that the person making the lasting power of attorney has the capacity to do so.

Freeths’ advice

In order to meet those needs we help you consider and provide advice on:

• safeguarding: potential steps which may be taken to minimise the risk of misuse by your appointed attorneys
• your choice of attorney and replacement attorney, whether the attorneys should act jointly or jointly and severally, whether the power of attorney should be registered with the Office of the Public Guardian immediately or at a later date
• mental capacity: we can provide a certificate of capacity which is required to register a lasting power of attorney with the Office of the Public Guardian. Or, where mental capacity requires further careful assessment, we can find and appraise a suitable medical practitioner of the relevant test of capacity so that they can provide the certificate
• drafting detailed preferences and instructions, tailored precisely to your wishes, for your attorneys to be guided by or to follow in particular circumstances or in respect of particular assets, and which will be both practical for future use and acceptable by the Office of the Public Guardian
• signing the lasting powers of attorney (with instructions for you, your attorneys, the witnesses and certificate provider)

Professional attorney services

We can provide a professional attorney, or replacement attorney, for lasting powers of attorney for property and financial affairs through our wholly owned trust corporation, Freeths Trustees Limited. Appointing a trust corporation, instead of an individual as a professional attorney, allows for continuity and flexibility.

For health and welfare lasting powers of attorney an individual person must be appointed as attorney or replacement attorney. In certain circumstances you may prefer to appoint your professional advisor at Freeths if, for example, there is no suitable family member or friend to fulfil this role.

There is no charge for appointing Freeths Trustees Limited or your professional advisor as an attorney but, when the appointment as attorney takes effect, the firm will charge for work undertaken to discharge the duties as attorney. Currently our fees for this are calculated on the time spent by the lawyers in carrying out this work, charged at the hourly rates in force from time to time.

What our fees include

Our charges given above include:

• meeting you to take instructions
• advising you on safeguarding from misuse (attorney appointments, timing of registration)
• advising on and drafting powers with instructions and/or preferences for your attorneys
• explaining the terms of the powers to you
• meeting you at a Freeths’ office to sign your lasting power(s) of attorney, or sending them to you with signing instructions
• acting as certificate provider, if appropriate
• applying to the Office of the Public Guardian for registration
• storing the lasting power(s) of attorney for as long as necessary