Why set up a Lasting Power of Attorney?

Why set up a Lasting Power of Attorney?

If you lose mental capacity, unless you’ve already set up a Lasting Power of Attorney, your loved ones will need to apply through court to become ‘deputy’, a long and expensive process.

Instead, you can nominate a trusted friend or relative before you lose capacity, by setting up a Lasting Power of Attorney (LPA). You can appoint one or more representatives to act for you, and can determine how they work together to make decisions on your behalf.

You may be thinking “this doesn’t affect us, we’re perfectly well”. This is a common misunderstanding. The key thing to remember is……..You can only set up a Lasting Power of Attorney when you have mental capacity. Once you’ve lost capacity, it’s too late.
The key is to act early.

This is quite a common example scenario to consider:
Wife is deputy (via the Court of Protection) to my husband, who has advanced dementia. It’s a very long, drawn out and quite intrusive process.

It’s also expensive and Wife will have to pay hefty yearly fees too. If they had acted sooner to create LPAs when husband was more capable, this could have been avoided.