Lasting Powers of Attorney (LPA)
Lasting Powers of Attorney (LPA), available from October 1st 2007, replace Enduring Powers of Attorney (EPA) and perform a very similar function to a Will. A Will empowers your executors to manage your affairs if you are dead, while an LPA empowers your attorneys to manage your affairs if you are incapacitated.
Comprehensive Information regarding LPA's and the Mental Capacity Act 2005 can be found on the website of the Public Guardianship Office (PGO) at www.guardianship.gov.uk.
Customers with existing EPA's will be able to set up an LPA to replace their EPA if they want to, but EPA's that have been properly executed before the end of September 2007 will remain valid indefinitely. No new EPA's can be set up after September 2007, which means that existing EPA's cannot thereafter be changed at all. Customers needing to change the provisions of their EPA's will have to take out an LPA to replace the EPA.
Who For?
Everybody, but particularly if you live alone, for elderly couples or for people in business.
Why?
If you suffer some illness, dementia or injury that renders you unable to manage your own affairs, then life can become very frustrating for those trying to care for you, particularly if they need to sell your house or cash in savings and investments to pay for your care. Even the daily chore of collecting pensions and paying bills can become impossible if nobody has the authority to represent you.
An LPA clears the way for your attorneys to deal with your financial affairs easily, making their life much less difficult. The alternative is to place you under the control of the Court of Protection, which means that your affairs will be managed by a "Deputy" appointed by the Court.
Costs
As has been widely reported in the recent press, LPA's are going to be more expensive and more complicated to set up than EPA's were. Although we can see no additional benefit to you from a financial LPA compared to the old EPA, the process for establishing LPA has been made more complex and you will need more advice about the choices you make in creating the LPA.
There is also the new option for you to set up a Health & Welfare LPA, which is a completely new idea with no equivalent under the old EPA regulations. Essentially, the Health & Welfare LPA is a separate (optional) document that you would use to appoint people (attorneys) to make personal decisions for you as opposed to financial or transactional decisions. Personal decisions will include such things as the withdrawal of medical treatment or food if you were in a persistent vegatative state, for example.
Financial LPA's and Health & Welfare LPA's are entirely separate documents that can be set up independently of one another using the same or different attorneys.
Because there are now so many more options to consider, compared to the old EPA regime, we expect that setting up an LPA is going to be considerably more labour intensive than EPA. We are not sure exactly how much we need to charge for LPA, but in an effort to maintain competitive pricing across all Gray's Group's services we have set the initial price at £199 for the drafting of a single LPA.
LPA's need to be registered with the Public Guardianship Office before an attorney can act and Gray's Group will charge separately for assisting with that process should it become necessary. Gray's Group will also charge separately for providing a Certificate if you ask us to do that, although we can only provide a Certificate if we feel that we know enough about you to do so.
