Lasting Powers of Attorney

What are Lasting Powers of attorney?

Lasting powers of attorney are legal documents that enable you to appoint somebody of your choice to act on your behalf.

Lasting powers of attorney are often considered once a problem has arisen and it can often be too late as they need to be made whilst you are capable of doing so.

There are two types of powers of attorney:

• Property and financial affairs

A property and financial affairs power of attorney allows someone to make decisions on your behalf in relation to your money and property. Your attorney’s can either act under your guidance or if you are unable to make those decisions yourself.

• Health and welfare

A health and welfare power of attorney allows someone to make decisions, for example, in relation to where you should live and choose a care home for you if required, decisions in relation to your health, consent or refusal of treatment and, depending on your wishes, consent or refusal of life sustaining treatment. Your attorney can only act if you are unable to make those decisions yourself.

If you do not have a Lasting power of attorney and you loose mental capacity, an application will need to be made to the Court of Protection on your behalf to appoint a Deputy to deal with your financial affairs.

It is recommended that everybody considers putting powers of attorney in place in order to ensure that your attorneys are able to act should they be needed at some point in the future.

We can advise and assist you with the completion and registration of your Lasting Power of Attorney and how best to achieve your wishes.

Enduring Power of attorney

You may have an existing Enduring Power of Attorney signed before the end of September 2007. This document remains valid but is only effective in relation to decisions regarding your financial affairs. If you wish to give an attorney authority to make decisions in relation to your Health and Welfare then you will need to make a Lasting Power of Attorney.

We can advise you whether your Enduring Power of Attorney is valid and ensure that the power of attorney is in accordance with your current wishes. If an Enduring Power of Attorney is in place and the person who made it has lost capacity to deal with their own affairs, we can assist the attorney’s in registering the power with the Office of the Public Guardian to enable the attorneys to act on their behalf.

Living Will

A Living Will is a legal term used to refer to an Advance decision. An Advance decision enables you to make someone aware of your preferences for any medical and life sustaining treatment which may be required in the future.

The Advance decision enables you to set out your wishes should you be unable to communicate them to the medical professionals.

If you have any concerns about how to make someone aware of your medical decisions in the future, we can discuss these with you and how best to achieve your wishes.