Power of Attorney

I have 3 children…..how does that work ?

I am just in the process of doing them for me and DH, I was going to put our two adult children on them, but would you put your spouse as well? Or is it assumed that spouse has the power to make decisions anyway as next of kin?

My sister and I got a Solicitor to sort one for our mum, this was just before Covid lockdown struck. Financial and Health & Welfare . We probably could have done ourselves but wanted joint PA.

We paid by sperate cheques for the Office of Public Guardian, one for him.

Sadly a few months later Mum passed away but we had not had any correspondence from OPG.

I phoned Solicitors office, they told me due to Covid they knew OPG had a massive workload (not surprised) with backlog. His office told me to ring direct as it still might be waiting to be processed, this had taken about 4 - 5 months.
Correct it was was due to be finalised within the next few days.

They stopped the process, sent everything back to us including the original cheques.
Brilliant service and really nice staff.

Kim it is really worth having a go, even if you make an error you are helped to correct it. A solicitor is really not needed! Common sense to do the health one as well as the financial one as you never know what could happen.

We have the old Enduring Power of Attorney. I don’t know if it would be worth redoing them under the current LPA.has anyone done this?

Thanks all. I feel encouraged to do it ourselves

My daughter is just doing mine online with me now, we re doing the health and the monetary one
I m just providing the information as she asks and she doesn’t seem to be having a problem

We have recently done ours, both finance and health. The guidance notes are very helpful and meant that we thought carefully about the implications of each of the choices we made. As others have stated, straightforward to complete but necessary to be methodical and follow the instructions.

We did our own, for both finances and health and welfare. Quite straightforward.
We added paragraphs (there is space for them on the forms) to the H&W one, to state what treatments we did not want if unable to speak (with full mental capacity) for ourselves.

Dds know our wishes but it’s as well to have such things down in black and white.

It's very easy to do on line and you can refer to the Office of The Public Guardian for help if needed - they are very helpful.

We did both for my FIL a few years ago, very simple and straightforward. It has been a godsend for us as his mind deteriorated suddenly during the first lockdown.

Nope, unfortunately, I didn't have the courage to go it alone. Apparently the slightest 'error' can wreck it. Well done to all those who found it straightforward.

I did mine about 3 years ago. I think it was forms that I had to fill in and send off. I did mine with the help of my sister and have given her and my brother-in-law power of attorney for both my health and financial future. But of course they don't come into effect until there is a need for them to take over my affairs. You have to pay a fee to register each one. I think my fees were reduced because of the benefits I was on, so it's worth looking into that.

We did it ourselves , it’s quite straightforward as long as you follow the guidelines. We printed off the forms and used lots of post it notes, it’s a bit drawn out, but if you are methodical it’s easily doable.

I did it online myself, it is very well explained on the website you need to be very careful to get things signed in the right order but if you follow the instructions carefully it’s relatively straight forward.

Not a solicitor or anything, but we did our own online a while ago. Not difficult, just need to be methodical and make sure you’ve followed each step carefully.

We did both types, the Finance one and the Health one.