Power of attorney

I did a Property and Financial Affairs one for my mother last year. It's not that complicated just requires concentration and attention to detail. Also, I did have a couple of queries and the Office of the Public Guardian were very helpful and didn't make me feel like an idiot for asking. I found it helpful to write a list of who I wanted to do each role, i.e. replacement attorneys, witnesses, certifiers and then asked them if they would be willing to do the role before I completed the form. It took about 4 months to register.

Thank you all for your advice.
I sent for the forms which arrived in the post this morning.
Pages of them!!!
Will read through and decide what to do

We did it about 6 years ago through our solicitor. We had our wills checked out and another bit that had to be seen to at the same time. The total cost was about £800.

I did ours myself. It was tedious and required meticulous attention to detail, but it got sorted OK and I managed to get a reduction on the fee on income grounds - that was a heap more forms!

I drew a flow diagram for each application - that was four in total (health and finance for two people). The critical thing is to make sure that things are dated and signed in the correct order. If some things are dated before others, the whole thing becomes invalid. But - although this sounds complicated - the instructions are very clear indeed. You just need to have the patience to work your way through it.

We are just registering my Dad's P of A which he had done with a solicitor many years ago - we are continuing with it via this solicitor as that is how it started, but really she has done very little and will get a good fee for it!

I have drawn up both Powers (finance and health). I did think about doing it myself but it is a bit complicated and if you get it wrong the Court of Protection won't register it, so I used a local Solicitor. You should get a quote before they start any work. I am now re-doing my Will with the same Solicitor and they will hold onto the originals whilst I have copies in my safe. I think the Powers cost me around £800 but that included the fees charged by the Court of Protection to register them.