Lasting Power of Attorney Question.

crazyH

Just posted mine - Friday.
Can someone tell me please , what happens next? I did read it up, but nothing like hearing from the horse’s mouth (sorry) - ie from someone, who has done it,

If you’ve done it yourself, you, as the donor, will receive the stamped and registered LPA back through the post I’ve given these to my daughter . She will usually need the original to show to be able to act. However you can also make your own certified copies for the other attorneys - simply copy the original and then write and sign on every page ‘this is a true and complete copy of the original’. I’d not leave the original with a solicitor as it might take a while to get it back to use it - think middle of night in A and E with incapacitated parent/ spouse

Thanks Tuliptree - that’s great 👍

DH and I did ours recently. Having paid over £800 for our wills we decided we didn’t want to pay another huge amount for POA’s. We sat down, read it through slowly several times, filled in as required, got witnesses, and sent it off with cheques for £68 for each one. All went through without any problems. It’s really worth trying to do it yourself.

Not difficult to do yourselves - £180ish to do both. Any encounter I have had with solicitors has had mistakes (usually in the bill as they are not great with maths.
Once done you do need to give people a rough idea of your accounts etc or at least put things where they can be found

I did my Dad's online just an admin charge it was fairly easy, just get the signatures in the right date order.

I did PoA for my husband myself online, think it cost me £30 to register it and it was so simple and straightforward, I could not believe people actual pay solicitors and suchlike to perform this task!!!! I remember I had one query so phoned the Office of the Public Guardian and had a very interesting chat to a very helpful lady who told me the majority of the forms they reject for correction come from “ professionals” and that they will never process an application that contains an error, they simply return the form with instructions how to correct it, so you really cannot go wrong! She said she was not supposed to say it, but she could never understand how the so called professionas justified their charges!

If you can read and write,DIY.

Very comprehensive advice given here. We recently did one for MIL The assistance notes are very clear. Order of signing is very important. One thing I can add is that you can make your own copies of the registered LPAs and buy (on Amazon) a rubber stamp for each page showing “ I Certify That This is a True and Complete Copy of the Corresponding Page of the Original Lasting Power of Attorney” Then the Donor only has to add a signature to that stamped page.

I did it for my husband and myself . It was quite easy. I found it easier to print the forms out first then fill in online. Printed the completed forms so I could check, check and check again for errors. Once sure, had our neighbours witness ( we witnessed theirs). Posted them with a cheque( was £82 for each form when I did it). Our neighbour made a mistake on theirs and were returned and we needed to witness again. Not sure if they had to pay again but still a lot cheaper than £1400!

There is also another rubber stamp needed for slightly different wording on (I think) the last page. Saves a lot of time.

That is a very high quote. I completed my form online quite easily. The questions are straightforward and it is really simple. If you are not confident online you could get a family member to assist you. LPA's are essential, and you must not wait too long to complete one, I did mine when I was about 60 and it was about £80.

You could do a lot with that money!
POAs are pretty straightforward to do yourself online. You do have to have things signed in the right order but the instructions and tick list are very thorough. I think it was £82 when I did mine a couple of years ago..so just £328 for both POAs for each you.

Hello, I think it depends how confident you are with online forms, as you can save yourself a lot of money by doing it yourself online as I did for both health and finance POA for my elderly Dad. The only faff was getting the signatures in the right order which took a couple of tries.
I asked a friend I worked with and my dad’s GP, although not all GPs offer this service and they may take a few weeks to sign the form and charge a small fee. It cost me the filing fee online for each, now £92 per POA. The main thing is keep it as simple as possible as the more Attorneys named, the more complicated things can be.

It was a simple matter to do it oneself online. And so much cheaper. There is absolutely no need to pay for legal support as they make money for doing something you can do yourself. There are instructions and explanations of the options at each stage of the process to help you. I hope this helps.

It’s so much better and cheaper to produce the LPA’s yourself. Here is the link:
www.gov.uk/power-of-attorney

Chestnut

I did mine online with no help. However, to avoid making a mistake or using the wrong words (legally) I kept it very simple. There are 'preferences' which are things you would prefer to be done and 'instructions' which are things you want to be done. I didn't put anything because I can put things like that on a separate sheet to be kept with the LPAs and my will. I can tell my daughters that I don't want to be kept alive on a machine for instance. The LPA doesn't specify this so they can do that anyway. You can go into a lot of detail on your LPA or you can put nothing and just leave it to your family which is what I did.

Hi Chestnut, do you by chance have a link to the online one you used please. I have been putting off doing it because I thought I would need to go to a solicitor and unfortunately I have mobility problems. Thanks

You can remove an attorney if they become incapacitated. I had to do that when my husband developed dementia.

QuadraGrannyIsland

It’s so much better and cheaper to produce the LPA’s yourself. Here is the link:
www.gov.uk/power-of-attorney

Hi Quadra, I have just seen the link you posted! I think that we were both typing at the same time time! A big THANK YOU.

We did our own online. Not too difficult & each LPA cost us £80 to register it. We did 2 Financial & 2 Medical. You just need a bit of common sense & logic.

We updated our Wills and LPAs for both Health & Finance four months ago. We paid slightly more than OP.
Martin Lewis advises us all to take out LPAs as if you lose capacity you can only do this through the Courts at £5,000+ and it takes six months.

Which! have advice about this you can do the forms with them online and they will check that they are done correctly.

Goodness, that's a lot!! We just sent for the forms, read the guidance notes, decided what & who we wanted, all the right people signed them , that was that!! Dead simple, nothing to it, and it's around £90pp per power - finance/health.

I used Which to do POA’s for both of us ( 4 in total) they charged £460 and then each POA is £92 to register it with the court of protection. I tried to do them myself originally but eventually gave up and let Which do the work. I found the process simple and logical.

Please, please don't do it yourself. My husband was flattered into doing it for a cousin. Then some distant relatives got involved and made my husbands life a misery ,we also involved a solicitor. We ended up out of pocket,the relatives badgered the solicitor every day and cost the estate a fortune we were considerably out of pocket and my husband had a nervous breakdown.

Seem to remember there is a question asking if other people should be informed. We said no, because in our case there aren’t any. Perhaps that is how the distant relatives got involved.
It really is straightforward but care needs to be taken. Saying that I have just sent off my third effort, the second was my fault as I forgot to sign the last cheque.
I was given 50% discount. Costs were raised recently from £82 to £92 to register each application.