Lasting Power of Attorney Question.

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

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!

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.

If you can read and write,DIY.

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!

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

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

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.

Thanks Tuliptree - that’s great 👍

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

Quercus

Just wondering what happens if, say, you nominate your husband your adult children to be your attorneys, but then the husband loses capacity (eg through dementia). I recall reading about an adult child who had a problem actually using the POA because of this sort of scenario.

My husband is my attorney, and I his, but if we lose capacity that passes to the children, who can act jointly or severally.

I don't think about it much yet, as we have access to one another's money anyway, so if on of us got Dementia or whatever the other could take over and transfer between accounts; but if, say, we were in a car crash together the children could act in our interests until we recovered.

Thanks Doodledog.
I thought the OPG would let us know f and when it will be registered.
My anxiety is because I did it myself without using a Solicitor. I hope I’ve done it all correctly.
I’ll soon know, I guess

Quercus

Just wondering what happens if, say, you nominate your husband your adult children to be your attorneys, but then the husband loses capacity (eg through dementia). I recall reading about an adult child who had a problem actually using the POA because of this sort of scenario.

I think this would only be a problem if you’d said attorneys had to act jointly.. I drew mine up with DH and DD being able to act individually so after his death, I haven’t had to change anything.

Just wondering what happens if, say, you nominate your husband your adult children to be your attorneys, but then the husband loses capacity (eg through dementia). I recall reading about an adult child who had a problem actually using the POA because of this sort of scenario.

Funny thing - DH and I have just printed out the completed online forms and have paid £92 for each of the LPAs. The Government site is very straightforward and helps with filling in the forms.

Thank you all so much for the really helpful suggestions. I'm really thinking of having a look at doing it myself, it makes it a bit easier that you don't need professional witnesses.
Thanks again.

We did ours through our solicitor so it cost more in money terms but meant I was not worried, and when DH could no longer make decisions I could do it for him. Our GP surgery needed to see the Health one, the bank the money one, but this was perfectly straightforward.

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,

Mine were posted by the solicitor to my children (who are the ones with POA), and they signed and returned them. The solicitor then sent them to the registration place, and the children kept a copy.

I'm not sure what they do if they need to invoke it - presumably take their copy to wherever it is (the bank, hospital etc) and the authorities there will be able to check that it is registered?

Another thing to note is that there is quite a lot of signing involved! The signatures do not all have to be done on the same day, but they do all have to be signed and dated in the right order. Read the instructions very carefully before signing and dating.

There's also a lot of printing and you'll need a substantial cardboard envelope for posting two or four LPAs. Each one has 20 pages, so that's 40 or 80 pages. A normal C4 envelope is not strong enough for all that heavy paper.

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,