Planning for your future

Power of Attorney

There are two types of Power of Attorney.

Ordinary Power of Attorney

An Ordinary Power of Attorney allows you to have someone managing your affairs or making some decisions on your behalf, even when you are able to do so yourself or make all of your own decisions.

You can therefore continue to advise the person making decisions for you (your attorney), and keep an eye on what they are doing. You can limit the power you give to your attorney so that they can only deal with certain assets, for example, your bank account but not your home.

Lasting Power of Attorney

A Lasting Power of Attorney (LPA) allows you to plan ahead for a time when you may have difficulty making some decisions for yourself because of a change in your mental abilities. There are two types of LPA.

Property and affairs LPA

This gives the attorney the power to make decisions about the person's financial and property matters, such as selling a house or managing a bank account. The attorney can make a decision on behalf of the person, even if the person has the mental capacity to do so, unless the person has stated otherwise.

Personal welfare LPA

This gives the attorney(s) the power to make decisions about the person's health and personal welfare, such as day-to-day care, medical treatment, or where they should live. The attorney can only make a decision lacks the mental capacity to do so at the time the decision needs to be made.

The Alzheimer’s Society provides a factsheet with more details called Lasting power of attorney (link opens in new window).

To create an LPA (link opens in new window) you can fill out the forms on the GOV.UK website.

You can find out more about how LPAs work (link opens in new window) from the Office of the Public Guardian - this is the official agency which supports the Public Guardian in the registration of Enduring Powers of Attorney (EPA) and Lasting Powers of Attorney (LPA), and the supervision of deputies appointed by the Court of Protection. They can advise you on how to prepare an LPA and how much it costs. It will need to be registered with the office before it can be used.