Powers of Attorney Solicitors

Making a Will covers what will happen to your assets once you’ve passed away, but what about while you’re still alive?

Illnesses such as dementia, conditions such as stroke, brain injuries and plain old age – there are many reasons why you may need extra support during your life.

Preparing a Lasting Power of Attorney (LPA) puts you in control of your future. It lets you decide what you want to happen if you lose the ability to make your own decisions and who you want to help you.

Appointing attorneys you know and trust to look after you gives you peace of mind and means those closest to you can help you with ease if necessary.

There are two types of Lasting Powers of Attorney we can help you with:

• Property and Financial Affairs Lasting Power of Attorney – allows your attorneys to make decisions about your finances on your behalf, such as managing your bank accounts, selling a property and collecting your pension.
• Health and Welfare Lasting Power of Attorney – allows your attorneys to make decisions about things like your day-to-day care and activities and your medical treatment.

We’ll help you consider every possibility so the final document will fully cover your wishes, giving you peace of mind that you’ll be well cared for if you ever need your attorneys’ support.

As well as advising individuals about personal LPAs, we can advise business owners on putting in place Property and Financial Affairs LPAs to appoint someone to step into their role should they ever need them to. Putting a Business LPA in place could save your business if you’re a sole trader or director, so is always worth considering.

We can also provide advice about registering Lasting Powers of Attorney, as well as changing or updating your LPA.

Ordinary Powers of Attorney (OPAs) – also known as General Powers of Attorney (GPAs) – allow you to appoint people you trust (your attorneys) to manage your financial affairs in case you cannot or do not want to manage them yourself. For example, an OPA may be right for you if:

• You are going into hospital for a while and need someone to look after your financial affairs
• You are recovering from an illness or injury and need support in the meantime
• You have a physical disability that makes it hard to do things like go to the bank or post office
• You live abroad or are going on holiday for a long time
• You are going to prison soon

We can help you put in place a tailored legal document that clearly outlines the scope of what powers you want your attorneys to have.

Enduring Powers of Attorney (EPAs) were replaced by Lasting Powers of Attorney in 2007. However, if you have a valid EPA made before October 2007, it can still be registered and used.

We can:

• Advise on the validity of Enduring Powers of Attorney
• Register Enduring Powers of Attorney
• Provide advice on whether it is worth replacing your Enduring Power of Attorney with a Lasting Power of Attorney
• Cancel Enduring Powers of Attorney

If you are an attorney under a Lasting Power of Attorney, Enduring Power of Attorney or Ordinary Power of Attorney, we can help you make important decisions and provide support for your relative or friend’s needs.

We know this can be a daunting job, and often a sad one when supporting a loved one who has lost their mental capacity, for example, because of an illness such as dementia or a brain injury.

Our Power of Attorney lawyers can share the burden, helping you give your loved one the very best quality of life.

We can:

• Provide advice on mental capacity assessments and when to make decisions for someone
• Advise you on the scope of your role and your responsibilities under the Power of Attorney document
• Provide advice about helping someone make decisions (wherever possible – sometimes, with the right approach, a person can be helped to understand the information they need to make a decision)
• Provide advice on making decisions for someone who lack the mental capacity to make the decision themselves

We can provide a wide range of other lifetime and estate planning advice, helping you plan for every aspect of life and after death. Our other services include:

Advance Decisions/Advance Directives/Living Wills

This type of legal document is called by many names but has one important purpose. It allows you to set out your wishes about medical treatment in case you cannot refuse when you want to in the future.

For example, if you are unconscious, unresponsive or lack mental capacity when your doctors need you to consent to certain types of medical treatment, they can turn to your Advance Decision for guidance on what to do.

This can save your healthcare professionals and your family from having to make sad and difficult decisions on your behalf.

You can even set out when you would want to rule out life-saving treatment, allowing you to live out the twilight of your life with peace of mind and dignity.

Our solicitors can provide advice about putting an Advance Decision in place, talking you through your options with kindness and sensitivity. We know these are difficult conversations at the best of times, so we’ll always provide a private, safe environment to talk and take the meeting at your pace.

Making a Will

Tick this important task off your to-do list and make sure your loved ones are provided for after you pass away. Making a Will is essential to pass on your hard-earned money and property to the right people as tax-efficiently as possible.

We can provide a fast, convenient Will writing service, so you can put your wishes on paper and carry on with your life with peace of mind as quickly as possible.

Court of Protection

If a person does not leave a Power of Attorney or Advance Decision, or the documents they did leave do not cover the situation at hand, making a Court of Protection application is the best option.

The Court of Protection’s role is to make decisions for people who lack mental capacity and to authorise people (referred to as deputies) to make decisions for people who lack mental capacity.

We can assist with a broad range of Court of Protection matters, including:

• Making deputyship applications
• Applying to make or change a Will for someone who cannot do it themselves (Statutory Wills)
• Applications to sell jointly owned property where one owner cannot consent to the sale
• Power of Attorney disputes
• Deprivation of liberty matters
• One-off decisions (e.g. where a Power of Attorney does not cover a specific decision you need to make)
• Making urgent and emergency applications