Lasting power of attorney for dummies

[Wasywasydoodah]

can anyone help me with sorting lpa for my MIL? I’m usually pretty good with forms etc and feel i can do this without shelling out 100s for a solicitor. But the best (cheapest) way of getting it verified as my MILs true wishes, and having capacity, has stumped me. She doesn’t have much but we want to avoid problems later on. She does have capacity at the minute

It is really simple (from someone who not techie) having done 5 PoAs.

First print out the forms so that you know what you are dealing with. Fill out the details, names, addresses of Attorneys, then exactly what MiLs wishes are. Once you have all the information, fill it out on line. Print it off and put stickers on pages in the order they need to be signed. Signing order is absolutely paramount. Anybody can say MiL is in sound mind. We got her next door neighbours.

Get someone to double check that you have not missed anything and signing dates. The Office of the Public Guardian very helpful for telephone queries.

And you have to post it off to be registered by the government body..the addresses are on the form. Then they send the actual person a letter and the designated helper person a letter to confirm that everyone knows about everything, and then its official.

then you can request an online code thingy so that you can register it with banks etc much more easily than in previous times.

i would recommend you register it with MILs banks and pension people (if she has a private one) as soon as you get it. Just because you have told them, doesnt mean you have to act on it. But it does mean that if you need to use it in a hurry because of a problem,then its seamless. If you have the health one as-well as the finance one, then register that one with her GP

If all the signatures are done on the same day there won’t be a problem.

Thank you so much! That all sounds much less scary than i thought!

Very easy to do it online. My one piece of advice is do one at a time. there are 2 - legal/finance and health/welfare and the paperwork is almost identical and it's easy to get them muddled (bitter experience). I'd do legal/finance as a priority.

Make sure also on the finance one that she ticks the box saying she's happy for it to be used before she loses capacity otherwise the bank will need a certificate of incapacity before it is used. The bank checked this with me before letting me use it on my dad's account. Also if more than one person is being named as attorney make sure it's jointly and severally and not jointly as jointly means everyone has to act together

Thank you!