What would happen if you were to lose mental or physical capacity as a result of an illness such as a stroke or dementia or an accident so that you became unable to manage your financial affairs?
Although you might think that your next of kin could take over management of your affairs if you should suffer such incapacity this is a popular misconception as without proper steps in place to appoint someone to act on your behalf your nearest and dearest would have to seek the approval of the Court of Protection to do so. This would inevitably involve considerable delay, expense and inconvenience.
If you were single, a widow or widower with single bank accounts or married with single bank accounts or investments these would be frozen in the event of loss of capacity. If you are a landlord you would be unable to let the property as you would be unable to sign the tenancy agreement.
To avoid this type of scenario you should prudently sign a Lasting Power of Attorney (LPA). There are now two types of Lasting Power of Attorney – Financial Decisions and Health and Care.
In a Financial Decisions LPA you would complete the LPA whilst you still retained capacity and appoint an attorney or attorneys (usually close family members) to take over management of your financial affairs in the event of loss of capacity, with the LPA being registered at the Office of the Public Guardian.
In a Health and Care LPA you can appoint attorneys to represent your interests when it comes to continuing or discontinuing life sustaining treatment or in challenging any unjustified local authority claims for payment if you lacked capacity and had to go into a care home.
I will guide you through the whole process and I will arrange for completion of the forms and their subsequent registration.