“I’m not old enough! I don’t need a Lasting Power of Attorney!”

Lasting Powers of Attorney were introduced by the Mental Capacity Act 2005.  An LPA is a legal document that allows an individual to appoint one or more persons to act as their agent (i.e. attorney) to help them make decisions on their behalf and in their best interests if they are incapacitated.  There are two types of LPA:

• Health and welfare; and
• Property and financial affairs

If you are 18 or over and have mental capacity, you can instruct one of our qualified solicitors to create an LPA to deal with such situations.  You can appoint attorneys to just care for your health and welfare needs during incapacity or you can appoint them to look after your property and finances as well.  You can also assume control of your affairs again once you have recovered.  LPA’s are independent of one another so you can create just one or the other and even appoint different attorneys for each LPA.

Mental capacity issues may occur at any point in your life; you could fall ill, or have an accident that leaves you incapacitated for a long or short time.  Whilst you are in that situation wouldn’t you want to know that your loved ones can make decisions about your treatments or access your finances if they needed to support themselves or your children?

Perhaps you want to ensure that a family member can refuse medical treatment on your behalf or perhaps you don’t want them to have to make those difficult decisions and instead would like someone less emotionally involved to be able to take that responsibility.  They are important decisions to make and difficult discussions to have but LPA’s form an important part of future planning alongside an up to date Will and any specific wishes surrounding funeral arrangements.

We are all guilty of assuming that we are invincible whilst young(er) but unfortunately we are not and it would be wrong to assume that your family or next of kin would be able to just take care of everything.  They might not be able to access your bank accounts to pay bills or meet mortgage obligations which could have an impact on your family and applications made to the Court of Protection to overcome this hurdle are often expensive and time consuming.

Our team at Eldridges will help you navigate this subject and protect your family should something unexpected happen to you.

Right!  Despite being in my early 40’s, and in relatively good health, I’m off to book an appointment and get mine in place.  It is never too early.

Author: Joni Ade