Property and Financial Affairs LPA

What it is

A document appointing attorneys to deal with your money and property. Paying bills, collecting pensions and benefits, dealing with HMRC, managing investments, and selling a house if that becomes necessary.

How it works

• Once registered, it can be used whether or not you have capacity, unless you restrict it so that it only applies when you cannot decide for yourself. Both choices are legitimate and we will talk you through which suits you.
• Attorneys must act in your best interests, keep your money separate from their own, keep accounts, and follow the statutory Code of Practice.
• If you want your attorneys to use or continue a discretionary investment management arrangement, the form needs specific wording. Without it, they have to apply to the Court of Protection for authority.
• An attorney under this LPA cannot be bankrupt or subject to a debt relief order.
• An LPA in favour of a husband, wife or civil partner is revoked if the marriage or civil partnership ends.

What happens if you do nothing

Bank accounts get frozen. Direct debits fail. Nobody can sell the house to fund care, deal with a tenant, or file a tax return. Being married makes no difference. The only route is a deputyship application to the Court of Protection, which takes months, costs a great deal more, comes with ongoing supervision, and gives your family only the powers the court chooses to give them.

An LPA can only be made while you still have capacity. Capacity can be lost gradually, and it can also be lost in an afternoon.

Where specialist advice matters

• Business owners often need a second, separate LPA dealing with the business, because instructions have to apply equally to all attorneys named on one form.
• Joint appointments feel safer and frequently create deadlock. Joint and several is quicker and offers less protection. The right answer depends on who your attorneys are.
• Instructions asking attorneys to maintain someone other than you are usually invalid and will be severed. There are narrow exceptions and they need drafting carefully.
• Replacement attorneys are the single most commonly omitted safeguard.