Whilst most of your estate planning will be about securing your estate as much as possible, other aspects need to be fluid as your life and circumstances change. This can be an issue if the protections you want to be put in place are not that flexible in themselves!
One example is your Legal Power of Attorney (LPA) for:
- Health and welfare
- Property and financial affairs
Appointing your attorneys
The key decision you need to make when creating a Legal Power of Attorney is who you want to appoint as your attorneys. As the Gov website says:
"A lasting power of attorney (LPA) is a legal document that lets you (the 'donor') appoint one or more people (known as 'attorneys') to help you make decisions or to make decisions on your behalf."
If you make both a health and a financial LPA (and I strongly suggest you do both), your attorneys can make key decisions about:
- Your welfare including medical and ongoing care
- Your finances, managing your bank account and even selling your home.
So it is vitally important that you trust the people you appoint as attorneys, and know they are capable of undertaking major decisions on your behalf.
Drawing up an LPA
LPAs are not overcomplicated documents, but they are extremely powerful and you do need to ensure you have (literally) ticked all the right boxes when you apply. At Panthera Estate Planning, I have helped couples and individuals set up their LPAs to their personal requirements. I personally ensure that everything is correct and that the forms have been properly witnessed before everything is sent to the Office of the Public Guardian for registration
Who can be an attorney?
Attorneys just need to be aged 18 or over, and do not need to be a relative, although most people appoint close family and friends. You can also appoint a solicitor or other professional if you wish. The only bar is that people who have a Debt Relief Order or are bankrupt cannot be an attorney for a financial LPA. You do need to ask your attorneys if they are willing to be one before you complete your LPA application.
Jointly and severally
One of the 'safeguards' you can add is that your attorneys can act jointly and severally. This means they can take a decision separately (so one person can do a specific task such as banking) or together, to ensure the best decision is made on your behalf. When acting jointly, all attorneys must agree on the decision.
You can also 'mix and match', as the Gov website explains:
"You can also choose to let (an individual attorney) make some decisions 'jointly', and others 'jointly and severally'. Attorneys who are appointed jointly must all agree or they cannot make the decision."
So if you want someone to be involved, but not left to their own devices with your bank account for example, you can specify that they can only act jointly. You can specify that all attorneys act jointly, but if one of them dies, you will then need to make a new set of LPAs. If they all can act jointly and severally, the OPG will just update the current LPA.
Your attorney 'substitute bench'
One of the other provisions you can put in place is your 'substitute bench' of attorneys. You can nominate people to step in and act if any of your original 'main team' attorneys can no longer act on your behalf.
This is particularly important as your immediate family attorneys age alongside you, especially if you appoint parents or older siblings. The reason for your 'sub bench' is that whilst you can remove an attorney reasonably easily by making a 'partial deed of revocation', appointing a new one involves ending your current LPA and creating a whole new LPA.
So, if you appoint your spouse as an attorney, for example, and then separate or get divorced, you can remove your ex. However, you cannot add your new partner/spouse unless you create a new LPA.
Got your LPAs and had them for years?
Fantastic! So, who are your attorneys? if you can't remember, look it up now and check you have the correct contact details for them. As the Gov website reminds us:
“You must tell the Office of the Public Guardian (OPG) if:
• you or the donor change name or address
• the donor, or another attorney, dies
• you start acting as a replacement attorney
• you choose to stop acting as an attorney”
Need LPAs for you and your partner?
At Panthera Estate Planning, I offer a special service to create "mirror" LPAs for couples at the same time. This ensures that each partner/spouse is one of the other's attorneys, and also that both of you have current LPAs for the other attorneys to implement, at less than the costs of two individual sets. For more information:
DISCLAIMER: The information and opinions in this article are for informational purposes only. They do not constitute any form of financial or legal advice and should not be relied on or treated as a substitute for specific advice relevant to your individual circumstances. In places we may refer to external websites for further information, but we are not responsible for the content of any external Internet sites.