Lasting Power Of Attorney in Frome and The South West

It is a common misconception that a Property and Financial Affairs LPA is only necessary for individuals of an older age. The reality is that capacity could be lost at any time due to a serious accident, stroke or even a degenerative condition such as Alzheimer’s. If you should lose capacity and there is no Property and Financial Affairs LPA in place, your family and friends will not have automatic authority to make decisions on your behalf with regards to your property and financial affairs.

Instead, others could make decisions for you and the decisions made, may not be what you would have wanted. This can cause disagreements between family members and professionals about what is best for you.

• Joint bank account – the bank has the ability to remove access and freeze the account without an LPA, even if you have your money in there.
• Bills cannot be paid unless a kind family member pays on your behalf – but they will not be able to compensate themselves.
• No one will be able to access or manage your bank accounts.
• No one can claim benefits on your behalf.
• You cannot sell your home if you need to move into residential care.
• Your mortgage deal may expire and you won’t be able to re-mortgage your property.

It is easy to dismiss some of these points thinking that they cannot be right but, sadly, they are. Attorneys must always act in the best interest of a person who lacks capacity. That may seem obvious but ‘Best Interest’ under the Mental Capacity Act means doing, as far as possible, what you would have done had you retained capacity. The following information will be helpful in explaining the safeguards that are in place and how attorneys are to act.

There are Five Key Principles that define the approach the law takes since the Mental Capacity Act 2005 and those principles are:

• Every adult has the right to make his or her own decisions and must be assumed to have capacity to do so unless it is proved otherwise.
• The right for individuals to be supported to make their OWN decisions – people must be given all appropriate help before it is decided that they do not have the capacity to make a particular decision.
• That we can all make unwise or eccentric decisions without being seen as mentally incapacitated.
• All decisions must be made in the best interests of the person without capacity.
• Any decisions made should use the least restrictive means of intervention in the affairs of the person for whom attorneys are acting.

Instructions can be added and you can express preferences that reflect your personal views. For instance, instructions on how one should administer your affairs and how you want to be cared for. We all understand how important it is to have a Will but a Will isn’t for you; it’s for your beneficiaries. A Lasting Power of Attorney is very much for you.

Yes. If capacity is lost and there is no LPA in place, a friend or family member can apply to the Court of Protection to be a Deputy for you and make decisions on your behalf. However, this is a long and very expensive process which can take 6 months or even more. Applications to be a Deputy involve ongoing costs which do not apply to a Lasting Power of Attorney.