Registered number: 10816512.
Registered office: Squiggle Consult Ltd, Suite 2069, Letraset Building, Wotton Road, Ashford, Kent, TN23 6LN
Squiggle Consult Ltd. is a limited company registered in England and Wales.
A Lasting Power of Attorney (LPA) is a legal document that lets you choose someone you trust, called your attorney, to make decisions on your behalf if something happens and you cannot make those decisions yourself. It is one of the most important documents you will ever sign, and one of the most overlooked.
Most people know they should have a Will. Far fewer have thought about what happens if they are alive but unable to manage their own affairs, whether through dementia, a stroke, an accident, or any other cause. An LPA fills that gap. Without one, even the people closest to you have no automatic legal authority to act for you.
There are two kinds of LPA, and most people put both in place at the same time.
This type gives your attorney the authority to manage anything financial on your behalf:
With your written consent, a property and financial affairs LPA can be used while you still have mental capacity, which can be genuinely useful if you find it difficult to get to the bank, travel abroad for extended periods, or simply want someone you trust to help with the administration. Many people use their LPA in this way long before any health crisis arises.
This type gives your attorney the authority to make decisions about you personally:
Unlike the property LPA, a health and welfare LPA can only be used once you have lost the mental capacity to make the relevant decision yourself. While you have capacity, you make your own health decisions. Once you do not, your attorney steps in.
If you want your attorney to have the power to consent to or refuse life-sustaining treatment on your behalf, you must tick the specific box authorising this when you create the LPA; it is not automatic.
Around 982,000 people are living with dementia in the UK, a figure projected to reach 1.4 million by 2040 (Alzheimer's Society). Dementia is only one cause of lost mental capacity. Strokes, brain tumours, serious accidents and progressive neurological conditions affect people at every age. Every 90 seconds, someone in the UK is admitted to hospital with an acquired brain injury (Headway).
Mental incapacity is not something that happens only to the elderly. It can happen to anyone, at any time. An LPA is not a document for "when you're older." It is a document for anyone who has assets to manage and people who depend on them.
Only around half of UK adults have a Will, and far fewer have an LPA. Many people assume that family members can step in automatically. They cannot. Regardless of how close your relationship is, no family member has an automatic legal right to manage your finances or make decisions about your care without a formal document in place.
Next of kin is a term most commonly used in medical settings to identify who should be contacted in an emergency. It does not create any legal authority. Your next of kin cannot access your bank accounts, manage your property, give instructions to your pension provider or make binding decisions about your care, not without an LPA.
In practice, banks can restrict a joint account when one holder loses mental capacity, sometimes freezing it entirely until legal authority is established. A jointly owned property cannot be sold or remortgaged without both owners' legally valid consent, which means a court application if one owner cannot give that consent.
An ordinary Power of Attorney (one used for a specific purpose or time period) becomes invalid the moment you lose mental capacity. Only an LPA, registered with the Office of the Public Guardian before it is needed, continues in force after you lose capacity.
Your partner may know your wishes very well, but without a registered health and welfare LPA, medical professionals are not legally required to follow those wishes. In serious situations, decisions about your treatment may be taken by clinical staff or a court rather than your family.
Every 90 seconds, someone in the UK is admitted to hospital with an acquired brain injury (Headway). Accidents, strokes and sudden illness do not discriminate by age or health. An LPA is like insurance: you put it in place hoping never to need it, but you will be very glad it exists if you do.
If you lose mental capacity without a registered LPA, your family faces a difficult situation. To make decisions on your behalf, they must apply to the Court of Protection (the specialist court that deals with decisions about people who lack mental capacity) for a deputyship order (an order appointing someone to manage your affairs in place of the attorney you never nominated).
The consequences of this route include:
A registered LPA avoids the need for a deputyship application in almost all cases.
Imagine David and Susan, a couple in their early 70s with a jointly owned home worth £500,000, savings, and no LPA. David has a stroke and loses capacity. Susan cannot sell the house to fund care or downsize, because she needs David's legally valid consent. She cannot access his pension income or manage his sole accounts. She must apply to the Court of Protection for a deputyship, paying the application fee, waiting months, and then operating under annual court supervision for as long as David lives. If she had simply put an LPA in place years earlier, a single afternoon's work, almost none of this would have arisen. The LPA would have been in the drawer, registered, ready to use.
This is a hypothetical example for illustration only.
Your attorney does not need to be a solicitor or financial professional; in most cases, it should be someone you trust completely and who knows you well. Here are some practical points to consider:
An LPA is a formal legal document with a prescribed form. It must include:
The LPA must then be registered with the Office of the Public Guardian (OPG) before it can be used. The registration fee is £92 per LPA as at June 2026 (so £184 for both types). Fee reductions and exemptions apply if you receive certain means-tested benefits or if your income is below a set threshold.
Allow up to 20 weeks for registration, which includes a statutory 4 week waiting period. Errors in the forms, and there are several common ones, are the main cause of further delay. The OPG will return the form rather than correct it, which means the whole process starts again. This is exactly where professional help earns its keep: getting it right first time matters.
A new, fully digital LPA service is being developed by the government but had not publicly launched at the time of writing (June 2026). When it does launch, it is expected to speed up both creation and registration. We will update this factsheet when the position changes.
Register now, not later. The LPA must be registered before it is needed. You cannot apply for registration when you have already lost capacity. The process takes weeks, time you may not have in a crisis.
Keep the original safe. The registered original (which carries an OPG stamp) is the document attorneys will need to produce. Keep it somewhere secure but accessible, your file at Squiggle, a fireproof safe, or with your solicitor.
Tell your attorneys where it is. An LPA is no use if no one knows where it is. Make sure your attorneys know where to find the original and understand what their role involves before they need to use it.
Review it as life changes. If an attorney dies, loses capacity, or becomes estranged from you, you should review and update your LPA. You cannot simply amend the existing one; you would need to make a new LPA (and register it again). The existing LPA remains valid in the meantime if other attorneys can still act.
Include guidance in the document. The LPA allows you to include preferences and guidance for your attorneys, for example, "I would prefer to remain at home for as long as it is safe to do so" or "please consult my son on all financial decisions above £5,000." This guidance is not legally binding in the same way as restrictions, but it gives your attorneys important context.
Mistake 1: Waiting until you need it. The single most common mistake. An LPA can only be made while you have capacity. By the time a health crisis makes it urgent, it may be too late to create one.
Mistake 2: Making only one type. A property LPA and a health and welfare LPA cover different things. You need both.
Mistake 3: Filling in the forms without help. The prescribed LPA forms are detailed and contain several points where errors are easily made. A single mistake can invalidate the document or cause the OPG to return it for correction.
Mistake 4: Appointing attorneys without having the conversation. Your attorneys are agreeing to take on real responsibilities. They need to understand your wishes, particularly your health and welfare attorney. Never appoint someone without speaking to them first.
Mistake 5: Never reviewing it. If your chosen attorney dies, moves away, or your relationship with them changes significantly, your LPA may need updating. Review it alongside your Will every few years.
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This factsheet is general information for England and Wales, not legal, tax or financial advice. Last reviewed: June 2026.
Registered number: 10816512.
Registered office: Squiggle Consult Ltd, Suite 2069, Letraset Building, Wotton Road, Ashford, Kent, TN23 6LN
Squiggle Consult Ltd. is a limited company registered in England and Wales.
