Every year thousands of people become incapable of managing their finances because of injury or illness.  There are now over 11 million people living in the UK aged over 65 with approaching 1,000,000 suffering with dementia.  Dementia affects 1 in 6 over 80 and affects 1 in 3 aged over 90.  Due to increasing longevity, these numbers are only set to increase further.

A Lasting Power of Attorney is a document that enables the people you trust, often your closest family members, to make decisions in relation to your property and financial affairs and/ or your health and welfare.  A Lasting Power of Attorney can be used by the people you appoint, your Attorneys, to make decisions on your behalf in case you lose the mental capacity to make decisions for yourself.

Without a Lasting Power of Attorney in place, there is no legal authority for anyone to make decisions on your behalf if you lost mental capacity.

The Decisions that your Attorney can make

• Management of any investment accounts
• Moving money from one account to another
  
• Paying bills
• Dealing with your pension
• Selling your property
• Where to live, whether it involves staying at home or moving to a particular care home
• Medical treatment decisions
  
• The authority to make decisions about any life-sustaining treatment

These documents enables these sensitive decisions to be taken by the people you know and trust.  They can also be of great assistance if there is disagreement between other family members or with social services about these matters.

The Importance of getting Lasting Powers of Attorney in place

We believe everyone, irrespective of their age, should consider making Lasting Powers of Attorney.

Lasting Powers of Attorney are like an insurance policy against losing mental capacity, you hope that you don't lose capacity in the future, but if you do, both you and your family are incredibly grateful that you had the Lasting Power of Attorney in place.

A Lasting Power of Attorney gives the attorneys an enormous amount of decision making power, so knowing that you have carefully planned for how these decisions will be made provides real peace of mind.  We are experts in this area and are able to advise on all aspects of the setting up and administration of Lasting Powers of Attorney.