What is an Attorney in a Lasting Power of Attorney

The Attorney or Attorneys is the person or persons whom you appoint to manage your affairs for you if you can’t.

Choose them wisely, as they could have absolute control of your life one day!

Your Lasting Power of attorney are REQUIRED to consult you

if it is at all possible on each decision (imagine the cost if the attorney is a solicitor!) and they must act in your best interests at all time.

Attorneys need to be over 18, and (if you are knocking on!) they should be younger than you – for obvious reasons.   The LPA Property and Financial Affairs clearly needs someone reliable to act as an attorney with their financial head well and truly screwed on.  With the LPA Health and Welfare, the attorneys’ role is perhaps more about understanding you and empathy – but common sense is essential as your attorney could well be choosing where you live, who you see and how you are treated. They could even be deciding who looks after your minor children.

Choosing your LPA Attorneys is Crucial

The most important part of organising LPAs is choosing your attorneys: you can appoint a single attorney – but if they can’t or won’t act the Courts will be forced to appoint a new LPA attorney.

If you appoint more than one Lasting Power Of  Attorney, you can insist that they all agree on every decision – but if one dies, refuses to act or is too old or ill – the Courts will be forced to appoint a new LPA attorney.  An LPA Attorney appointed by the Court rather than the person whose LPA it is is called a DEPUTY and the process of appointing them is much more expensive than that of creating an LPA whilst you still have the ability to do so.

Alternatively, you can authorise the LPA attorneys to act together or individually as they chose.  As long as they all get on, that normally works well.

Finally, you can appoint a Reserve Attorneys who only gets involved if one of the initial attorneys drops out for any reason.  Clearly, it is very prudent to appoint a reserve LPA.

That is a general guide to LPAs, which I hope you will find helpful.  If you would like us to help you write your LPAs, we will discuss “what is an attorney” and help you with choosing LPAs carefully – it’s critical.

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