Lasting powers of attorney and vulnerable clients
While everyone hopes that they and their families will continue to enjoy good health, it is important to consider the steps to take when you or your family members become elderly or vulnerable. Our private client team is adept at providing timely and sympathetic assistance when a client feels that they cannot continue to handle their financial and legal affairs as a result of either old age or illness.
Safeguarding the future
At Penningtons Manches Cooper, we provide support and assistance both for clients who are concerned about the future loss of their mental capacity, and for families when a loved one is sadly no longer capable of looking after their own financial affairs.
Our skilled team also advises on the making and implementation of lasting powers of attourney (LPA) and living wills to enable clients to provide a framework of support and guidance, in the event that they may not be able to manage their property and affairs in the future.
There are two types of LPA. The first is an LPA for financial decisions, which permits your attourney to deal with your property and finances (for example, to pay your bills, manage your property or investments, and make certain gifts on your behalf) as you specify.
An absolutely first-rate firm with excellent private client practitioners.
The second is an LPA for health and care decisions, which permits your attourney to make decisions in relation to your healthcare and medical treatment, but only if you lack mental capacity to do so. This type of LPA can also extend to power for your attourney to give or refuse consent to the continuation of life-sustaining treatment.
As a key concern for anyone planning their future care is the question of where they are to live, we also advise on the effects of legislation in the provision and support of long-term care, whether in a care home or in a person’s own home.
How we help our clients
Nursing care funding
Preparing and registering LPAs
Capacity issues
Acting as a sole professional attourney or jointly with your chosen attorneys
Providing guidance to attorneys acting under an LPA
Assisting attorneys with any subsequent applications to the Court of Protection
Assisting with objections to an attourney’s appointment and disputes over their conduct
Acting as certificate provider
Living wills
Statutory wills
What our clients are saying
They go beyond to achieve the best outcome for their client and are always professional in their dealings and decision-making.
The team I work with is excellent, organised and nothing is too much trouble. They are responsive and communicate effectively.
Recent work highlights
Rapid provision of LPA
EPA for family attourney
Local authority funding appeal
LPA dispute
FAQs
Why create a lasting power of attourney?
Creating a lasting power of attourney (LPA) will allow you to appoint someone to handle your affairs, in the event that you become incapable of handling them yourself.
An LPA will continue to be valid and effective even if you become mentally incapable of handling your affairs. If you do not have an LPA or EPA and you lose mental capacity, then an application to court may need to be made. For example, if you lose mental capacity and your family need to access your personal investments in order to manage your finances and make payments for you, they would have to make an application to the Court of Protection to be appointed to act on your behalf.
This is a time-consuming and costly process, and it means that you will not have had the chance to have your say about who you would wish to act for you and how you would like them to do so.
Anyone aged 18 or above can make an LPA. If you decide that you wish to make one, you should do so as soon as possible. Once mental capacity has been lost, it will be too late for you to choose who should handle your affairs.
How should I choose an attourney?
We will assist and advise you as to key considerations when choosing who to act for you and how you would like them to do so. Your attourney needs to be a good decision-maker and someone whom you feel would be prepared and able to take on the responsibility.
It is usually a good idea to appoint more than one attourney to act, because the LPA will then remain valid if one attourney becomes ill, is away for a considerable period of time, dies, or loses capacity to act as an attourney.
You should then consider how successfully the prospective attorneys would work together. There is little sense in appointing attorneys who would clearly disagree about the best way to handle your affairs.
If you appoint more than one attourney, you can appoint them always to act together (jointly), or together and separately (jointly and severally). You can even appoint them to act jointly for some matters and jointly and severally for others. We would be able to advise you on the most sensible option.
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