Unfor­tu­nate­ly, some­times it becomes nec­es­sary for oth­er peo­ple to man­age the affairs of some­one else. There can be any num­ber of rea­sons for this and there are sev­er­al ways of help­ing some­one man­age their affairs. There are a num­ber of things that can be man­aged on behalf of someone:

• Man­ag­ing finances
• Buy­ing or sell­ing property
• Claim­ing and spend­ing welfare
• Decid­ing where some­one lives
• Mak­ing deci­sions that affect their day-to-day life (such as healthcare)

When man­ag­ing some­one else’s affairs with the Pow­er of Attor­ney, there are dif­fer­ent lev­els of con­trol that can be grant­ed, these are:

• Gen­er­al Pow­er of Attorney
• Last­ing Pow­er of Attorney
• Endur­ing Pow­er of Attorney

In this arti­cle, we will be deal­ing with Last­ing Pow­ers of Attor­ney (LPAs). An LPA is nec­es­sary when your affairs need to be cared for by some­one else for a long peri­od of time and you could be at risk of los­ing men­tal capac­i­ty in the future. An LPA can­not be grant­ed if some­one is already lack­ing men­tal capacity.

There are two dif­fer­ent types of LPA:
• Prop­er­ty and Finan­cial Affairs
• Per­son­al Welfare

It is pos­si­ble to take out one of either or both depend­ing on your per­son­al situation.

Jack­son Bar­rett & Gass can advise indi­vid­u­als on the mer­its of each LPA as part of an over­all life­time plan­ning process. Oth­er con­sid­er­a­tions are often long term care plan­ning & fund­ing, which may also involve your finan­cial advi­sor, as well as basic Inher­i­tance Tax Plan­ning (IHT).

It may also be the case that you have an Endur­ing Pow­er of Attor­ney (EPA) in place but need advice as to whether this ful­fils your require­ments. In Octo­ber 2007, EPAs were replaced by Prop­er­ty & Finan­cial Affairs LPAs with the inten­tion of reduc­ing fraud, as sev­er­al par­ties need to be noti­fied of the LPA pri­or to reg­is­tra­tion. At the same time, a new type of LPA was cre­at­ed to cov­er deci­sions about Health and Wel­fare. EPAs signed before 2007 are still valid but can­not be altered in any way.

For more infor­ma­tion about Last­ing Pow­er of Attor­ney (LPAs), please con­tact Paul Clark on 01625 523 988 or mail@​JBGass.​com