Powers of Attorney
In the future, due to illness, a degenerative condition or injuries caused by an accident, you may become unable to make decisions for yourself. These decisions may relate to your finances or your health. You can appoint someone to make these decisions on your behalf. This is done by using a Power of Attorney.
Legal Documents
Powers of Attorney are legal documents that allow people to nominate someone they know, for example a member of their family, a close friend or loved one or a business associate, to act on their behalf. (Companies can also use a Power of Attorney in case a decision-maker in the company is no longer able to make decisions.)
A Power of Attorney is like an insurance policy. You hope you will never have to use it, but if you have one it will save your loved ones an awful lot of stress and it will make looking after you much, much easier.
Which Power of Attorney do you need?
There are three types of Powers of Attorney:
- Lasting Powers of Attorney (generally for a person)
- General Powers of Attorney (generally for a business)
- Ordinary Powers of Attorney (generally for a person or business)
The Power of Attorney that will be suitable for you will depend on a number of factors. We can help you decide which one is best suited to you when we have discussed your needs with you.
Please click on one of the options below for more information about each type of Power of Attorney.
What is Power of Attorney
Many people don’t understand what a Power of Attorney is for or why they would need one, especially if they are in good health at the moment. However, having a Power of Attorney in place is vital to protect you and your family should the worst should happen and you become unable to make your own decisions.
We have provided our answers below to the questions we are most often asked about Powers of Attorney, including what happens if you don’t have one.
I have a Will / I am thinking about making a Will – do I also need to make a Power of Attorney?
You do not need to make a Power of Attorney at the same time as making a Will or if you already have a Will, but we would always recommend that you have both documents in place i.e. a Will and a Power of Attorney.
A Will takes care of your affairs after you have died. (To find out more about Wills, please click here.) However, compared to previous generations, we are now living healthier lifestyles and we have access to medicines and medical treatments and, as a result, we are generally living longer. This means that there is now a greater chance of a period of time before we die when we are unable to make a decision for ourselves, either as a result of a medical condition (e.g. dementia), an illness (e.g. Alzheimers) or a medical incident (e.g. a stroke). Therefore, we become reliant on other people to care for us and to make decisions for us. If this happens, then it is vital that there is a Power of Attorney in place to enable loved ones to make crucial decisions about our health and finances when we are unable to do so.
I don’t need a Lasting Power of Attorney at the moment – I’m young and I’m in good health. Why do I need to make one now?
It is very common for people to think that putting a Power of Attorney in place is something that can be left until later in life because they don’t need one at the moment. However, unfortunately, the reality is that an accident or illness can strike at any point in life and often without any warning.
If you leave putting in place your Power of Attorney until you need it, then it is already too late. Your family and loved ones will then have to apply to the Court of Protection for a Deputyship Order. This is a long, complex and expensive process. Please see below for further details
If you leave putting in place your Power of Attorney until you need it, then it is already too late. Your family and loved ones will then have to apply to the Court of Protection for a Deputyship Order. This is a long, complex and expensive process. Please see below for further details – What happens if I don’t have a Power of Attorney? – and our Court of Protection section for full details.
In order to make a Power of Attorney, it has to be in advance of any issues. When you make a Power of Attorney, you must be able to understand fully what it is you are doing and the implications of doing it. If you wait until you are no longer capable of making or expressing your own decisions you will not be able to make your Power of Attorney.
A Power of Attorney is essentially a one-off insurance policy. You would hope never to have to need it, but if you do, you and your loved ones are fully protected and secure. If you plan ahead and put a Power of Attorney in place now, you and your loved ones will be in full control of what happens to your health and finances if the worst should happen.
If something happened to me and I couldn’t make decisions about my life, my spouse would take care of everything? Why do I need a Power of Attorney
If you become unable to make decisions for yourself and manage your affairs, nobody, not even a spouse, child or parent, is legally entitled to step in and take care of things for you. However, with a Lasting Power of Attorney in place, your nominated Attorney, or Attorneys, can step in and deal with everything for you. This will allow your family and loved ones to deal with your health and financial decisions and any other matters that need to be dealt with. If a Lasting Power of Attorney is needed, it will clearly be an emotional and upsetting time for your family and loved ones, but having it in place will help them enormously to deal with the situation and to look after you.
My loved ones can tell the doctors what to do so why do I need a Power of Attorney?
If you become unable to make decisions about your health and healthcare, it is not correct to think that your loved ones will be able to make decisions as to whether or not you should receive certain treatment and this includes life-sustaining treatment. It is also not correct to think that your doctors must follow these decisions made by your loved ones. Your loved ones do not automatically have the right to make decisions about your health and healthcare if you become unable to make these decisions yourself. Only a Lasting Power of Attorney can grant the authority to someone you trust to make these decisions on your behalf.
Can I make my Power of Attorney myself?
We would never recommend drafting a Power of Attorney, or any legal document, including a Will, without the help and expertise of a fully qualified Solicitor. If you draft the document yourself, you cannot be sure that it has been drafted and registered correctly, you may not understand the full implications of making one or what it can do for you and so you cannot be certain the document is right for you or that it meets your needs. When you use a Solicitor to draft your Power of Attorney, you will have the peace of mind to know that it is correct and that it works in the right way for you if it is ever needed.
A Solicitor can help you and your nominated Attorney understand exactly the role of the Attorney so that the Attorney is fully aware of what is expected of them and what they can and can’t do on your behalf. This will avoid any problems if the time comes when the Power of Attorney is needed.
It is technically possible to draft a Power of Attorney yourself and without the help of a Solicitor. However, it is easy to make mistakes and you don’t know what you don’t know so the document may not meet your needs. A Power of Attorney is a legal document and therefore it is always best to seek the advice and assistance of a fully qualified Solicitor when making one.
What happens if I don’t have a Power of Attorney?
If you don’t have a Power of Attorney in place and you become unable to make decisions for yourself to do with your health and financial matters, the only option for your family and loved ones would be to make an application to the Court of Protection for a Deputyship Order. This means that a member (or members) of your family or a loved one would be appointed by the court to be your Deputy i.e. a person or persons who are entitled to deal with your health and financial decisions. However, this is a complex, lengthy and expensive process.
In the meantime, your family and loved ones would be unable to make decisions about your health or access your finances to cover everyday costs, including your bills and payments.
If you are in the position where a loved one can no longer make their own decisions about their health or finances and it is too late to put a Power of Attorney in place, you will need to apply to the Court of Protection. We can help you with this. Please see our Court of Protection section for full details of how we can help you.
If you would like to talk to us about making a Power of Attorney, please call us on 0161 749 9000 or click here for a call back. We are more than happy to answer your questions and talk you through the process of making a Power of Attorney.
If you would like details of our fees for making Powers of Attorney, please click here