SAFEGUARDS

How will your interests be protected?

A Lasting Power of Attorney must be made with your consent and there are steps in place to ensure that you aren’t making one against your wishes. You need to sign the forms yourself and the applications for both types of Lasting Power of Attorney require that an independent and suitably qualified person must certify that you fully understand the implications of the arrangement at the time of making it.

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This person is known as a Certificate Provider and they will need to sign a certificate in the application to say that you understand what you are signing, are aware of the implications, and that nobody is pressurising you into making a Lasting Power of Attorney.

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A Certificate Provider is someone who has known you for at least two years, or someone with specialist skills in order to enable them to confirm a person understands the significance of the Lasting Power of Attorney. This may be a GP, a solicitor or someone with a suitable legal background. There are a number of people that cannot act as a Certificate Provider which are set out in guidance from the Office of the Public Guardian. These include your family members, the attorneys' families, business partners, employees and others that may be involved in the care of the donor.

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In your Lasting Power of Attorney application, you can notify anyone you choose to let them know that you are making a Lasting Power of Attorney. This gives them the opportunity to raise any concerns before the Lasting Power of Attorney is granted and at any time thereafter if they have any concerns about how your affairs are being managed. You don’t have to notify anyone, but it's an excellent extra safeguard that may give you and your family peace of mind.

It also means that there aren’t any surprises in the event that it needs to be used and your nearest and dearest can have the peace of mind of knowing that your Lasting Power of Attorney was made of your own free will and without anyone trying to mislead you.

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Making a Lasting Power of Attorney,  does not mean you suddenly give up control.

A Health & Welfare Lasting Power of Attorney can only be used when you lose mental capacity. With a Property & Finance Lasting Power of Attorney you can choose whether it can be used either before, or only when, you lose mental capacity (although this can have practical issues).

Your attorneys should only ever make a choice for you if you're unable to make that specific decision at the time it needs to be made. For example, if you fall into a coma, your representative would start looking after your affairs. Yet if you wake from that coma, you should be able to make your own decisions again.

Each time the Lasting Power of Attorney is going to be used the attorneys must do so only with your consent and even if you are diagnosed with an illness that affects your mental capacity they must still use all reasonable efforts to get your opinion and consent if and when you have periods where you are lucid and can express yourself or otherwise indicate whether you approve or disapprove of a decision or course of action.