20/01/2022
📄 5 FACTS OF A LASTING POWER OF ATTORNEY
Fact 1. 📄 LPAs Are Not Just for the Elderly 👨🏻🦳
A common misconception about LPAs is that you do not need one until you start to lose your mental faculties. However, if you wait until this point in your life, you may not be able to set an LPA up. People lose mental capacity for many different reasons including:
• Strokes
• Accidents
• Heart Failure
• Dementia
• Contracting a virus which attacks the brain (such as meningitis)
Fact 2. There are Two Types of LPAs
LPAs come in two forms, a 💷 Financial and 🏠 Property LPA and a 🩺 Health & Welfare LPA.
💷 Financially & 🏠 Property:
• Pay your mortgage and bills
• Sell your property
• Collecting pensions, wages, or benefits
• Manage your investment portfolio
🩺 Health & Welfare:
• Decide where you live
• Administer medication
• Manage your diet, clothes, and day to day schedule
You can select to have one or both types of LPA and the extent of the attorney’s powers is entirely up to you. You may also select different attorneys for each type of LPA.
Fact 3. The 🧑🏻💼 Attorney for Your Health & Welfare LPA Can Decide Whether to Continue with Life-sustaining Treatment
When you and your solicitor draft your health & welfare LPA you will be asked whether you wish the person you appoint as your attorney to have the power to accept or refuse life-sustaining treatment on your behalf.
Fact 4. You Can Choose Anyone Over the Age of 18 years to be Your 🧑🏻💼 Attorney
One of the most comforting things about having an LPA in place is that you have had the chance to select a person you know and trust to look after your affairs and act in your best interests. If you do not have an LPA and subsequently become mentally incapacitated, then your relatives (who you may or may not get along with) will have to apply to the Court of Protection to gain the power of Deputyship to manage certain aspects of your life.
Fact 5. An LPA Saves Your Family and Friends a lot of Stress and Anxiety
By having an LPA you take away this stress and anxiety from your loved ones and give them the confidence of knowing that they are managing your affairs as per your instructions. Like a Will, an LPA is an important document that too few of us have had drafted. They can save both you and your loved ones a lot of stress and insecurity and give you all the peace of mind that no matter what happens to you, your life will continue to be run the way you want it to.
