Lasting powers of attorney: how they work and how to make one

What a lasting power of attorney does

A lasting power of attorney, usually called an LPA, is a legal document in which you, the donor, appoint one or more people you trust, your attorneys, to make decisions for you. The authority it gives continues if you lose the mental capacity to make those decisions yourself. LPAs are made under the Mental Capacity Act 2005 and are legally binding in England and Wales.

You must be 18 or over and have capacity when you make an LPA. Once capacity has gone it is too late to make one, and capacity can be lost suddenly, through an accident, a stroke or a serious illness, as well as gradually.

Without an LPA, nobody has legal authority to manage your affairs just because they are your husband, wife, civil partner or child. Your family may be able to keep using a joint bank account, depending on the bank's terms, but they cannot deal with accounts in your sole name, sell property you own, or manage your investments or business interests unless the Court of Protection appoints one of them as your deputy.

Attorneys must act under the principles of the Mental Capacity Act. They must support you to make your own decisions where you can, make any decision for you in your best interests, and follow any instructions in the LPA. They must keep your money and property separate from their own, keep records, and must not use their position to benefit themselves.

The two types of LPA

There are two types of LPA, and each is a separate document with its own registration fee. You can make one or both.

	Property and financial affairs	Health and welfare
Decisions it covers	Bank and building society accounts, paying bills, collecting benefits and pensions, buying and selling investments, selling your home	Your daily routine, medical care, moving into a care home, and life-sustaining treatment if you give that authority
When it can be used	As soon as it is registered, with your permission, or only once you lack capacity if you choose that	Only when you lack capacity to make the decision yourself
Who can be an attorney	An individual aged 18 or over who is not bankrupt or subject to a debt relief order, or a trust corporation	An individual aged 18 or over
Form	LP1F	LP1H

A property and financial affairs LPA can only be used for property and assets in England and Wales. If you own property in another country, you may need a power of attorney that is recognised there as well.

In a health and welfare LPA you decide whether your attorneys can give or refuse consent to life-sustaining treatment on your behalf, or whether those decisions stay with your doctors. Talk that choice through with the people you are appointing before you make it.

Choosing your attorneys

Choose people you trust to act in your interests, who manage their own affairs well and who are willing to take the role on. Attorneys can be relatives, friends, your spouse or partner, or a professional such as a solicitor. A professional attorney will charge for their time, and what you have agreed to pay them should be written into the instructions section of the LPA.

If you appoint more than one attorney, you must say how they make decisions. If they are appointed jointly, they must all agree on every decision. If they are appointed jointly and severally, they can act together or on their own. You can also combine the two, for example by requiring them to agree before selling your home while allowing either of them to deal with everyday banking. If the LPA does not say, the attorneys are treated as appointed jointly.

That choice matters if an attorney dies, loses capacity or can no longer act. The law treats attorneys appointed jointly as a single unit, so if one of them stops acting, the others cannot make the joint decisions unless you have named replacement attorneys or said otherwise in your instructions. Naming one or more replacement attorneys guards against that. The appointment of a spouse or civil partner as attorney ends if you divorce or end the civil partnership, unless your instructions say it should continue, and a property and financial affairs attorney who becomes bankrupt can no longer act.

You can add preferences, which your attorneys should take into account, and instructions, which they must follow. Keep them short and clear. The official guidance warns that instructions which contradict the way you have appointed your attorneys can lead to the LPA being rejected at registration.

How to make and register an LPA

You can prepare an LPA using the government's online service, which checks your answers and produces the forms, or on paper. Either way, the document has to be printed and signed on paper by everyone involved, on the same original, and it cannot be used until the Office of the Public Guardian has registered it. The signing has to happen in this order:

1. You read the information in the form and sign it in front of a witness, including the life-sustaining treatment section of a health and welfare LPA.
2. The certificate provider signs to confirm that you understand the LPA and are not being pressured into making it.
3. Your attorneys and any replacement attorneys read the information and each sign in front of a witness, as soon as reasonably possible after the certificate provider.

If you have named people to be notified, send each of them form LP3. They have three weeks to raise any concerns with the Office of the Public Guardian. Then send the original signed LPA, with the fee, to the Office of the Public Guardian. You can apply to register it yourself, or your attorneys can apply, in which case you will be told and can object.

The fee to register an LPA has been £92 since 17 November 2025, so registering both types costs £184. You can apply for a reduced fee if your income is under £12,000, and you may be exempt if you receive certain benefits. If the Office of the Public Guardian finds a mistake that it allows you to correct, you can reapply within three months for £46. Depending on the mistake, you may have to make a new LPA instead.

The Office of the Public Guardian says registration takes 8 to 10 weeks if there are no mistakes in the application. Apply to register as soon as everyone has signed, rather than keeping the unregistered document for later, so that any problem can be put right while you still have capacity. Once the LPA is registered, your attorneys can show it, or a certified copy, to banks and other organisations. You can certify copies yourself while you have capacity, or a solicitor can certify them.

Certificate providers and witnesses

The certificate provider is there to protect you. They sign a certificate that, in their opinion, you understand the purpose of the LPA and the scope of the authority you are giving, that no fraud or undue pressure is being used to make you create it, and that nothing else would prevent it being created.

A certificate provider must be 18 or over and either someone who has known you personally for at least two years, or someone who, because of their professional skills and expertise, reasonably considers they are competent to make those judgements, such as a doctor or other registered health care professional, a solicitor or barrister, or a registered social worker. Some people cannot act, including members of your family, your attorneys and replacement attorneys and members of their families, your business partners and employees, your attorneys' business partners and employees, and anyone who owns, manages or works at a care home where you live, or a member of their family.

Witnesses must also be 18 or over. Your attorneys cannot witness your signature, and you cannot witness theirs, although attorneys can witness each other's signatures.

Changes to the way LPAs are made

The Powers of Attorney Act 2023 received Royal Assent on 18 September 2023. It changes the process for registering LPAs: it provides for identity checks on the people involved, limits applications to register to the donor, allows the Office of the Public Guardian to put right certain problems with how a document was signed instead of rejecting it, and allows LPAs to be registered and evidenced electronically.

Those parts of the Act only take effect when the Lord Chancellor makes regulations bringing them into force, and as at September 2026 that has not happened. In its annual report for 2025 to 2026, published in July 2026, the Office of the Public Guardian said it was continuing to work with the Ministry of Justice on the service design and the legislative changes needed to begin live testing of the new service. Until the new process starts, LPAs are made under the current rules described above. Waiting for the new system carries the risk that capacity is lost in the meantime.

What happens if you lose capacity without an LPA

If you lose capacity without an LPA, someone who wants to manage your affairs has to apply to the Court of Protection to be appointed as your deputy. A property and financial affairs deputy deals with your money and property. The court will usually only appoint a personal welfare deputy where there is doubt about whether decisions will be made in your best interests, for example because your family disagree about your care, or where decisions about a particular issue will be needed over a period of time.

The applicant has to complete a set of forms, including an assessment of your capacity, and tell you and at least three people who know you about the application, giving them the chance to object. The court application fee has been £432 since 13 July 2026, with a further £266 if the court decides a hearing is needed. A property and financial affairs deputy may have to set up a security bond, which works like insurance for your money, before the court order is issued. Once appointed, a new deputy pays a £100 assessment fee and an annual supervision fee to the Office of the Public Guardian, currently £320 for general supervision or £35 for minimal supervision, and must send in a report every year explaining the decisions they have made.

A deputy can only do what the court order allows. A deputy cannot make a will for you or change your existing will. A deputy cannot make gifts unless the order allows it, and needs a separate court order to sell a property you own jointly. The court decides who is appointed, whereas an LPA lets you choose your attorneys yourself while you are able to.

LPAs for business owners and company directors

If you run a business, losing capacity affects more than your personal finances. Someone may need to sign contracts, authorise payments, deal with the bank or HMRC, or vote your shares, and the business may not be able to wait while a deputyship application goes through the court.

A property and financial affairs LPA can cover your business interests. The Office of the Public Guardian's guidance explains that you can make two property and financial affairs LPAs, one for your personal finances and one for your business affairs, with different attorneys and instructions in each. That lets you appoint people who understand the business, such as a fellow director or a trusted colleague, without giving them access to your personal accounts, and leave family members in charge of your personal finances. Think about conflicts of interest: an attorney who is also a fellow shareholder may face decisions where their interests and yours differ.

For a sole trader, the business bank accounts and assets are your own, so the LPA is what allows someone to keep paying suppliers and staff. For a partnership, check the partnership agreement, which may say what happens if a partner cannot work, and make sure it fits with your LPA.

For a company, your position as a shareholder and your role as a director are separate. An LPA deals with your property, which includes your shares, but it does not appoint anyone as a director, because directors are appointed under the company's articles and company law. Under the model articles that many private companies use, a director stops being a director once a registered medical practitioner who is treating them gives the company a written opinion that they have become physically or mentally incapable of acting as a director and may remain so for more than three months. The model articles for private companies make no provision for a director to appoint someone to act in their place, and a private company must always have at least one director.

This matters most in a company with a single director. If you are the only director and you lose capacity, there may be nobody able to take decisions for the company until a new director is appointed, which the model articles allow the shareholders to do by ordinary resolution. If you are also the majority shareholder, your attorney under a business LPA may be the person who has to vote your shares to make that appointment. Review the articles, any shareholders' agreement and the bank mandate alongside your LPA, and consider whether the company should have a second director.

Keeping your LPA up to date

Keep the registered original somewhere safe and tell your attorneys where it is. You, or one of your attorneys, must tell the Office of the Public Guardian if you or an attorney change name or address, or if an attorney dies. While you have capacity, you can end an LPA with a deed of revocation, or remove one attorney with a partial deed of revocation. If you want to add an attorney, you need to make a new LPA.

An LPA ends when you die, and from then on your estate is dealt with under your will. If you have an enduring power of attorney that was signed and witnessed before October 2007, it is still valid and can continue to be used, but it only covers property and financial affairs and must be registered if you lose capacity. You may want to add a health and welfare LPA alongside it.

We prepare LPAs, including separate LPAs for business affairs, can act as certificate provider where the rules allow, arrange for the documents to be signed correctly and apply to register them. We agree the scope of the work and the cost with you in writing before we start.

Frequently asked questions

How much does it cost to register a lasting power of attorney?

It costs £92 to register each LPA, the fee that has applied since 17 November 2025, so registering both a property and financial affairs LPA and a health and welfare LPA costs £184. You can apply for a reduced fee if your income is under £12,000, and you may not have to pay at all if you receive certain benefits. If the Office of the Public Guardian lets you correct a mistake, you can reapply within three months for £46.

How long does it take to register an LPA?

The Office of the Public Guardian says it takes 8 to 10 weeks to register an LPA if there are no mistakes in the application. Errors in how the forms are completed or signed cause delay, and some mean the LPA has to be made again. Apply to register as soon as everyone has signed, so that any problem can be dealt with while you still have the capacity to put it right.

Can I make an LPA for a parent who has dementia?

Only if your parent still has the capacity to make it themselves. The person making an LPA must understand its purpose and the authority it gives and must make their own choices, and the certificate provider has to confirm this. A diagnosis of dementia does not by itself mean someone lacks capacity, so an assessment may help. If your parent can no longer make the decision, the alternative is to apply to the Court of Protection to become their deputy.

Can my husband or wife manage my money if I lose capacity without an LPA?

Not with full legal authority. Being married does not give your spouse the right to manage accounts in your sole name, sell property you own or deal with your investments if you lose capacity. They may be able to keep using a joint account, depending on the bank's terms, but for anything else they would usually have to apply to the Court of Protection to be appointed as your deputy, which involves forms, fees and ongoing supervision.

Who can be a certificate provider for an LPA?

A certificate provider must be 18 or over and either have known you personally for at least two years or have relevant professional skills, such as a doctor, solicitor or registered social worker. They cannot be a member of your family, one of your attorneys or replacement attorneys, a member of an attorney's family, your business partner or employee, or someone who owns, manages or works at a care home where you live.

Can my attorney run my company if I lose capacity?

An LPA does not make your attorney a director of your company. Your attorney can deal with your property, which includes your shares if the LPA covers your business affairs, but who can act as a director is decided by the company's articles and company law. If you are the only director, the shareholders may need to appoint a new one, and your attorney may have to vote your shares to do it. Check the articles and consider appointing a second director.

Does an LPA still work after I die?

No. An LPA ends when you die, and the Office of the Public Guardian cancels it. From that point your estate is dealt with by the executors named in your will or, if there is no will, by the people entitled to apply to administer the estate. Your attorneys have no authority to deal with your affairs after your death, so you need a will as well as an LPA.

Is an old enduring power of attorney still valid?

Yes, if it was signed and witnessed before October 2007. Enduring powers of attorney were replaced by property and financial affairs LPAs, but an existing one can still be used. It covers only money and property, not health and welfare decisions, and your attorney must register it with the Office of the Public Guardian if you lose capacity. You can cancel it and make new LPAs instead if you prefer.

Sources & further reading

• GOV.UK — Make, register or end a lasting power of attorney
• GOV.UK — LP12 Make and register your lasting power of attorney: a guide
• legislation.gov.uk — Mental Capacity Act 2005, section 10
• legislation.gov.uk — Lasting Powers of Attorney, Enduring Powers of Attorney and Public Guardian Regulations 2007, regulation 8
• legislation.gov.uk — The Court and Public Guardian Fees (Miscellaneous Amendments) Order 2025
• legislation.gov.uk — Powers of Attorney Act 2023
• GOV.UK — Deputies: make decisions for someone who lacks capacity
• legislation.gov.uk — Model articles for private companies limited by shares

This article is general information, not legal advice. The law changes and depends on your circumstances — always take advice on your specific situation before acting. Last reviewed 17 September 2026. AD Solicitors is a trading name of AD Solicitors Limited, a recognised body regulated by the SRA (no. 8011228).