A Lasting Power of Attorney (LPA) is a legally binding document where an individual is nominated to make decisions on your behalf as you face a challenging time in your life or lose capacity to make decisions for yourself.
You can nominate who you want to be your LPA, and they will be able to make decisions on your Property & Financial affairs and your Health & Welfare. An LPA can come into effect immediately or whenever you decide.
The importance of having a Lasting Power of Attorney
The benefit of setting up a legal Power of Attorney is to allow the nominated person to make decisions automatically on your behalf. You can nominate different people for different LPA’s and nominate multiple people to come together on a single LPA. Having multiple people involved in making decisions for your benefit can only be positive. Ultimately, the importance of setting up an LPA is that you are nominating someone to act in your best interest when you are no longer able to make decisions for yourself. This often is your partner, family member or friend. Someone you trust.
What would happen if I don’t have a Lasting Power of Attorney?
If you do not set up an LPA and you lose mental capacity to make decisions, your family would need to go through legal proceedings which can become expensive and time consuming. As a result of these legal proceedings, you may not necessarily end up with someone you would be happy with making a decision on your behalf. If a decision needed to be made regarding your health, in absence of an LPA there could be a delay in you receiving medical treatment for example.
Therefore, setting up an LPA can provide you and your family reassurance that in the event of anything happening to you in future, such as deterioration of health or accidents, you will be looked after by someone you trust, knowing that they will act in your best interest.
Planning for the future is never easy and thinking about losing capacity can be upsetting. However, once you lose mental capacity, life becomes incredibly difficult for you and the loved ones around you, as they struggle to come to terms with your health decline as well as trying to sort out your life affairs.
Setting up an LPA can be done at any age and is almost a form of insurance for if life does take an unexpected turn. You know that you will be taken care of and having peace of mind is priceless.
Are you starting to plan for the future? Talk to our Solicitors today.
If you would like to talk to someone about Lasting Power of Attorney and discuss its personal benefits for you and your loved ones, contact our Private Client Solicitors here at Parker Arrenberg today. You can call us on 020 8695 2330 or email reception@parkerarrenberg.co.uk and we will get back to you.