An Lasting Power of Attorney is a document whereby one person may give another person or persons the authority to manage and deal with their property and affairs.

An Lasting Power of Attorney can be made at any point during your lifetime and need not be used immediately but could be put to one side and used in the future, as and when the need arises.

The great advantage of an Lasting Power of Attorney is the fact that if the person giving the power subsequently becomes mentally unable to deal with their affairs, this does not invalidate the Power of Attorney which continues in full force and effect thus avoiding the time consuming and expensive necessity of appointing a receiver under the Court of Protection.

If and when it is necessary for your appointed attorney to take control of your affairs under the Power of Attorney, the document must be registered with the appropriate Government department and a fee of £150 is payable to that department.

Registration with the court is a simple and inexpensive procedure.

To grant an Enduring Power of Attorney a specific Enduring Power of Attorney form is required. Great care is necessary to ensure that the form is completed correctly. In particular, it is imperative that the correct form itself is used, referring to the latest regulations, or this will automatically invalidate the Power.

In October 2007 the laws relating to Powers of Attorney were updated substantially. The new Power of Attorney is called a Lasting Power of Attorney and this replaces the previous Enduring Power of Attorney. However, all previous Enduring Power of Attorneys remain valid.

Under the new regime there are two types of attorney document, namely:-

1. Property and Affairs
   This is the most common and relates to giving your Attorney power to handle your property finance and business affairs and
2. Personal Welfare
   This relates to more personal issues such as an expression of wishes as to future medical treatment and other personal matters (e.g. a choice of nursing home), where you can give your Attorney instructions on personal matters and therefore have reassurance that your wishes are known at the time in the future when you may not be able to express them yourself due to illness or infirmity.

It is obviously important that you appoint an attorney in whom you have full and complete trust as the attorney will, in effect, have power to deal with everything on your behalf, including signing cheques, buying and selling investments and property, etc. You may appoint anybody as your Power of Attorney including close relatives, friends or professionals such as an accountant or solicitor. The choice is yours.

You may also appoint more than one person as your attorney and if more than one person is appointed they may either act jointly, in which case it is necessary for both to sign any documentation on your behalf, or jointly and severally, in which case it is possible for any of the persons appointed to sign documentation on your behalf.

Life expectancy has increased dramatically in recent years and, unfortunately, more and more people live to an age when they cease to become able to deal with their own affairs due to physical and/or mental infirmity. If this happens and no Power of Attorney is in place, then a person's affairs must be administered through the Court of Protection. This can be a lengthy, time consuming and, in particular, expensive process.

It is the case, therefore, that a simple Power of Attorney document can save many thousands of pounds in the future.