What is a power of attorney?

A power of attorney is a legal document that allows someone to make decisions for you, or act on your behalf, if you’re no longer able to or if you no longer want to make your own decisions.

There are a number of reasons why you might need someone to make decisions for you or act on your behalf:

• This could just be a temporary situation: for example, if you are in hospital and need help with everyday things such as making sure bills are paid.
• Alternatively, you may need to make longer-term plans if, for example, you have been diagnosed with dementia and you may lose the mental capacity to make your own decisions in the future.

What is mental capacity?

Mental capacity means the ability to make or communicate specific decisions at the time they need to be made. To have mental capacity you must understand the decision you need to make, why you need to make it, and the likely outcome of your decision.

Some people will be able to make decisions about some things but not others. For example, they may be able to decide what to buy for dinner, but be unable to understand and arrange their home insurance. Alternatively, their ability to make decisions may change from day to day.

Needing more time to understand or communicate doesn’t mean you lack mental capacity. For example, having dementia does not necessarily mean that someone is unable to make any decisions for themselves. Where someone is having difficulty communicating a decision, an attempt should always be made to overcome those difficulties and help the person decide for themselves.

However, if there does come a time when you’re unable to make your own decisions, you will have lost mental capacity and someone else may need to make decisions for you.

These could be decisions about:

• finances – paying your mortgage, investing your savings or buying items you need
• health and care – what you should eat, or what type of medical treatment you should have.

Different types of power of attorney

It’s important to be aware that there are different types of power of attorney and you may want to set up more than one. We’ll explain:

• Ordinary Power of Attorney
• Lasting Power of Attorney
• Enduring Power of Attorney

What is an Ordinary Power of Attorney?

An Ordinary Power of Attorney allows one or more person, known as your attorney, to make financial decisions on your behalf. It is only valid while you still have mental capacity to make your own decisions. You may want to set one up if, for example:

• you need someone to act for you for a temporary period, such an when you’re on holiday or in hospital
• you’re finding it harder to get out and about to the bank or post office, or you want someone to be able to access your account for you
• you want someone to act for you while you’re able to supervise their actions.

You can limit the power you give your attorney so that they can only deal with certain assets, for example, your bank account but not your home.

It’s important to remember that an Ordinary Power of Attorney is only valid while you have mental capacity to make your own decisions. If you want someone to be able to act on your behalf if there comes a time when you don’t have mental capacity to make your own decisions you should consider a Lasting Power of Attorney.

What is a Lasting Power of Attorney?

A Lasting Power of Attorney (LPA) is a way of giving someone you trust, your attorney, the legal authority to make decisions on your behalf if you lose mental capacity at some point in the future, or if you no longer want to make decisions for yourself.

There are two types of LPA: an LPA for financial decisions and an LPA for health and care decisions.

LPA for financial decisions

An LPA for financial decisions can be used while you still have mental capacity or you can state that you only want it to come into force if you lose capacity.

An LPA for financial decisions can cover things such as:

• buying and selling property
• paying the mortgage
• investing money
• paying bills
• arranging repairs to property.

You can restrict the types of decisions your attorney can make, or let them make all decisions on your behalf.

If you’re setting up an LPA for financial decisions, your attorney must keep accounts and make sure their money is kept separate from yours. You can ask for regular details of how much is spent and how much money you have. This offers you an extra layer of protection. These details can be sent to your solicitor or a family member if you lose capacity.

LPA for health and care decisions

This covers health and care decisions and can only be used once you have lost mental capacity. An attorney can generally make decisions about things such as:

• where you should live
• your medical care
• what you should eat
• who you should have contact with
• what kind of social activities you should take part in.

You can also give special permission for your attorney to make decisions about life-saving treatment.