{"id":10196,"date":"2021-07-19T08:59:43","date_gmt":"2021-07-19T07:59:43","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.franchiselocal.co.uk\/news\/?p=10196"},"modified":"2021-07-19T08:59:43","modified_gmt":"2021-07-19T07:59:43","slug":"what-is-lasting-power-of-attorney","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.franchiselocal.co.uk\/news\/what-is-lasting-power-of-attorney\/","title":{"rendered":"What is Lasting Power of Attorney?"},"content":{"rendered":"Reading Time: <\/span> < 1<\/span> minute<\/span><\/span>

Thinking and talking about what would happen if our faculties deserted us is uncomfortable. Yet it is important to consider how much worse the situation would be if you had a stroke, serious accident or dementia (eg, Alzheimer’s) without sorting it first.<\/p>\n

If someone has difficulties that mean they cannot make decisions anymore, they will need help managing their finances. A Lasting Power of Attorney (LPA) is a legal document where someone (while they still have mental capacity) nominates a trusted friend or relative to look after their affairs if they lost capacity. The key point to remember …<\/p>\n

Do not think you suddenly give up control. You can choose whether it can be used either before, or only when, you lose mental capacity.<\/p>\n

Your representative should only ever make a choice for you if you are unable to make that specific decision at the time it needs to be made. For example, if you fall into a coma, your representative will start looking after your affairs. Yet if you wake from the coma, you should be able to make your own decisions again.<\/p>\n

Why set up a Lasting Power of Attorney?<\/strong><\/h3>\n

If you lose mental capacity, unless you’ve already filled in the Power of Attorney forms, your loved ones will need to apply through court to become ‘deputy’, a long and expensive process.<\/p>\n

Instead, you can nominate a trusted friend or relative before you lose capacity, by setting up a Lasting Power of Attorney (LPA). You can appoint one or more representatives to act for you and can determine how they work together to make decisions on your behalf.<\/p>\n

You may be thinking “this doesn’t affect us, we’re perfectly well”. This is a common misunderstanding. The key thing to remember is…<\/p>\n

You can only set up a Lasting Power of Attorney when you have mental capacity. Once you have lost capacity, it’s too late.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Thinking and talking about what would happen if our faculties deserted us is uncomfortable. Yet it is important to consider how much worse the situation would be if you had a stroke, serious accident or dementia (eg, Alzheimer’s) without sorting it first. If someone has difficulties that mean they cannot make decisions anymore, they will […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":10197,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[92,240],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-10196","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-maplebrook-wills","category-accountancy-and-finance-franchises"],"acf":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.franchiselocal.co.uk\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/07\/wills-background.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.franchiselocal.co.uk\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10196","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.franchiselocal.co.uk\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.franchiselocal.co.uk\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.franchiselocal.co.uk\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.franchiselocal.co.uk\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=10196"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.franchiselocal.co.uk\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10196\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.franchiselocal.co.uk\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/10197"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.franchiselocal.co.uk\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10196"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.franchiselocal.co.uk\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10196"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.franchiselocal.co.uk\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10196"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}