Why leave setting up an LPA until it is too late?

A Lasting Power of Attorney (LPA) is an important legal document that gives you the control to specify who you would want to make decisions if you were unable to make decisions (relating to your property and finances and/or health and care) in the future.

In order to set up an LPA, one of the requirements is that you need to have full capacity (understanding). The documents have been designed so that each LPA document requires a signature from a ‘certificate provider’ who must only sign the document if they believe that you have the ability to understand the document and that no-one is pressuring you to sign the document.

A loss of capacity is not just caused by developing dementia, for example it can occur through suffering a physical accident or as a result of a stroke. The requirement to have capacity before being able to set up an LPA means it is so important  that  there should be no delays in setting up an LPA, after all no one can predict when something may occur that would affect our capacity.

If you have not set up an LPA and then lost capacity, your loved ones would need to apply for a deputyship order in order to make decisions on your behalf. Applying for a deputyship order takes considerable more time and is more expensive than applying for an LPA. If an LPA was in place your chosen attorneys would be able to act as soon as you lost capacity (or sometimes before with your consent if it is one relating to your finances) rather than being unable to make a decision until the deputyship order is finalised.

There is an obvious risk that putting an LPA at the bottom of your ‘to-do list’ may result in more costs and delays in the future. So, why take the risk of leaving it till it could be too late?