Enduring Power of Attorney (EPA) v Lasting Power of Attorney (LPA)

You may have an Enduring Power of Attorney (EPA) in which you have appointed people you know and trust, or a professional, to act as your attorney(s). This may be to help you manage your affairs now or limited to allow your attorneys to make decisions for you in future if you lose the mental capacity to make decisions yourself. EPAs were replaced by Lasting Powers of Attorney (LPAs) from 1^st October 2007, so it has not been possible to create new EPAs since then.

If you have an EPA in place already, you may be wondering whether you need an LPA. Often the answer to this question is no, there’s no need to replace your existing EPA if it was drafted and signed correctly and if your wishes remain the same. That’s not to say there aren’t good reasons for ALSO considering an LPA though.

Enduring Power of Attorney only Cover your Financial Affairs

At the time you made your EPA it wasn’t possible to appoint attorneys to make decisions about your personal welfare. An EPA only deals with your finances and allows attorneys to make decisions about selling your home, making gifts, and managing your bank accounts and bills. To give someone legal authority to make decisions about your health, care, and life sustaining treatment, then you need a Health & Welfare LPA registered and in place.

Creation of Lasting Power of Attorney is More Secure

The process of making an LPA is a bit more involved as there are more safeguards in place. For an LPA to be valid, it must be signed by a Certificate Provider. This is a person who can confirm that they believe you to have the mental capacity to make the LPA in the first place, and that no one is placing any undue pressure or influence upon you to coerce you into making the document or appoint them as an attorney. This provides more protection for you if later an attempt is made to set aside your LPA on the grounds of your lack of mental capacity, as the Certificate Provider would be able to verify that you had mental capacity at the time the LPA document(s) was/were arranged.

LPAs let you Appoint Replacement Attorneys

Under an EPA, it wasn’t possible to name replacement attorneys, so if your original attorney(s) could no longer act for any reason, then the EPA would cease. This would leave you with no one in place to make decisions on your behalf unless an application was subsequently made to the Court of Protection to appoint a Deputy. In an LPA you can nominate replacement attorneys to step in and act if your original first-choice attorney(s) dies/die or stop acting. This provides an additional safeguard for you.

More Flexibility

LPAs allow a wider range of options for you to make your wishes clearly known to your attorneys. Under an EPA, you could include restrictions on how your attorneys can make decisions, or what they can make decisions about. This is still present in an LPA, now called “Instructions”, but additionally to this an LPA also allows you to state your “Preferences”. These are not binding upon your attorneys, but nevertheless are still useful for letting your attorneys know how you would like them to act and what you would prefer they consider when making decisions upon your behalf.

Stronger Supervision

LPAs are safer. Unless you have included a restriction in your EPA that states otherwise, your attorneys can use your EPA whilst you maintain your mental capacity AND without registering it with the Office of the Public Guardian (OPG). The EPA only needs to be registered once you have lost or start to lose your mental capacity. This unfortunately opened EPAs up to abuse by unscrupulous attorneys and was part of the reason why LPAs were introduced to replace them.

An LPA for your Property and Financial Affairs can be used either whilst you still have mental capacity OR only after you’ve lost mental capacity (you can state which), but it must be registered with the OPG before your attorney(s) can use it.

If you have an EPA in place, then now is a good time to consider reviewing your previous planning. Whether it is to keep your existing EPA in place but draw up an LPA for your Health & Welfare, or to replace your EPA with an LPA for Property & Financial affairs to take advantage of the stronger safeguards and flexibility.

For further details WITHOUT consultation fees nor obligation, please visit our Power of Attorney page.