Power of Attorney
Court of Protection and Power of Attorney
You may need someone to help you manage your financial and property affairs, or make decisions about your welfare but do you know what options are available?
Lasting Power of Attorney (LPA)
You can choose somebody you trust to make decisions on your behalf when you are no longer able to - for example if you develop dementia in the future. These might be decisions about your property and affairs or your personal welfare.
Court of Protection Deputy
Where no Enduring or Lasting Power of Attorney exists you can apply to the Court of Protection to make decisions on behalf of someone who may lack capacity to do so themselves. A Deputy Order can relate to making decisions about finances or personal welfare.
The best place to start is the Office of the Public Guardian (external link) which has information about the Court of Protection process and different types of LPA.
Deputyship and Appointeeship charges
It is possible to make an application for the Local Authority to act as your deputy. This should be the last resort after all other options have been ruled out. Where appropriate, families and other involved parties should be made of aware of this.We are permitted to charge you fixed costs for the services we provide as a Deputy. This includes the costs of the initial application, annual management fees and annual fees to prepare reports for the Office Of The Public Guardian.
You will also be liable to pay the annual management fee of £650. This is similar to the charge for Deputyship clients under the Court of Protection.
Where you have savings below £16,000, the fee would not be more than 3.5% of your net savings. This is to protect your savings to an agreed level. The level of savings would be assessed on the anniversary of the date the DWP appointed us as appointee.
We will have the discretion to reduce or waive the fees if you are unable to afford them. We will monitor the implementation of the fee to ensure that people are not put at risk of financial or other hardship by the introduction of the fee.
Fees will not be applied if you have £3,000 or less in savings as there is a risk of financial hardship for the individual.