With both a property and financial affairs Lasting Power of Attorney and a health and welfare Lasting Power of Attorney, you will need to think carefully about who to appoint as your Attorneys.
Your Lasting Power of Attorney gives your Attorneys a great deal of power over your financial and personal affairs. Therefore, it is important that you appoint people you have a very high level of trust in.
Appointing Attorneys in a Lasting Power Of Attorney
The role of an Attorney
Your Attorneys must act in accordance with the requirements of the Mental Capacity Act 2005 and the Code of Practice which accompanies it.
They are under a legal duty to only act for you, if either you want them to or if you lack capacity to make that decision for yourself.
If you lack capacity, your Attorneys must always act in your best interests.
However, unless someone complains about your Attorneys’ actions, they are left to their own devices. There is therefore always the opportunity for an unscrupulous Attorney to abuse their position.
So it is vital that you choose Attorneys who are honest and trustworthy and who you consider will do their best for you and seek to carry out your wishes.
Jointly or jointly and severally
If you appoint more than one Attorney, you will need to decide whether to appoint them to act either jointly or jointly and severally.
If they are to act jointly, this means that they must all act together. So for every decision about your financial or personal affairs, they all have to agree and make the decision together.
If they are to at jointly and severally, they can act either together or separately.
Whilst a joint appointment offers more protection as an individual Attorney cannot act alone, it does have a serious drawback in that if one of your Attorneys dies or is unavailable, the others cannot act.
Therefore many people will choose the more flexible option of appointing their Attorneys to act jointly and severally.
How Nelsons can help
Jane Sutherland is a Partner in our Wills, Trusts & Probate team.
If you would like to more information regarding appointing Attorneys in a Lasting Power of Attorney, please contact a member of our team in Derby, Leicester or Nottingham on 0800 024 1976 or contact us via our online form.