There is a category of family admin that everyone agrees is important and almost everyone postpones. Lasting Power of Attorney sits at the top of it, alongside wills, and the unglamorous question of whether anyone else knows where the documents actually are. Families postpone it because it feels morbid, because it seems complicated, and because there is always a better week to raise it. Then a stroke, a fall or a diagnosis arrives, and the paperwork that would have taken an afternoon becomes a court application that takes many months.
This guide covers the essentials in plain language. We are a home help service, not solicitors, and nothing here is legal advice — but our founders’ nursing careers included too many families discovering these gaps at the worst possible moment, and that experience is why this guide exists.
Lasting Power of Attorney — the single most important document
A Lasting Power of Attorney (LPA) lets a person choose, while they are well, who may make decisions for them if a day comes when they cannot. There are two types, and most people benefit from making both. The property and financial affairs LPA covers money: banking, bills, pensions, and if necessary selling property. It can be used, with permission, even while the person still has capacity — useful when mobility rather than memory is the obstacle. The health and welfare LPA covers care decisions, medical treatment and where someone lives, and only takes effect if capacity is lost.
The point that families most often misunderstand is this: an LPA can only be made while the person still has mental capacity. It is a document about the future that must be signed in the present. Once capacity is lost, the only route is a deputyship application to the Court of Protection — slower, considerably more expensive, more intrusive, and granting the family less choice about who takes the role.
A useful reframe for the reluctant: an LPA is not about expecting the worst. It is car insurance for decision-making — arranged while everything is fine, in the hope it is never needed, and invaluable if it is.
How LPAs are actually made
The process is more manageable than its reputation. Forms are completed online or on paper through the Office of the Public Guardian at gov.uk; registration costs £82 per LPA in England, with reductions and exemptions for lower incomes. A “certificate provider” — someone who confirms the person understands what they are signing and is under no pressure — must sign, and registration currently takes several weeks, which is itself an argument for not waiting.
Many families complete the forms themselves without difficulty. A solicitor is worth the additional cost where the estate is complex, where family dynamics are delicate, or where anyone has doubts about capacity — in that last case, professional involvement protects everyone, including the person the LPA is for. Age UK also provides good, free guidance for those who want support without solicitor fees.
Wills — and the quiet problem of the outdated one
The rules when someone dies without a will — intestacy — follow a fixed legal formula that routinely produces results the person would never have chosen, particularly for unmarried partners, who can be left with nothing regardless of decades together. A will is the only instrument that records what was actually wanted.
Just as common as the missing will is the outdated one: written thirty years ago, before a spouse died, before a family fell out or reconciled, before a house was sold. A will that no longer reflects life as it is can cause almost as much difficulty as no will at all. If the existing will predates a major life change, it is due a review.
The documents box — an afternoon that repays itself many times over
The simplest item on this list requires no forms and no fees: one place — a folder, a box, a drawer — where the important things live, and at least one trusted person who knows where it is. Will and LPA documents, or a note of which solicitor holds them. Bank and pension details. Insurance policies. House deeds or mortgage papers. NHS number, GP details, a current medication list. A list of regular bills and how they are paid.
In an emergency — a hospital admission, a sudden loss — the difference between a family who can find these things and a family who cannot is measured in weeks of avoidable distress. It is perhaps the highest-value afternoon of admin that exists.
Starting the conversation
If raising this with a parent feels difficult, two approaches consistently work. The first is to go first: “We’ve just done our LPAs — it made us realise we didn’t know if you had one.” Leading by example turns an interrogation into a shared task. The second is to borrow the prompt from elsewhere — an article like this one, a news story, a friend’s experience — so the conversation arrives from outside the family rather than as an ambush. And it is worth saying plainly: this is a conversation to have while it is theoretical. Every month it is postponed is a month in which it quietly becomes more urgent.
None of this is our service to sell — we have nothing to gain from your LPA. It is simply the advice our founders found themselves giving families again and again: do the paperwork while it is easy. Future you will be very glad of it.