Explore Your LPA Recommendations

Your adviser may have recommended one or both types of Lasting Powers of Attorney as part of your wider planning.

Use this page to revisit what each LPA is designed to do, understand the decisions your attorneys could make and answer some of the questions that commonly arise before putting your arrangements in place.

Please focus on the LPA recommendations discussed during your planning meeting.

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Health & Welfare →

Property & Financial Affairs →

Dual LPA Package →

Health & Welfare LPA

Choose who speaks for you about your care if you cannot speak for yourself.

A Health & Welfare Lasting Power of Attorney allows you to choose trusted people to make decisions about your health, care and personal welfare if you become unable to make those decisions yourself.

This can include decisions about medical treatment, where you live, the care you receive and, if you choose to give your attorneys that authority, decisions concerning life-sustaining treatment. A Health & Welfare LPA can only be used when you lack capacity to make the relevant decision yourself.

What a Health & Welfare LPA focuses on

  • Your attorneys can be given authority to make healthcare decisions on your behalf when you cannot make the relevant decision yourself.

  • This can include decisions about the care you receive, your daily routine and whether you should remain at home or move somewhere more suitable.

  • You decide when making the LPA whether your attorneys should have authority to give or refuse consent to life-sustaining treatment on your behalf.

  • Rather than assuming a spouse, child or next of kin will automatically have decision-making authority, an LPA allows you to formally choose the people you trust. This is also a central point in iTrust121's LPA training.

How this helps you

Your voice continues to be represented

If illness, an accident or another change means you cannot make a particular decision yourself, the people you selected can represent your interests and make decisions within the authority you have given them.

Your family has greater clarity

You have already decided who should act, helping remove uncertainty over who should be involved in important care and welfare decisions.

Decisions can reflect what matters to you

Your LPA can contain preferences and instructions that help your attorneys understand how you would like decisions to be approached.

What happens after you decide to proceed?

01 — We prepare your LPAs

We prepare your documents using the details agreed with your adviser, including your chosen attorneys, replacement attorneys and any relevant preferences or instructions.

02 — You complete the signing

We guide you through the correct signing sequence so the donor, certificate provider, attorneys and witnesses complete the documents in the right order.

03 — Your LPAs are registered

Your completed LPAs are submitted to the Office of the Public Guardian for registration. Once registered, they are legally ready to be used when required.

Health & Welfare LPA FAQs

  • Not simply because they are your spouse, child or next of kin. An LPA allows you to give your chosen attorneys formal legal authority to make relevant Health & Welfare decisions if you lack capacity.

  • Only when you are unable to make the particular decision yourself. While you have capacity to make that decision, it remains yours to make.

  • Only if you specifically choose to give them that authority within the Health & Welfare LPA. This is a decision you make when completing the document.

  • You can appoint replacement attorneys when creating the LPA. They provide additional continuity if an original attorney dies, loses capacity or can no longer act.

  • You can cancel an LPA while you have mental capacity. Depending on the change you want to make, a new LPA may need to be created rather than simply editing the existing registered document.

Property & Financial Affairs LPA

Give someone you trust authority to look after your finances when you need them to.

A Property & Financial Affairs Lasting Power of Attorney allows your chosen attorneys to deal with financial matters such as bank accounts, bills, pensions, investments and property.

Unlike a Health & Welfare LPA, a registered Property & Financial Affairs LPA can be used while you still have capacity if you have chosen to allow this and give your permission. Alternatively, you can specify that attorneys should only act when you no longer have capacity.

What a Property & Financial Affairs LPA focuses on

  • Your attorneys may be able to manage bank or building society accounts, pay bills and deal with routine financial commitments on your behalf.

  • The authority can include dealing with property matters such as managing property and, where permitted and appropriate, buying or selling your home.

  • Attorneys can be authorised to deal with matters such as pensions, benefits, allowances and investments as part of managing your finances.

  • If illness, injury or loss of capacity prevents you from managing things yourself, having attorneys already appointed provides a legal structure through which essential financial matters can continue to be dealt with.

How this helps you

Bills and commitments can still be managed

Mortgage payments, household bills and other financial responsibilities do not stop simply because you become unable to manage them yourself.

Someone you trust has clear authority

Rather than your family discovering that being a spouse or child does not automatically give them access to accounts held in your name, your chosen attorneys have defined legal authority under the registered LPA.

It can help before capacity is lost too

If you choose the appropriate option, a registered Property & Financial Affairs LPA can also allow attorneys to help you while you still have capacity — for example where illness or mobility makes managing financial affairs difficult.

What happens after you decide to proceed?

01 — We prepare your LPAs

We prepare your documents using the details agreed with your adviser, including your chosen attorneys, replacement attorneys and any relevant preferences or instructions.

02 — You complete the signing

We guide you through the correct signing sequence so the donor, certificate provider, attorneys and witnesses complete the documents in the right order.

03 — Your LPAs are registered

Your completed LPAs are submitted to the Office of the Public Guardian for registration. Once registered, they are legally ready to be used when required.

Property & Financial Affairs LPA FAQs

  • No. Marriage does not automatically give a spouse authority to manage every account or financial asset held in your sole name. A Property & Financial Affairs LPA gives the attorneys you choose formal authority within the scope of the document.

  • Not necessarily. With a Property & Financial Affairs LPA, you can choose to allow your attorneys to act as soon as the LPA is registered, with your permission, or restrict their authority until you no longer have capacity.

  • A Property & Financial Affairs LPA can give attorneys authority relating to buying and selling property. Attorneys must act within the LPA, follow their legal duties and act in your best interests.

  • Business arrangements require particular care. GOV.UK guidance recognises that someone may appoint different attorneys for personal finances and business affairs, which can require separate Property & Financial Affairs LPAs. Where business interests are involved, the structure should therefore be considered specifically rather than assumed.

  • Yes. An LPA can contain instructions that attorneys must follow and preferences they should consider, although they must be legally valid and appropriate to that type of LPA.

Dual LPA Package

Protection for both sides of your life.

A Dual LPA Package puts both a Health & Welfare LPA and a Property & Financial Affairs LPA in place.

One deals with decisions about your health, care and personal welfare. The other deals with your money, property and financial affairs. Together, they provide a much broader framework for who can act for you if you ever need help making decisions or become unable to make them yourself.

What a Dual LPA Package
focuses on

  • Your chosen attorneys can represent you on relevant care, treatment and welfare matters if you lack capacity.

  • Your financial attorneys can manage the financial affairs covered by your LPA when they are legally permitted to act.

  • Putting both LPAs in place avoids protecting one area of your life while leaving another without the same planned legal authority.

  • Both documents establish in advance who you trust and can include replacement attorneys to provide additional resilience if somebody can no longer act.

How this helps you

Your care and finances are both considered

Rather than preparing only for financial matters or only for healthcare decisions, both sides are addressed.

Your family knows who should do what

Each LPA clearly sets out the attorneys appointed and the areas in which they can make decisions.

You make the choices now

An LPA must be made while you have mental capacity. Putting the arrangements in place in advance means you choose your attorneys rather than leaving your family to deal with the consequences after capacity has already been lost.

What happens after you decide to proceed?

01 — We prepare your LPAs

We prepare your documents using the details agreed with your adviser, including your chosen attorneys, replacement attorneys and any relevant preferences or instructions.

02 — You complete the signing

We guide you through the correct signing sequence so the donor, certificate provider, attorneys and witnesses complete the documents in the right order.

03 — Your LPAs are registered

Your completed LPAs are submitted to the Office of the Public Guardian for registration. Once registered, they are legally ready to be used when required.

Dual LPA Package FAQs

  • No. The two LPAs have different legal purposes. Health & Welfare covers care and welfare decisions, while Property & Financial Affairs covers money and property. You need both if you want both areas covered.

  • You can appoint the same people, or make different choices for each LPA depending on who you believe is best suited to the decisions involved.

  • Yes. An LPA cannot be used until it has been registered with the Office of the Public Guardian. Each LPA is a separate document and registration application.

  • No. They operate at different times. Your Will deals with your estate after death, whereas LPAs are designed to give others authority to act for you during your lifetime.

  • You must have mental capacity when you make an LPA. If capacity has already been lost and there is no valid LPA, other legal routes such as an application to the Court of Protection may need to be considered.