IF YOU DO NOT ENSURE THAT YOU ADD PROTECTIONS WITHIN YOUR LASTING POWER OF ATTORNEY, THEN IT FOLLOWS THAT YOU WILL NOT BE PROTECTED!

(article 3 minute read)

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HEARD THE EXPRESSION ANYTHING WORTH DOING IS WORTH DOING WELL?

This is true of your legal services and legal document providers too. There are rules and regulations legal professionals must adhere to and make no mistake, this is for your benefit and contains inbuilt regulatory and legal protections as well as insurances. It seems there are three options these days when organising a legal document (eg a Will or LPA), 1) choose whether to have those protections built in to your service by using a regulated legal professional who takes the time to advise you properly 2) Choose an organisation simply selling documents with minimal limited advice that checks their boxes but not necessarily all of yours and 3) you prefer to become informed and do it yourself. The worst of all situations is to imagine all you need to do is buy the documents, but believe you don’t need to be well informed about how to ensure the documents protect you and loved ones AND 1) ensure it does not actually put you into a more vulnerable situation 2) leaves stressful situations for executors and beneficiaries where you had intended the opposite.

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A full consultation on your life circumstances is essential. All professionals would otherwise open themselves up to a breach of duty of care and they simply CANNOT minimise the risk to you or themselves that your documents are effective and suitable, eg your Will or LPA. My regulatory body is very strict about this. Your documents can fail in whole or in part, now or in the future! When it comes to estate planning documents, consultation is often not profitable enough for bigger practices and organisations and if you are charged correctly, it is often not understood by a client why there are these seemingly high costs. However, just like the plumber who tapped a pipe, made a diagnosis and charged a full fee because of years of costs, training and experience, no other profession or trade is any different.

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PLANNING FOR YOUR FUTURE IS LIFELONG AND MUST START AS YOUNG AS POSSIBLE whilst you are PHYSICALLY and MENTALLY able and have the MEANS to provide and protect you for your future. WOULDN’T IT BE PREFERABLE TO HAVE A GOOD RELATIONSHIP WITH A PLANNING PROVIDER DIRECTLY that you know and trust and who has kept all your documents and records on file so you don’t need to reinvent the wheel?

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Are you 18 or over and might inherit something at any time? Is it possible you could unexpectedly be hit by the proverbial life bus or do you imagine you might somehow be exempt from that? What is your plan to start investing for future care, accident or injury? We have solutions if you would like to talk to us about that. I believe a good relationship with your planning team provides lifelong support and solutions, with easy access to experts, documents, policies and information for whatever changes come your way.

The upside of all these varied offerings to do your Will etc, is the publicity increasing awareness that a Will or LPA or Care Planning is essential. The downside is that the courts are overflowing with the results of ill considered Wills that are sometimes not effective because they have failed in whole or in part so you end up with intestacy (as if you had made no Will for part or all of it). Executors and attorneys are being taken to court and beneficiaries lives have been made very unpleasant.

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When making an LPA legal professionals will be objectively considering their advice to you. For example, do you imagine that every attorney appointed does not succumb to making choices and decisions that favour them? Of course not! It is a condition of being an attorney that decisions are always made in the best interests of the person donating the powers. Do you imagine for one minute that is always the case? There are many court cases to illustrate.

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IF YOU DO NOT ENSURE THAT YOU PUT PROTECTIONS IN PLACE WITHIN YOUR LASTING POWER OF ATTORNEY, THEN IT FOLLOWS THAT YOU WILL NOT BE PROTECTED! 

See an illustration of Isobel’s Story. It encourages you to put protections in place beyond simply completing a form.

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Are you absolutely sure that there are no circumstances under which the attorney you appoint might decide it’s better to use your funds for their own purposes or decide to claim their inheritance now, sell up around you and pop you into a nursing/care home to enable that? Have you put a protection into your LPA to prevent that? For example, stipulate they must obtain written medical support and proof that you do not have capacity to make your own choices and to demonstrate that this is necessary and in your best interests before any such decisions are made, or simply, you restrict the right for any attorney to sell your home until after you have died. Did you know you can create a Finance Lasting Power of Attorney now, but stipulate that it can only come into effect upon certain conditions that you choose?

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You may choose to have more than one attorney and you can also choose to notify a certain group of people that an attorney has been appointed and you can choose who is notified once the LPA is registered. This gives you greater protection. Remember, if you have made a Lasting Power of Attorney YOU CAN REVOKE IT AT ANY TIME whilst you have capacity? You are not stuck with it if you change your mind. Please also be reassured that a Health & Welfare Power of Attorney can only come into effect once it is certified that the “donor” lacks the capacity to make decisions about their health and welfare. The bar for that is pretty high as there are significant protections by such things as the Mental Health Act.

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When creating your Financial & Property LPA, DO NOT JUST GIVE AWAY YOUR INDEPENDENCE AND RIGHT TO DECIDE FOR YOURSELF WITHOUT CONDITIONS AND PROTECTION as is so common! Was it your intention that your child or nephew can go through all your accounts now? If you want help keeping track and paying bills now or while you are in hospital, then stipulate that is all you actually want them to do with your funds. Do you want them to only give gifts to family of a certain amount on birthdays and pay the electric bill, then say so.

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Many providers of LPAs do not make a client aware of these options and so a “free for all” LPA is produced putting you in a vulnerable position. It is hard to demonstrate to people that what you are buying is not the piece of paper, but the expertise and experience that goes with it and so that piece of paper can look expensive when it comes from a properly regulated expert when compared to an organisation offering a piece of paper very cheaply and bending the rules saying they will get it “checked”. What exactly does that mean? Checked the form is filled in ok or checked that it is suitable and appropriate for you? Be aware that this lays a much greater responsibility upon you as an individual to be informed about your choices and removes your protections. The pressure for legal professionals to compete with (sometimes seemingly random organisations) offering cheap or free documents, that provide little or no consultation has become enormous because of this. Ill go with highly regulated protections to minimise risk to me and my beneficiaries any day.

 

Be aware too, that changes in the regulations that allow you to do your own wills and many other legal documents yourself, did not exempt you, or anyone else, from the responsibility you are choosing to undertake. You will need to understand what is required to produce the document and why. The point is though, that you are free to decide for yourself.

I can testify how it is little understood though, as often clients believe they “just need a simple Will” or straightforward LPA. Do you know a builder you could walk up to and say “I just need a simple house, can you pop one up for me for a few quid in the next few weeks? Don’t worry about the unlevel ground, or the tree stump in the middle, or the old drain hole or footpath, or all the fancy stuff like making sure the bricks and cement don’t fall down and the running water and electrics work, or getting it signed off, Ill manage.” The reality upon questioning, is that clients do want, and need, documents that suit their specific needs and wishes not to mention, most people’s lives are not really that simple.

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From experience, most of us want to know that we can trust the person we are relying upon to not sell you something you don’t need whether it’s a builder, car mechanic or legal professional.

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I cannot emphasise enough how risky it is to attempt to cut corners and avoid paying for proper consultation with regulated legal professionals whose MAIN FOCUS AND WORK is to work in your BEST INTERESTS.  No financial organisation, charity, or even legal professional, whose MAIN WORK is not considering your estate planning needs and consulting in FULL is ever going to be acting in your BEST INTERESTS.  Attempting to provide for and protect beneficiaries without using the knowledge & experience of  highly trained experts is fraught.    You will be removing legal protections, regulations and insurances and this can backfire badly leaving beneficiaries lives being made a misery with legal battles and great costs.  There are enormous numbers of situations and legal tangles to testify to this.

Do yourself and your lifelong hard work a favour and protect yourself and your beneficiaries by using experts in estate planning whose MAIN WORK is to protect you and put your BEST INTERESTS first before theirs.

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A GREAT WAY TO ADDRESS ALL OF THESE POINTS IS TO USE LOCAL, INDEPENDENT PROFESSIONALS WHO CARE ABOUT YOU AND YOUR COMMUNITY, WORK IN IT AND HIRE FROM IT. WE ARE PROFESSIONALS WHO LIVE AND WORK HERE AND ARE INVESTED IN OUR BUSINESS, YOU AND YOUR ENVIRONMENT. ANYONE TREATED POORLY WITH POOR RESULTS WILL SOON FIND IT DIFFICULT TO STAY IN BUSINESS IF THEIR REPUTATION IS TARNISHED.

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Article  Patricia Horwood  April 2025

If you are looking for excellent value and client care, then we have the local independent expert team for you. Either 100% online, or home visits that include nursing & care homes and hospitals

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Contact me at Tipi Wills & Planning for more information on implementing your LPAs and Will.

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Please email info@tipiwills.co.uk or Tel: 01727807169 (If you Messenger I may not see it)  Thank you Patricia