Lasting powers of attorney (LPAs) in English law were created under the Mental Capacity Act 2005, and came into effect on 1 October 2007.
The LPA is created and registered with the Office of the Public Guardian (OPG), an executive agency of the Ministry of Justice of the United Kingdom.
While the LPA is primarily designed to deal with personal affairs and finances, business owners or directors are faced with more complex considerations.
[4][5] The LPA system is administered by the Office of the Public Guardian (OPG), an agency of the Ministry of Justice of the United Kingdom.
Its contact details are explained in section 2.2 below headed 'The role of the OPG in relation to Lasting Powers of Attorney'.
Detailed guidance is provided by a Code of Practice to the MCA 2005[6] to the Act, which people working as professionals in this field are required to 'have regard to': that is, to observe, unless (having decided in specific circumstances not to do so) they are prepared to explain afterwards – most probably in a post-incident inquiry – why not.
As stated in an official summary of the Act,[8] it is 'a single clear test for assessing whether a person lacks capacity to take a particular decision at a particular time'.
There is a Web site[9] which allows data to be filled in, and provides a filled-in form ready to be signed and witnessed in printable PDF format.
Detailed instructions are provided for both types of LPA, 'Property and Financial Affairs' and 'Health and Welfare', in document form (on request, or by download), or on the Web site.
This "Use a lasting power of attorney service" originally applied to LPAs registered from 17 July 2020, with plans to extend it to earlier ones.
The electronic procedure replaced the lengthy and often problematic process of requesting power of attorney documents by post for verification purposes.