Incapacity Planning & Management

We can provide you with the best and most practical advice about how to guarantee the continuing smooth running of your affairs or a family member’s affairs if you or a family member become incapacitated in the future through illness, accident or simply old age.

 Safeguarding against future incapacity

We can help you to arrange who would manage your affairs through the creation of a Lasting Power of Attorney if you became incapacitated in the future.

There are two types of Lasting Power of Attorney :

• Property Lasting Power of Attorney :

Under a Property Lasting Power of Attorney, you would appoint someone with the authority to manage all of your property and financial affairs.  This authority would only become effective after your Property Lasting Power of Attorney is registered with the Office of the Public Guardian. 

• Welfare Lasting Power of Attorney :

Under a Welfare Lasting Power of Attorney, you would appoint someone with the authority to make your personal decisions to the extent that you were unable to do so in the future.  Your personal decisions would amongst other things include where you lived, your daily care regime and your medical treatment.  Again, this authority would only become effective after your Welfare Lasting Power of Attorney is registered with the Office of the Public Guardian.

We have extensive experience in dealing with Lasting Powers of Attorney (including their creation and registration) and in acting as the professional money manager under a Property Lasting Power of Attorney if you needed our help in this respect. 

Dealing with unexpected incapacity

Where a family member or close friend has lost the ability to manage their own financial affairs and they have not created a Property Lasting Power of Attorney, you would normally need to apply to the Court of Protection for a deputyship order to become empowered to deal with their financial affairs on their behalf.

We can advise you comprehensively about how the deputyship system works and a deputy’s ongoing responsibilities to the Court of Protection to enable you to assess whether you want to take on the responsibilities of a deputy.

If you are happy to become a deputy, we can then assist you in dealing with the complexities of the Court of Protection system to obtain your deputy appointment.  If you are not comfortable in acting as deputy, then we are able to become appointed as a professional deputy to lift that burden from you. 

Wills and inheritance planning for an incapacitated person

We can advise you about how to arrange an incapacitated family member’s Will and other necessary inheritance planning before it is too late if they failed to do so properly themselves.

As an incapacitated person will usually lack the capacity to make a Will, you would normally need to apply to the Court of Protection for a Statutory Will if the incapacitated person did not have an appropriate Will.

A Statutory Will is a legally valid Will made by the Court of Protection for an incapacitated person where the incapacitated person’s Will wishes are presumed from evidence about the full context of their life and family relations.

Likewise if an incapacitated person has not ordered their financial affairs in a tax efficient manner, you can apply to the Court of Protection for authority to take appropriate measures to mitigate the incapacitated person’s inheritance tax position.