What to decide before you touch the forms
Most people open the LPA form, get four pages in, hit a question they have not thought about, and abandon it. The form is not hard - but it assumes you have already made five decisions. Make them first, ideally over a cup of tea with the people involved, and the paperwork takes an evening.
1. Which type of LPA - or both?
There are two, and they are entirely separate documents with separate fees and separate registrations.
- Property and financial affairs (form LP1F) covers bank and building society accounts, paying bills, collecting benefits and pensions, dealing with investments and selling or letting property. Crucially, once registered it can be used while the donor still has capacity, with the donor's permission - so it works for someone who is mentally sharp but housebound after a stroke, or who simply finds phone banking exhausting.
- Health and welfare (form LP1H) covers medical treatment, day-to-day care, diet and daily routine, and where the donor lives - including the decision to move into a care home. This one only ever comes into force once the donor has lost capacity. It cannot be used before that, however convenient it might be.
Make both if you can afford £184. The commonest regret we see is a family who made the financial LPA years ago, thought they were covered, and then found that nobody had legal authority to agree a care home placement. Our LPA costs guide covers fee remission if £184 is genuinely out of reach.
2. Who are your attorneys?
Attorneys must be 18 or over and have mental capacity themselves. For a property and financial affairs LPA they must also not be bankrupt or subject to a debt relief order. Beyond that the law lets you appoint almost anyone - which means the real test is judgement, not eligibility. The right attorney is someone who is honest, organised, contactable and likely to outlive you. Being the eldest child is not a qualification. Neither is living nearby, in an era when almost everything is done online.
Two attorneys is the sweet spot for most families: enough redundancy that the LPA does not collapse if one is unwell, few enough that decisions do not turn into committee meetings. More than three or four and you are building in friction. If you are considering attorneys who do not get on, read the joint appointment section below very carefully - the wrong choice there converts a family disagreement into a legal deadlock.
3. Replacement attorneys - do not skip this box
A replacement attorney sits on the bench and steps in only if an original attorney dies, loses capacity, becomes bankrupt (financial LPA), or divorces the donor where the donor's spouse was the attorney. They cost nothing extra and they are the single best piece of insurance on the whole form. Without one, a jointly appointed LPA can fail entirely the moment one attorney drops out, leaving the family applying to the Court of Protection for deputyship instead - a process that costs far more and takes far longer than the LPA it replaces.
One caveat worth understanding: replacements cannot fill in temporarily. They do not cover an attorney who is abroad for six months. They only take over permanently, when an original attorney's appointment ends for good.
4. Your certificate provider
This is the choice people get wrong most often, and it is covered in full further down this page. In short: an independent person who confirms you understand what you are signing and are not being pressured. Family members are barred. Line one of your planning should be identifying a real candidate, because discovering on signing day that your only available witness is your son-in-law is how applications get abandoned.
5. People to be notified
You can name up to five people to be told when registration is applied for. They then have three weeks to object if they believe there is fraud or pressure. This is optional, and many people leave it blank. It is worth using if there is any chance a relative will later claim they were kept in the dark - naming them now heads off a challenge later.
6. Life-sustaining treatment (health and welfare only)
Section 5 of the LP1H asks you to choose one of two options, and you must tick exactly one.
- Option A - your attorneys can give or refuse consent to life-sustaining treatment on your behalf. You are handing them that decision.
- Option B - your attorneys cannot. Doctors make that decision, taking your known wishes into account.
There is no right answer. Option A suits people who have discussed their views in depth with their attorneys and trust them to hold the line. Option B suits people who would rather not place that burden on a family member. What matters procedurally is that you make the choice clearly - a page with both boxes ticked, or neither, can mean making a whole new LPA and paying the fee again.
Jointly, or jointly and severally? The decision that matters most
If you appoint more than one attorney, the form makes you say how they must act together. This looks like a small tick-box and is in fact the most consequential choice on the whole document.
- 1 I want the LPA to work smoothly day to day, and to survive if one attorney drops out→ Choose jointly and severally. Any attorney can act alone, so a bank transfer does not wait for a signature from someone on holiday. Just as importantly, if one attorney dies or loses capacity the others carry on and the LPA remains valid. This is the usual choice and the right default for most families.
- 2 I am worried one attorney might act without consulting the others→ Jointly means every attorney must agree on everything, which prevents unilateral action. But be clear about the price: two attorneys who fall out can deadlock over a routine decision, every single transaction needs both signatures, and if one attorney dies, loses capacity or is removed, the entire LPA fails unless you named replacement attorneys. Name replacements if you choose this.
- 3 I want freedom for everyday matters but agreement on the big ones→ Choose the mixed option - jointly for some decisions, jointly and severally for others - and specify which decisions need unanimity. Selling the donor's home is the classic example. Keep the list short and precisely worded; a vague mixed instruction is harder to apply than either pure option.
- 4 I only want one attorney→ Then this question does not arise - but name at least one replacement attorney. A single attorney with no replacement is the most fragile structure possible, and if that attorney dies before you or alongside you, your family is left applying for deputyship.
A jointly appointed LPA with no replacement attorneys fails completely if one of the attorneys dies, loses mental capacity, becomes bankrupt or is removed - even if the other attorneys are perfectly able and willing to carry on. The donor is then left with no valid LPA and, if they have already lost capacity, no ability to make a new one. The only route left is a Court of Protection deputyship application.
The step-by-step process
From a standing start to a registered LPA in your hands. Steps 1 to 3 are the thinking; steps 4 to 9 are the doing.
Talk to the people you want as attorneys before you name them. Being an attorney is a real, long-term responsibility with legal duties attached, and nobody should find out they hold it by opening a letter from OPG. Ask them directly whether they are willing.
Check them against the exclusion list below, then ask. Allow for the fact that a GP or solicitor will charge for this. Getting a yes here before you start filling forms saves the most common abandoned-application scenario.
Which LPA types, which attorneys, jointly or jointly and severally, replacement attorneys, people to notify, and - on the LP1H - your life-sustaining treatment option. Write it all down before you open the form.
Use the GOV.UK online service at lastingpowerofattorney.service.gov.uk. It asks plain-English questions, saves as you go so you can stop and return, generates a correctly formatted LPA and gives you an account to track the application. If you prefer paper, download LP1F and LP1H and complete them in black or blue pen - never pencil.
Print single-sided at 100% scale. Check the page numbering runs clean from 1 to 20, that no text has reflowed onto an extra page, and that LP1F and LP1H pages have not been mixed up. Fill every box - no blanks.
The donor signs first with a witness, then the certificate provider, then each attorney with their own witness, then the applicant signs section 15 last. Dates must run forwards. This is where applications die - see the section below.
Send the completed LPA to the Office of the Public Guardian with the £92 fee per LPA, or form LPA120 if you are claiming a fee reduction or exemption. Cheques are made payable to "Office of the Public Guardian". Anyone you named to be notified must be sent notice at this point.
GOV.UK states 8 to 10 weeks with no mistakes. Build in a buffer - allow 8 to 20 weeks. Anyone notified has 3 weeks to object. The LPA is unusable until the stamped original comes back to you.
Once registered, notify each bank, pension provider, insurer and the GP surgery. Each has its own attorney registration process; most now have a dedicated team. Do this while it is fresh, not at the moment of crisis.
Write your will or set up Power of Attorney
Without an LPA in place, your family cannot legally manage your money if you lose capacity — only the Court of Protection can.
The signing order - read this twice
This is the most common cause of rejected LPAs, and it is the one mistake that cannot be patched up afterwards. The logic is simple once you see it: the certificate provider is certifying that the donor understood what they signed, so the donor must have signed already. The attorneys are agreeing to act under a document that has been properly certified, so the certificate must exist first. Sign out of order and the LPA was never validly made - you start again with new forms and a new signing session.
Every date must be the actual day of signing. Do not backdate to tidy up a sequence, and do not leave a date blank intending to fill it in later.
| Order | Who signs | What they sign | Watch out for |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | The donor | Signs and dates section 5 - the life-sustaining treatment choice | Health and welfare LPA (LP1H) only. Skip this on the LP1F. |
| 2 | The donor's witness | Signs section 5 immediately afterwards | Cannot be an attorney or replacement attorney. Must give full name and address. |
| 3 | The donor | Signs and dates any continuation sheets, then signs and dates section 9 | Section 9 is the donor's main signature - the moment the LPA is "made". |
| 4 | The donor's witness | Signs section 9 on the same day, having watched the donor sign | Same rules as above. One witness can do both sections. |
| 5 | The certificate provider | Signs and dates section 10 | Must be dated on or after the donor's section 9 date. Never before. |
| 6 | Each attorney and replacement attorney | Signs and dates section 11 - one page each | Must be dated on or after the certificate provider's date. |
| 7 | Each attorney's witness | Signs section 11 alongside them | Attorneys may witness each other here - but never the donor in section 5 or 9. |
| 8 | The applicant (donor or attorneys) | Signs and dates section 15 last of all | Only after every attorney has completed section 11. |
Section numbers refer to the paper LP1F and LP1H forms. Source: Office of the Public Guardian, Avoiding errors when completing a lasting power of attorney form.
The witness rules, which are not the same thing
Witnessing and certifying are different jobs and people muddle them constantly. A witness simply watches the signature happen and confirms it. The rules are short:
- Every witness must be aged 18 or over and must print their full name and address, not just a squiggle.
- The donor's signature (sections 5 and 9) must be witnessed by someone who is not an attorney or replacement attorney.
- Each attorney's signature (section 11) must be witnessed by someone who is not the donor. Attorneys are allowed to witness each other here.
- The certificate provider may witness the donor's signature, but does not have to - and the donor's witness does not have to be the certificate provider.
In practice the cleanest arrangement is one neutral friend or neighbour witnessing the donor, and the attorneys witnessing each other.
Who can - and cannot - be your certificate provider
The certificate provider signs section 10 to confirm three things: that you understand what the LPA is and what powers it gives, that nobody has pressured or tricked you into making it, and that there is nothing else that would stop the LPA being valid. It is a genuine safeguarding role. A good certificate provider will ask to speak to you privately, without the attorneys in the room, before signing anything.
- Someone who has known the donor personally for at least 2 years - a friend, neighbour, former colleague or someone from a club, church or community group
- A professional with the relevant skills to judge the donor's understanding - a GP, a solicitor, a social worker, an independent mental capacity advocate
- Anyone aged 18 or over who is genuinely impartial and willing to speak to the donor privately before signing
- A family member of the donor - including a spouse, civil partner, child, parent, sibling, step-relative or in-law
- A family member of any attorney or replacement attorney named in the LPA
- An attorney or replacement attorney on this LPA, or on any other LPA or EPA the donor has made
- An unmarried partner, boyfriend or girlfriend of the donor or of an attorney
- A business partner of the donor or of an attorney
- An employee of the donor or of an attorney
- An owner, director, manager or employee of a care home where the donor lives - or a family member of one
- Anyone running or working for a trust corporation appointed as an attorney
The two-year rule is more generous than people assume. It does not require a close friend - a neighbour you have chatted to over the fence since 2023, a former colleague, someone from your golf club, choir or congregation all qualify, provided they know you personally rather than just by sight. They need to be able to say honestly that they know you well enough to judge whether you understand what you are signing.
If nobody fits, use a professional. A GP will often do it for a modest fee, and a solicitor will charge more but cannot be challenged on eligibility. Paying £50-£150 for a certificate is far cheaper than a rejected application and a second signing session.
Instructions versus preferences - and why less is more
The form gives you two boxes, and the difference between them is the difference between a rule and a wish.
| Instructions | Preferences | |
|---|---|---|
| Binding? | Yes - attorneys must follow them, with no discretion | No - attorneys should consider them but can depart from them |
| Language to use | "My attorneys must…", "My attorneys have to…" | "I would like…", "I wish my attorneys to…" |
| Rejection risk | High - unlawful or impossible instructions must be removed by the Court of Protection first | Low - preferences rarely cause problems |
| Our advice | Leave blank unless you have a specific, lawful, necessary restriction | Use this box for almost everything you want to say |
Instructions that cause trouble
- "My attorneys must consult my daughter Rachel before every decision." Rachel may move abroad, fall out with the family or die. A binding requirement to consult a named third party can paralyse the LPA.
- "My attorneys must never sell my house." Well-meant, and a common way to end up unable to fund care. Put it in preferences: "I would like my home to be kept for as long as it is practical to do so."
- "My attorneys must invest only in ethical funds." An absolute investment restriction can conflict with an attorney's legal duty to act in your best interests. Preferences again.
- "My attorneys must be paid £5,000 a year." Payment terms in the instructions box are a frequent query and often drafted badly. Attorneys can already claim reasonable out-of-pocket expenses without any instruction.
- Anything that asks an attorney to break the law, or to make a decision the law reserves for someone else. These have to be removed by the Court of Protection before registration can proceed, which is expensive and adds months.
The underlying point: an instruction written today has to still make sense in fifteen years, under circumstances nobody can predict. Preferences flex. Instructions do not.
Registration, fees and how long it really takes
Registration is not a formality - it is the step that turns a signed piece of paper into a usable legal document. Until the Office of the Public Guardian returns your LPA with its stamp on every page, nobody can use it for anything. No bank will act on it. No hospital will accept it.
| What you are paying for | Fee | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| Registering one LPA | £92 | Either type, per document |
| Registering both types | £184 | Property and financial affairs plus health and welfare |
| Repeat application within 3 months | £46 | Half price if you reapply promptly after a rejection |
| 50% remission - low income | £46 | Gross annual income under £12,000; claim on form LPA120 |
| Full exemption - certain benefits | £0 | Donor on qualifying means-tested benefits; also claimed on form LPA120 |
Fees verified against GOV.UK: Register a lasting power of attorney, July 2026. The remission and exemption tests apply to the donor's circumstances, not the attorneys'.
Timescales
GOV.UK states that it takes 8 to 10 weeks to register an LPA if there are no mistakes in the application. Treat that as the best case and plan for 8 to 20 weeks. Two things stretch it. First, the statutory notice period: anyone you named to be notified has three weeks from receiving notice to raise an objection, and registration cannot complete before that window closes. Second, OPG processing volumes, which fluctuate - and any form that has to go back for correction restarts the clock.
An LPA is worthless in an emergency, because you cannot make one after capacity is lost and you cannot use one before it is registered. A stroke on Monday does not give you a working LPA by Friday. The people who need an LPA most urgently are precisely the people who can no longer make one - at which point the only route is a Court of Protection deputyship application, which costs several times as much, takes many months and puts a judge rather than the donor in charge of who is appointed. See our LPA costs guide for how the two compare on price.
The mistakes that get LPAs rejected
The Office of the Public Guardian has said that around 15% of applications it receives contain a mistake. Almost all of them fall into the eight categories below, and almost all are avoidable in the ten minutes it takes to check the form before posting it. Some are correctable on the return; the ones marked as fatal mean starting again with fresh forms, a new signing session, and the £46 repeat fee if you reapply within three months.
The single most common reason LPAs come back. If the certificate provider signs before the donor, or an attorney signs before the certificate provider, the LPA was never validly made - the certificate is certifying something that had not yet happened.
How to avoid it: Do the whole signing session in one sitting, in the order set out above, with everyone in the room or on separate dated days that run forwards. Write dates as the actual day of signing, never backdated.
Choosing a daughter, a son-in-law, an attorney's husband or the manager of the donor's care home. It happens constantly because the obvious "trusted person" is usually family - and family is exactly who is barred.
How to avoid it: Work down the exclusion list before you ask anyone. If in doubt, use a GP or solicitor, who will charge for the certificate but cannot be challenged.
OPG treats a covered-over entry as a document that cannot be trusted. There is no appeal and no partial fix.
How to avoid it: If you make a mistake, cross it out neatly with a single line, write the correction beside it, and have the donor initial the change. If the error is in section 5, reprint the page and start that section again.
Unfinished address boxes, a missing date of birth, a witness who signed but never printed their full name and address. An empty box is treated as an incomplete form.
How to avoid it: Go through every page twice before posting. Every named person needs a full first name, last name and address. "Mrs Smith, Leeds" is not enough.
The donor is "Margaret Anne Doyle" on page 1 and "Maggie Doyle" in the signature box, or an attorney uses a married name in one place and a maiden name in another. OPG cannot confirm they are the same person.
How to avoid it: Pick one legal name per person and use it identically everywhere, exactly as it appears on their passport or driving licence.
Instructions that break the law, contradict the Mental Capacity Act, or ask attorneys to do something they have no power to do. These have to be removed by the Court of Protection before registration - which is expensive and adds months.
How to avoid it: Leave the instructions box empty unless you have a specific, lawful, necessary restriction. Put wishes in the preferences box instead.
Printing the LP1F and LP1H and mixing pages between them, dropping a continuation sheet, or printing on a setting that reflows text onto an extra page.
How to avoid it: Print single-sided at 100% scale, keep all 20 pages of each form together, and check the page numbers run cleanly from 1 to 20.
On the health and welfare form, ticking neither Option A nor Option B - or ticking both - invalidates the page. OPG warns that errors here can mean making a whole new LPA and paying again.
How to avoid it: Read both options aloud, decide, tick one box only, then sign and date it before anything else on the form.
- Every date runs forwards: donor, then certificate provider, then attorneys, then section 15.
- No box anywhere on the form is blank.
- Every witness has printed a full name and a full address.
- No correction fluid, stickers or pencil anywhere. Corrections crossed out once and initialled.
- Every person's name is written identically in every section it appears.
- The certificate provider passes every test on the exclusion list.
- On the LP1H, exactly one of Option A or Option B is ticked in section 5.
- All 20 pages present, in order, single-sided, LP1F and LP1H kept separate.
- Fee enclosed, or form LPA120 if claiming remission or exemption.
- Photocopy or scan the whole signed LPA before you post it.
What to do once your LPA comes back registered
The registered LPA arrives stamped on every page. That stamp is what institutions look for - an unstamped copy means nothing. Then there is one more round of admin, and it is worth doing straight away rather than in a crisis.
- Store the original safely and tell the attorneys where it is. A home safe or a solicitor's strongroom. Do not staple, unstaple or write on it.
- Get certified copies made. The donor (while they have capacity) or a solicitor can certify copies by signing each page. Most institutions accept a certified copy, so you rarely need to post the original anywhere.
- Register it with every bank and building society. Each has its own process and most now run a dedicated power of attorney team. Expect to visit a branch or post documents once per institution, after which the attorney is recorded on the account. Do them one at a time - if you post the original to five places at once, you will lose track of it.
- Notify pension providers, insurers, the local authority and utilities. Anywhere the donor has a contract or an account.
- Register it with the GP surgery, and with any hospital consultant the donor sees regularly, if it is a health and welfare LPA.
- Use the "Use a lasting power of attorney" service. OPG provides an online service that gives you an access code to share with organisations so they can view the LPA's details digitally, which saves posting paperwork around.
Acting as an attorney is a legal duty, not just an administrative convenience. Attorneys must follow the five principles of the Mental Capacity Act 2005: assume the donor has capacity unless proved otherwise, support them to make their own decisions wherever possible, accept that an unwise decision is not the same as an incapable one, act in the donor's best interests, and choose the least restrictive option available.
Practically, that means keeping the donor's money entirely separate from your own - separate accounts, no borrowing, no mixing - keeping records and receipts of what you spend on the donor's behalf, and involving the donor in decisions as far as they are able. Gifts from the donor's money are tightly restricted and generally limited to customary occasions at a reasonable level. Our power of attorney guide and helping elderly parents page go further into the day-to-day duties.
Three scenarios - how this plays out in practice
Situation: Recently diagnosed with early-stage Parkinson's. Two sons, one in Norwich and one in Aberdeen. Wants to sort things out while he is entirely capable of doing so.
Bernard makes both LPAs using the GOV.UK online service over three evenings, at a total cost of £184. He appoints both sons jointly and severally, reasoning that with one of them 500 miles away, a requirement for both signatures on every bank transaction would be unworkable.
He names his sister-in-law's husband as a replacement attorney - not because he expects to need him, but because he has read what happens when an attorney dies first. For the certificate provider he asks Derek, a neighbour he has played bowls with since 2019. Derek qualifies on the two-year rule, is no relation to anyone involved, and takes the job seriously enough to sit down with Bernard alone for twenty minutes first.
On the health and welfare LPA he chooses Option B on life-sustaining treatment - he does not want his sons carrying that decision - and writes in preferences, not instructions: "I would like to remain in my own home for as long as it is safe and practical." Both applications go in on the same day, come back registered nine weeks later, and Bernard spends the following month registering them with his bank, his pension provider and his GP.
Situation: Grace, 81, made a property and financial affairs LPA appointing her two daughters. The family completed the form carefully over a weekend and posted it with the £92 fee. Eleven weeks later it came back unregistered.
Two problems, and only one of them was fixable.
The certificate provider. Grace asked her son-in-law Michael - her daughter's husband - because he is a chartered accountant and the family assumed his professional standing was what mattered. It is not. Michael is a family member of an attorney, which disqualifies him outright regardless of his profession. There is no discretion here and no way to fix it after the fact.
The signing order. The family signed everything at one Sunday lunch, but in the order that suited the seating plan: the daughters signed section 11 first because their pages were on top of the pile, then Michael signed section 10, then Grace signed section 9 last. All three dates were identical, so nothing looked wrong on the page - but the sequence was inverted, and the attorneys had agreed to act under a document their mother had not yet signed.
The outcome. A fresh LP1F, a new certificate provider - Grace's former colleague Sandra, who has known her since 2015 - and a second signing session run strictly in order. Because they reapplied within three months, the fee was £46 rather than £92. The real cost was the five months between the first application and the registered LPA finally arriving, during which Grace had a fall and her daughters could do nothing about her mounting utility bills.
Situation: Married 41 years, no children. They made mirror LPAs in 2019 appointing each other plus Peter's brother Ian, acting jointly. No replacement attorneys were named.
They chose jointly deliberately - the idea of any one person acting alone on their finances made them uneasy, and requiring unanimity felt like the safer option. On paper it was. In practice it created a single point of failure they had not considered.
In 2025 Ian had a serious stroke and lost capacity. Because the attorneys were appointed jointly with no replacements, the loss of one attorney ended both LPAs entirely - Ruth could no longer act for Peter, nor Peter for Ruth, even though both were willing and able.
They were fortunate in one crucial respect: both still had full mental capacity, so they could simply make new LPAs. They did - this time jointly and severally, with a named replacement attorney each, paying £184 apiece to register both types. Had either of them lost capacity before Ian's stroke, there would have been no way to repair it, and the only route left would have been a Court of Protection deputyship.
The lesson is not that jointly is wrong. It is that jointly without replacement attorneys is fragile, and the fragility only shows up at the worst possible moment.
When doing it yourself is not the right call
This page argues that most people can and should make their own LPA. That is not the same as saying everybody should. Pay for a solicitor if any of the following apply:
- The donor's capacity is borderline or contested. If there is any doubt about whether the donor understands the document, you want a professional certificate provider and a documented capacity assessment. A DIY LPA made by someone whose capacity is later questioned can be challenged and set aside.
- The family is in dispute, or you expect someone to object. A professionally drafted and certified LPA is far harder to attack.
- There is a business to run, or complex assets - a partnership, a portfolio of let property, assets abroad, or a trust. These often need a separate business LPA and careful drafting of powers.
- You want a genuine restriction written into the instructions box. This is the one part of the form where wording really is a legal skill, and where getting it wrong means the Court of Protection.
- The donor lives in Scotland or Northern Ireland. Both run separate systems with different documents, different terminology and different registration bodies. Everything on this page applies to England and Wales only.
For everything else - two children, one house, straightforward savings, no family disagreement - the £92 DIY route is exactly what the forms were designed for. Read more in our overview of lasting powers of attorney and the full probate, wills and power of attorney pillar.
Frequently asked questions
- Can I set up a lasting power of attorney myself without a solicitor?
- Yes. The LP1F and LP1H forms and the GOV.UK online service at lastingpowerofattorney.service.gov.uk are designed for people to complete without legal help, and the great majority of LPAs are made this way. You pay only the £92 registration fee per LPA, or £184 for both types. A solicitor typically charges £400-£1,000 per LPA on top of that fee. Doing it yourself is genuinely realistic for a straightforward appointment - one or two attorneys, no unusual instructions, a donor with clear capacity. It is worth paying for advice if the donor's capacity is borderline, if there is a business to run, if the family is in dispute, or if you want a restriction written into the instructions box.
- How much does it cost to register a lasting power of attorney in 2026?
- The Office of the Public Guardian charges £92 to register each LPA, so £184 if you make both a property and financial affairs LPA and a health and welfare LPA. If your application is rejected for a correctable error and you reapply within 3 months, the repeat fee is £46 rather than the full £92. If the donor's gross annual income is under £12,000 you can claim a 50% remission, and if the donor receives certain means-tested benefits you may get a full exemption - both are claimed on form LPA120, sent with the application. See our LPA costs guide for the full breakdown.
- What is a certificate provider and who can be one?
- The certificate provider is an independent person who confirms in section 10 that the donor understands what the LPA does, understands the powers they are handing over, and is not being pressured or defrauded into signing. They must be 18 or over and either have known the donor personally for at least 2 years, or be a professional with the relevant skills to make that judgement - a GP, solicitor, social worker or advocate. They cannot be a family member of the donor or of any attorney, an attorney or replacement attorney themselves, an unmarried partner or business partner of the donor or an attorney, an employee of either, or anyone who owns, manages or works at a care home the donor lives in. The role is real, not a formality: a good certificate provider speaks to the donor privately, without the attorneys present, before signing.
- What is the correct signing order for an LPA?
- The donor signs first, then the certificate provider, then the attorneys - each dated on the day they actually signed. In detail on the paper form: the donor signs and dates section 5 (health and welfare LPA only) and their witness signs it; the donor signs and dates any continuation sheets and then section 9, witnessed; the certificate provider signs and dates section 10; each attorney and replacement attorney signs and dates section 11 with their own witness; and finally the applicant signs and dates section 15 once every attorney has finished. Signing out of this order is the most common reason LPAs are rejected, because the certificate provider would be certifying a document the donor had not yet signed.
- How long does it take to register an LPA?
- GOV.UK states it takes 8 to 10 weeks to register an LPA if there are no mistakes in the application. In practice, allow 8 to 20 weeks from posting to holding a registered LPA - part of that is a statutory waiting period after anyone you have named to be notified receives their notice, during which they have 3 weeks to raise an objection, and part is OPG processing time, which stretches when volumes are high or when the form has to go back for correction. The LPA cannot be used at all until it is registered and returned to you with the OPG stamp on every page. This is the single strongest argument for making an LPA long before you think you need one.
- What is the difference between instructions and preferences on an LPA?
- Instructions are binding - your attorneys must follow them, and they have no discretion to depart from them even if circumstances change. Preferences are guidance - your attorneys should take them into account but can act differently if that is genuinely in your best interests. Use "my attorneys must" language for instructions and "I would like" for preferences. The practical advice is to keep the instructions box empty or nearly empty. Overly restrictive or legally impossible instructions are a well-known rejection cause, and an instruction that made sense when you wrote it can trap your attorneys years later. Almost everything you want to say belongs in preferences.
- Should I appoint attorneys jointly or jointly and severally?
- Jointly and severally is the usual and generally more practical choice: any attorney can act alone, so day-to-day banking does not stall when one is on holiday, and crucially the LPA survives if one attorney dies or loses capacity. Jointly means all attorneys must agree on every single decision, which is a safeguard against one attorney acting unilaterally but can deadlock over routine matters - and if a jointly appointed attorney dies, loses capacity or is removed, the whole LPA fails unless you appointed replacement attorneys. You can also mix the two: jointly and severally for everyday matters, jointly for specified big decisions such as selling the donor's home.
- Do I need both types of LPA?
- Most people benefit from both, and it costs £184 to register the pair. The property and financial affairs LPA (form LP1F) covers bank accounts, bills, pensions, investments and selling property - and once registered it can be used with the donor's permission while they still have capacity, which is useful if mobility rather than memory is the problem. The health and welfare LPA (form LP1H) covers medical treatment, care arrangements and where the donor lives, and can only ever be used once the donor has lost capacity. Families who make only the financial one often discover too late that no-one can lawfully make care decisions.
- Can I make an LPA online?
- Yes. The GOV.UK "Make a lasting power of attorney" service at lastingpowerofattorney.service.gov.uk walks you through the questions, saves your progress so you do not have to finish in one sitting, and generates a correctly formatted LPA. It also gives you an account you can use to track the application. It is not fully paperless: the service produces the LPA for you to print, and everyone still has to sign it by hand in the prescribed order before you post it to OPG for registration. The online route substantially reduces formatting and completeness errors, so it is the better starting point for most people.
- What happens if my LPA application is rejected?
- OPG will write to you explaining what is wrong. Some faults are correctable - a missing witness address, an unsigned box - and can be fixed and returned. Others, particularly a wrong signing order, correction fluid, or an ineligible certificate provider, mean the LPA was never validly made and you have to start again with fresh forms and a new signing session. If you reapply within 3 months of the original application, the fee is £46 instead of the full £92. The bigger cost is time: you go back to the start of an 8 to 20 week queue, which matters enormously if the donor's capacity is declining.
- What do I do once my LPA is registered?
- Keep the stamped original somewhere safe and give certified copies to the attorneys. Then notify each bank, building society, pension provider, insurer and utility one at a time - almost all now have a dedicated attorney or power of attorney team, and each has its own process for recording the LPA against the account, usually needing to see the original or a certified copy once. Register the LPA with the donor's GP surgery too. Attorneys should then set up separate record-keeping: the donor's money must never be mixed with the attorney's own, and attorneys must follow the Mental Capacity Act 2005 principles and act in the donor's best interests at all times.
Everything on this page relates to England and Wales and reflects GOV.UK and Office of the Public Guardian guidance as at July 2026. Scotland and Northern Ireland operate separate systems with different forms, terminology and registration bodies. Fees and processing times change - check gov.uk/power-of-attorney before you apply.
We are not a law firm and this guide is not a substitute for advice on your own circumstances. If the donor's capacity is in any doubt, if the family is in dispute, or if you want restrictions written into the LPA, take advice from a solicitor who specialises in this area before signing anything. See our disclaimer.
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