How to Set Up Power of Attorney: Step-by-Step Guide

Setting up an LPA, from first decision to registered document

Making a Lasting Power of Attorney is a sequence of decisions followed by some strict paperwork. None of it is difficult once someone explains it. This is the whole process, in order.

Step 1: Decide which LPAs you need

There are two, and they are separate documents. Property and financial affairs covers money, bills, property and business interests. Health and welfare covers treatment, care and where you live. If you own anything or care who speaks for you medically, the practical answer is usually both. The differences in full.

Step 2: Choose your attorneys

The decision that matters most. An attorney must be 18 or over, have capacity, and (for the financial LPA) not be bankrupt. Beyond the legal minimum, ask harder questions. Do you trust them without hesitation? Will they be available, not just willing? Can they deal with a bank on a bad day?

If you appoint more than one, you choose how they act. Jointly means every decision needs every attorney, and the LPA can fail entirely if one dies or loses capacity. Jointly and severally means any attorney can act alone. Most families choose jointly and severally because it keeps working when life intervenes.

Name a replacement attorney too. It is one extra question on the form, and it is the difference between a hiccup and a dead LPA if an attorney can no longer act.

Step 3: Choose your certificate provider

An independent person who confirms you understand the LPA and are signing freely. Either someone who has known you personally for at least two years, or a professional such as a doctor or solicitor. Not a family member, not an attorney, not an attorney's relative or employee. Who qualifies and who is ruled out — and if you genuinely have no one, we can arrange it, explained on your check call.

Step 4: Preferences and instructions — usually leave them blank

The form has two optional boxes. Preferences are wishes your attorneys should consider ("I would prefer to stay in my own home"). Instructions are binding rules they must follow. A badly worded instruction can contradict the rest of the form and sink the application, and most LPAs work perfectly well with both boxes empty. If you feel strongly about something, say it simply, and let your estate planner read it on the check call before you sign.

Step 5: Fill in the forms

Three routes: GOV.UK's tool (free, nobody checks it), ours (free, with a qualified estate planner going through every answer with you before you sign), or a solicitor (typically £300 to £650 per LPA, worth it for genuinely complex situations).

Step 6: Sign in the correct order

This is where careful people come unstuck. The order is fixed:

You, the donor, sign first, with a witness

The certificate provider signs next

Your attorneys sign last, each with a witness

Witnesses must be 18 or over and present at the signing, and an attorney cannot witness a signature on their own LPA. The dates on the form prove the order, so an out-of-order signature is caught every time.

Step 7: People to notify — optional

You can name up to five people to be told when the LPA goes for registration, as a safeguard. They get a short window to raise concerns with the OPG. Useful if you want wider family kept in the loop; skip it if there is no one who needs telling.

Step 8: Register with the OPG

Post the signed forms with the fee of £92 per LPA, waived or halved for some people on low incomes or benefits. The OPG currently takes roughly eight to ten weeks. The LPA cannot be used until registration is complete, which is the strongest reason to register now rather than waiting for the day it is needed.

Step 9: After registration

Keep the original somewhere safe and tell your attorneys where. Give copies to the people who will need them — your bank, your GP. The OPG also runs an online service that lets attorneys share a registered LPA with organisations digitally, which most banks now accept.

Doing it with a person checking

Every step above is where a small mistake can quietly enter the process, and the OPG will not catch it until weeks later. Our service is free: plain-English questions, the official forms generated for you, and an estate planner on the phone going through every answer before you sign. How it works, in full.