Property vs Health LPA: Which Do You Need?

The two LPAs, side by side

They are separate documents with separate registrations. One does not include the other, and that gap is exactly where families get caught.

What one without the other looks like

Financial LPA only. Your attorney can pay the care home bill and sell the house to fund it. They cannot choose the care home, consent to treatment, or insist on care at home. The money moves; the decisions about your life are made by doctors and social services.

Health LPA only. Your attorney can choose the care home and agree the treatment plan. They cannot touch the money that pays for any of it. Every financial step needs someone else's authority, and if nobody has it, the plan stalls at the first invoice.

Real situations need both halves. A stroke that puts someone in a rehabilitation unit raises treatment questions and payment questions in the same week.

Is there ever a case for just one?

Occasionally. Someone with almost no assets and no property may reasonably prioritise the health and welfare LPA. Someone whose main concern is business continuity might start with the financial one. And any LPA is better than none: if the choice is one document or nothing, make the one that matters most to you and add the other later.

But the standard advice is the honest one: make both, at the same time, with the same fifteen minutes of effort. The forms overlap heavily, and with our service both are free to make; the only extra cost of the second document is its £92 registration fee.

Same attorneys for both?

You can appoint the same people to both LPAs or different people to each. Most people use the same attorneys for simplicity. The genuine reason to split: the best person for money decisions is not always the best person for care decisions. A financially careful child who lives abroad might hold the financial LPA while a nearby sibling holds health and welfare. If you split, tell both sides — the two attorneys will need to work together when the time comes.

Deciding

If you are still unsure, the question that usually settles it: *if you could not decide for yourself next month, is there anything (your money or your care) you would want left to strangers?* For almost everyone the answer is no, twice.

Both documents are free to make, an estate planner checks your answers before you sign, and each registers with the OPG for £92. What each type covers in more depth, and why most people get both.