The short answer
- There are two of them, and they are separate documentsOne covers money and property, the other covers health and care. Making one gives an attorney no authority at all over the other.
- It has to be made while your parent still understands itOnce they can no longer take in what the document does, an LPA cannot be made. The family is left applying to the Court of Protection instead.
- £92 to register each one, £184 for bothHalf that if your parent's income before tax is under £12,000 a year, and nothing at all if they are on certain means-tested benefits.
- Neither one can be used until the OPG has registered itRegistration takes 8 to 10 weeks when the form is right. The health and welfare one then waits longer still: until your parent can no longer decide.
This page covers England and Wales. Scotland and Northern Ireland have their own systems, described below. It is general information rather than legal advice, and a solicitor is worth paying where the estate is complicated or somebody in the family is likely to object.
Two forms, not one
The two lasting powers of attorney, and what each one allows
A lasting power of attorney lets your parent, who the forms call the donor, name people they trust to make decisions for them. There are two, they are separate documents with separate fees, and each one is silent on what the other covers.
Form LP1F
Property and financial affairs
Money, bills, property and anything to do with your parent’s finances.
What an attorney can do
- Run a bank or building society account
- Pay bills, including a carer’s invoices
- Collect a pension or benefits
- Deal with tax and investments
- Sell or let their home
When it can be used
As soon as it is registered, if your parent gives permission. Your parent chooses on the form whether it starts then or only once they can no longer decide.
Who can be an attorney
Nobody who is bankrupt or subject to a Debt Relief Order can be an attorney on this one.
The question only this form asks
When your attorneys can start: straight after registration, or only once capacity has gone.
Form LP1H
Health and welfare
Medical treatment, day-to-day care and where your parent lives.
What an attorney can do
- Agree or refuse medical treatment
- Decide the daily routine: washing, dressing, meals
- Agree a hospital discharge plan
- Decide about moving into a care home
- Choose who provides care at home
When it can be used
Only once your parent can no longer make that particular decision. Until then it sits registered and unused.
Who can be an attorney
Bankruptcy is no bar here. An attorney has to be 18 or over and able to make their own decisions.
The question only this form asks
Whether attorneys or doctors decide about treatment needed to keep your parent alive. Section 5, option A or option B.
Neither form does anything until the Office of the Public Guardian has registered it. Registering costs £92 for each, so £184 for both, and takes 8 to 10 weeks when there are no mistakes on the form.
The reason to look at both, rather than the one that feels urgent today, is that a single decision can have two halves. An attorney holding only the property and financial affairs LPA can pay a care home invoice but has no standing to agree to the move. An attorney holding only the health and welfare LPA can agree to the move but cannot release the money to pay for it. Your parent can make one and not the other, but it is worth deciding that on purpose rather than discovering the gap in a hospital corridor.
The legal side of caring for a parent covers the wider picture, including safeguarding, your rights at work and who decides about a care home, and am I legally responsible for my elderly parent? answers the question underneath most of it. If a dementia diagnosis is what has brought you here, lasting power of attorney and dementia deals with the timing problem that diagnosis creates.
Section 5 of the health and welfare form
The choice about treatment needed to keep your parent alive
The health and welfare form asks one question the money form does not, and your parent has to answer it. There are two options, they must sign one of them, and the answer decides who speaks if the situation ever arises.
| What your parent is signing | Who decides if it comes up | What else they can write | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Option A | Attorneys are given authority to give or refuse consent to life-sustaining treatment | The attorneys, speaking to doctors on your parent's behalf as if they were your parent | Preferences or instructions in section 7, so the attorneys know what your parent would have wanted |
| Option B | Attorneys are not given that authority | The doctors, who must assess your parent's best interests and take account of the attorneys' views and anything your parent has written | Anything written in the LPA still has to be taken into account by the doctors |
Option A
- What your parent is signing
- Attorneys are given authority to give or refuse consent to life-sustaining treatment
- Who decides if it comes up
- The attorneys, speaking to doctors on your parent's behalf as if they were your parent
- What else they can write
- Preferences or instructions in section 7, so the attorneys know what your parent would have wanted
Option B
- What your parent is signing
- Attorneys are not given that authority
- Who decides if it comes up
- The doctors, who must assess your parent's best interests and take account of the attorneys' views and anything your parent has written
- What else they can write
- Anything written in the LPA still has to be taken into account by the doctors
Only one option is signed. Government guidance defines life-sustaining treatment as care, surgery, medicine or other help from doctors needed to keep someone alive: a serious operation such as heart bypass surgery, chemotherapy or radiotherapy, an organ transplant, or food and water given other than by mouth. Whether a treatment counts depends on the situation, so a course of antibiotics for pneumonia can be life-sustaining.
Section 7 is where your parent can add detail, and the two things they can write there are not the same. A preference is something the attorneys should pay attention to but do not have to follow. An instruction is something they must follow. Instructions are worth thinking about slowly, because one that contradicts something else on the form, or that would require an attorney to break the law, can make the whole LPA unworkable, and government guidance suggests taking legal advice before writing one.
An LPA is not the only way for your parent to say what they want. Advance decisions and advance statements are the other route, they interact with a health and welfare LPA, and which of them takes precedence depends on which was made last, so it is worth reading that page before signing either.
Who acts, and how they decide together
Choosing attorneys, replacements, and how decisions get made
Your parent can name one attorney or several, and if they name several they have to say on the form how those people are to decide. That choice has consequences years later, and it is the one most worth slowing down over.
Who can be an attorney
18 or over, with capacity of their own
Jointly and severally
Any one of them can act alone
Jointly
All of them, on every decision
Replacement attorneys
Named by your parent, on the form
There is a trap in the way the law fills a gap. If the form does not say how the attorneys are to decide, the Mental Capacity Act treats them as appointed jointly, so every decision then needs all of them, which may not be what your parent meant. Your parent can also mix the two, keeping something like selling the house joint and leaving everyday banking to any one attorney.
Once an LPA is registered and in use, an attorney has duties, not just powers. They must act in your parent's best interests, help your parent make their own decisions wherever they still can, follow any instructions on the form, keep your parent's money separate from their own, keep records of what they have done, and not use the position to benefit themselves. Paying for care as an attorney goes through what that means when the money is going out every week.
The independent signature
The certificate provider, and who is not allowed to be one
Every LPA needs one person who gains nothing from it to confirm that your parent understands what the document does and that nobody has pushed them into signing. Choosing somebody who is not allowed to do it means the form comes back.
Who can be the certificate provider
- A friend, neighbour or colleague your parent has known well for at least two years, and who knows them well enough to have a frank conversation about it
- Their GP, or another registered healthcare professional
- A solicitor, barrister or advocate
- A registered social worker, or an independent mental capacity advocate
- Somebody named on the form as a person to notify
Who cannot
- Any attorney or replacement attorney on this LPA, or on another power of attorney your parent has already made
- A member of your parent's family, or of any attorney's family, including in-laws and step-relatives
- An unmarried partner of your parent or of any attorney, whether or not they live at the same address
- A business partner or an employee of your parent, or of any attorney
- Anyone who owns, manages, directs or works at a care home your parent lives in, or a member of their family
What they sign is a short set of confirmations: that your parent understands the significance of the LPA, that nobody has put them under pressure to make it, that there has been no fraud, and that there is no other reason for concern. Government guidance says they should discuss it with your parent in private where possible, without attorneys in the room. A certificate provider who asks for half an hour alone with your parent is doing the job properly.
A professional may charge for the work, so ask what it will cost before you settle on one. And once somebody has signed section 10 they cannot be swapped for anyone else, so if that page has to be redone, the same person has to redo it.
Signing and sending it
The order the form has to be signed in
The Office of the Public Guardian will not register an LPA that was signed in the wrong order, and there is no way to patch it afterwards. It means starting again with a fresh form, so this is the sequence to get right first time.
Your parent, the donor
Section 5 first if it is the health and welfare form, then any continuation sheets, then section 9. Everything they sign comes before anybody else signs anything.
Where it goes wrong: Signing section 9 before section 5 stops the whole application.
The witness
Somebody aged 18 or over watches your parent sign and signs straight afterwards, giving their full name and address.
Where it goes wrong: An attorney or a replacement attorney cannot witness your parent signing.
The certificate provider
They sign section 10, confirming your parent understands the document and nobody has pushed them into it.
Where it goes wrong: They must sign after your parent and before the attorneys, and they cannot be swapped for somebody else later.
Every attorney and replacement attorney
Each of them signs section 11, after the certificate provider has signed.
Where it goes wrong: An attorney who signs too early invalidates their own appointment.
Whoever applies to register
Your parent or an attorney signs section 15 and sends the original form and the fee to the Office of the Public Guardian.
Where it goes wrong: Photocopies and digital signatures are not accepted. Everyone signs the same paper document.
The forms can be filled in on the government's online service or downloaded as paper. The online service guides your parent through each section and fills in the notification forms, but either way the document has to be printed and signed by hand, and copies and digital signatures are not accepted. Section 6 is optional and names people to be told when the LPA is registered. Anyone named there is sent form LP3 before the application goes in, and has 3 weeks to raise a concern with the OPG.
The signed original, the fee and the application go to the Office of the Public Guardian in Birmingham, and the address is printed on the form. Make a certified copy before posting it, because the original is away for weeks and a bank will ask for something in the meantime. The full instructions, section by section, are in the government's own guide to making and registering an LPA.
The fee and the wait
What registration costs, who pays less, and how long it takes
Registration is the only unavoidable cost, and a solicitor is optional. The wait is easy to underestimate, because the clock does not start until a correctly signed form and the fee reach the Office of the Public Guardian.
- Day one
Your parent signs first
Section 5 if it is the health and welfare form, then any continuation sheets, then section 9, witnessed. Everything else follows.
- Same week
Certificate provider, then attorneys
The certificate provider signs section 10 after your parent, and every attorney and replacement attorney signs section 11 after that.
- Before applying
Anyone named as a person to notify is sent form LP3
They have 3 weeks to raise a concern with the OPG. The application can go in as soon as the LP3 forms are sent.
- 8 to 10 weeks
The OPG registers it
The Office of the Public Guardian's own published processing time, updated in September 2026. Its guidance for attorneys allows up to 16 weeks, so plan for the longer figure.
- On registration
The property and financial affairs LPA can be used
It comes back stamped validated-OPG. If your parent ticked the option to delay it, it waits until they can no longer decide for themselves.
- If it is ever needed
The health and welfare LPA comes into use
Only once your parent can no longer make that particular decision. It may sit registered and unused for years, which is what it is for.
A solicitor is not required at any point. It is worth paying for advice where the estate is complicated, where a business or a trust is involved, where your parent wants to write instructions into section 7, or where somebody in the family is likely to object.
If care is starting before the paperwork is finished, the two do not have to wait for each other. You can search for carers near you and compare their rates while the LPA is with the OPG, and the person who books and pays does not have to be the person receiving the care. Carers on PrimeCarers charge £18 to £25 an hour with our fee included, against £28 to £35 for an agency visit.
What goes wrong, and how to undo it
Mistakes that hold an application up, and how to change or cancel an LPA
Most of what stops an LPA is small and mechanical. The rest is a choice made quickly on the form that turns out to be hard to live with. This is what to check before the envelope goes in the post.
Check these before you post it
0 of 9 ticked
On the page
In the choices
Afterwards
If the OPG spots a problem it may let you correct it and apply again within 3 months for £46 rather than the full fee, so open the letter the day it arrives. Your parent can also change their mind, as long as they still have the capacity to make that decision. Ending the LPA means sending the OPG the original and a signed, witnessed deed of revocation, using the wording published on gov.uk. Removing one attorney and keeping the rest uses a partial deed of revocation instead. Adding an attorney is the one change that cannot be made this way: it means ending the LPA and making a new one.
Some things end an LPA on their own. An attorney who becomes bankrupt stops being an attorney for property and financial affairs. A husband or wife who is an attorney stops being one on divorce or dissolution, unless the form says otherwise, and so does an attorney who loses capacity or gives up the role.
Questions
Questions families ask about lasting power of attorney
They are separate documents and your parent can make one without the other. The reason to consider both is that decisions usually have two halves: an attorney with only the property and financial affairs LPA can pay a care invoice but cannot agree to the care, and an attorney with only the health and welfare LPA can agree to it but cannot release the money. Registering both costs £184 rather than £92.
£92 for each type, so £184 for both. The fee rose from £82 to £92 in November 2025. If your parent's income before tax is under £12,000 a year it halves to £46, and if they receive certain means-tested benefits it is waived entirely. You have to claim that with the application, because fees are not refunded later. A solicitor to draft the forms is an extra cost and is not required.
The OPG's own service page, updated in September 2026, says 8 to 10 weeks to process and register an application. Its guidance for attorneys allows up to 16 weeks, so it is safer to plan for the longer figure. The clock only starts once a correctly signed form and the fee reach them, and a mistake sends you back to the beginning.
A diagnosis on its own does not stop her. What matters is whether she can understand what the document does, hold that in mind while she decides, weigh it up and say what she wants, at the time she signs. Many people can do that for a long while after a diagnosis, and it is a reason to start rather than wait. Lasting power of attorney and dementia covers the timing in full.
No. An attorney must not act under an LPA until it has been registered, and a registered one comes back stamped validated-OPG. There is no emergency route that lets an attorney start early. Until it arrives, a bank or a hospital deals with your parent directly while they still can.
Nobody can step in automatically, including a spouse or a next of kin. Somebody has to apply to the Court of Protection to be appointed his deputy, which costs £432 per application plus a capacity assessment and any solicitor's fees, and takes months. Solicitors' fees for a deputyship application explains what that involves and what to ask a firm before instructing one.
Yes, while they still have the capacity to make that decision. Ending it means sending the OPG the original LPA with a signed and witnessed deed of revocation, using the wording published on gov.uk. Taking one attorney off and keeping the others uses a partial deed of revocation. Adding an attorney is the one thing that cannot be done this way: that needs a new LPA, with a new fee.