The short answer
- The type of power decides what they can doA health and welfare power can only be used once your parent cannot make the decision. A finance power can be used earlier, with your parent’s permission.
- An attorney has duties as well as authorityThey must act in your parent’s best interests, keep your parent’s money separate from their own, and keep records.
- You have no automatic right to the accountsBut the attorney should take your views into account where it is practical, and the Office of the Public Guardian can ask them to explain.
- A parent who can decide chooses who they seeOnly a health and welfare attorney can make decisions about contact, only once your parent cannot, and only in their best interests.
This page covers the law in England and Wales. It is general information, not legal advice. Scotland and Northern Ireland have their own rules, linked in the first section.
Which power they hold
Which kind of power your brother or sister holds, and when they can use it
There are two kinds of lasting power of attorney, and they do different jobs. Before anything else, it helps to know which one your sibling has, because what they can decide and when they can decide it depends on it.
The two lasting powers of attorney
| What it covers | When it can be used | |
|---|---|---|
| Property and financial affairs | Money, bank and building society accounts, bills, tax, pensions, benefits, property and investments | Once it is registered. While your parent can still decide, only if the LPA allows it and your parent gives permission |
| Health and welfare | Daily routine and care, medical treatment, where your parent lives and who they have contact with | Only once it is registered, and only for a decision your parent cannot make themselves at that time |
Property and financial affairs
- What it covers
- Money, bank and building society accounts, bills, tax, pensions, benefits, property and investments
- When it can be used
- Once it is registered. While your parent can still decide, only if the LPA allows it and your parent gives permission
Health and welfare
- What it covers
- Daily routine and care, medical treatment, where your parent lives and who they have contact with
- When it can be used
- Only once it is registered, and only for a decision your parent cannot make themselves at that time
Sources: gov.uk guidance on lasting power of attorney and on acting as an attorney; Mental Capacity Act 2005, section 11(7).
Your parent chose to make one of these, or both, while they were able to. They may have chosen the same sibling for both, different people for each, or several of you together. Lasting power of attorney explains how they are made and registered; this page is about what happens once one of your brothers or sisters is using one, and the elderly care guide has the wider picture of arranging help for a parent.
The difference in timing matters. Under section 11 of the Mental Capacity Act 2005, a health and welfare attorney has authority only where your parent lacks capacity for that decision, or the attorney reasonably believes they do. A finance attorney can start helping earlier, but only if the LPA allows it and your parent agrees. A sibling can therefore be paying bills for a parent who is still well able to say what they want.
Capacity is judged one decision at a time and can change from week to week. A parent with dementia may be unable to manage their investments and still well able to decide who visits them on a Sunday. Mental capacity and how it is assessed explains the test, and lasting power of attorney and dementia covers how this works as a diagnosis changes. An attorney cannot start acting until the LPA is registered with the Office of the Public Guardian (the OPG), which can take up to 16 weeks.
If your parent made an enduring power of attorney before October 2007, it can still be valid. It covers money and property only, and the attorney's duties are the same as those described below.
If it turns out there is no LPA at all and your parent can no longer decide, nobody in the family has legal authority simply by being a son or daughter. Someone would need to apply to the Court of Protection to become a deputy, and solicitors' fees for a deputyship application sets out what that costs if you use a solicitor.
Can, must and cannot
What an attorney can do, what they must do, and what they cannot do
The law gives an attorney real authority, and it also sets out what they owe your parent in return. Here are both kinds of power side by side, so you can see which rules apply to your brother or sister.
Property and financial affairs
Health and welfare
What they can do
Property and financial affairs
- Pay bills, run bank accounts, and deal with tax, pensions and benefits
- Pay for your parent’s care and day-to-day needs out of your parent’s money
- Act while your parent can still decide, but only if the LPA allows it and your parent gives permission
- Give modest presents on birthdays and similar occasions, and to charities your parent supported, if your parent can afford them
Health and welfare
- Decide about daily care, such as washing, dressing and eating, and where your parent lives
- Consent to or refuse medical treatment, and life-sustaining treatment only if the LPA expressly allows it
- Decide who your parent has contact with, unless the LPA rules that out
- Ask the finance attorney for money for things that improve your parent’s life, such as trips out
What they must do
Property and financial affairs
- Keep your parent’s money separate from their own, unless the two of them already shared an account
- Keep accounts: a record of your parent’s income, spending and assets
- Give the Office of the Public Guardian information about how the LPA is being used, if it asks
- Discuss decisions that affect where your parent lives or their care with any health and welfare attorney
Health and welfare
- Check first that your parent cannot make the decision themselves
- Tell the people involved in your parent’s care, family and friends included, when they start making decisions
- Keep a record of important decisions, who they asked for advice and any disagreements
Both kinds of attorney must act in your parent’s best interests, weigh up your parent’s past and present wishes, and take into account the views of anyone caring for your parent or interested in their welfare, where it is practical to ask. They must follow any instructions your parent wrote into the LPA and keep your parent’s affairs confidential.
What they cannot do
Property and financial affairs
- Make bigger gifts, interest-free loans, or let someone live in the house below market rent, without the Court of Protection
- Change your parent’s will
- Make decisions about your parent’s care, where they live or who they see
Health and welfare
- Make any decision your parent is able to make for themselves
- Go against a valid advance decision to refuse a treatment, unless the LPA was made later and covers it
- Manage your parent’s money or property
Neither kind of attorney may use the role to benefit themselves, pass their decisions to somebody else, or act before the LPA is registered.
The duty that matters most to the rest of the family sits in the middle row. Section 4 of the Mental Capacity Act says anyone making a best interests decision must take into account, where it is practical and appropriate to consult them, the views of anyone caring for the person or interested in their welfare. The MCA Code of Practice repeats this for attorneys at paragraph 7.20, and names close relatives and other attorneys. A brother or sister with power of attorney is not required to do what you want, but they are expected to ask what you think and weigh it, along with what your parent has always wanted.
The rules on gifts come from section 12 of the Act. A finance attorney can give presents on customary occasions, such as birthdays, weddings and festivals, to people connected with your parent, including themselves, and to charities your parent supported, as long as each gift is reasonable given the size of your parent's estate. Anything beyond that, including paying a grandchild's school fees or letting a relative live in the house rent-free, needs the Court of Protection's approval first. If your sibling is paying for care out of your parent's money, paying for care as an attorney sets out what they can spend it on and the rules on paying a family member.
More than one attorney
When two or more of you are attorneys, and when only one is
A parent can appoint more than one of their children, and the LPA says how the attorneys have to work together. Read that part of the document before anyone assumes who can do what.
Jointly and severally
Any of you can act alone
Jointly
You must all agree
A mixture of the two
Read the wording closely
If you are not an attorney
Your views still count
gov.uk sets out these arrangements in its guidance for people choosing their attorneys and for attorneys acting together. Your parent may also have named replacement attorneys, who step in if an original attorney stops acting.
If two of you were appointed jointly and cannot agree, no decision can be made, and that can leave bills unpaid or care unarranged. Talk it through first, with a neutral person if it helps. If you still cannot agree, the Court of Protection can decide the question under section 23 of the Act, which lets it rule on the meaning of an LPA and give directions about decisions within it.
Where attorneys can act on their own, the risk is the opposite: two of you making decisions that pull against each other without meaning to. Agree between you who handles the care invoices, who talks to the GP, and how you will tell each other what you have done. Holding a family meeting about care has a way to run that conversation.
What you can see
What the rest of the family is entitled to see, and what you can ask for
In law, your sibling owes your parent confidentiality, not the rest of the family. That does not leave you with nothing: there is a register you can search, a duty to consult, and people who can ask the attorney for an account.
What you can find out, and how
| How to get it | Is it yours by right? | |
|---|---|---|
| Whether an LPA exists | Ask the OPG to search its registers using form OPG100. The search is free and the OPG replies within 5 working days | Yes. Anyone can ask |
| Who the attorneys are and how they must act | The same search tells you the type of LPA, the attorneys’ names, how they are appointed and whether there are restrictions | Yes, through the register search |
| A copy of the LPA itself | Ask the attorney. You can also ask the OPG for more information on the form, saying why you need it | No. The OPG considers extra requests case by case |
| Bank statements and accounts | Ask the attorney. If your parent named someone to check the accounts, the attorney should share them with that person | No. The OPG can ask the attorney for information, and the Court of Protection can order accounts |
| A say in big decisions | Tell the attorney your views, in writing if it helps, and ask to be told before a major decision | Your views must be taken into account where practical |
Whether an LPA exists
- How to get it
- Ask the OPG to search its registers using form OPG100. The search is free and the OPG replies within 5 working days
- Is it yours by right?
- Yes. Anyone can ask
Who the attorneys are and how they must act
- How to get it
- The same search tells you the type of LPA, the attorneys’ names, how they are appointed and whether there are restrictions
- Is it yours by right?
- Yes, through the register search
A copy of the LPA itself
- How to get it
- Ask the attorney. You can also ask the OPG for more information on the form, saying why you need it
- Is it yours by right?
- No. The OPG considers extra requests case by case
Bank statements and accounts
- How to get it
- Ask the attorney. If your parent named someone to check the accounts, the attorney should share them with that person
- Is it yours by right?
- No. The OPG can ask the attorney for information, and the Court of Protection can order accounts
A say in big decisions
- How to get it
- Tell the attorney your views, in writing if it helps, and ask to be told before a major decision
- Is it yours by right?
- Your views must be taken into account where practical
Sources: gov.uk, Find out if someone has an attorney, deputy or guardian; form OPG100; MCA Code of Practice paragraphs 7.20, 7.64 and 7.67; Mental Capacity Act 2005, sections 4(7) and 23(3).
The confidentiality point comes from paragraph 7.64 of the Code of Practice. An attorney must keep your parent's affairs confidential unless your parent agreed, before losing capacity, that information could be shared for a particular purpose, or there is another good reason, such as your parent's best interests or a risk of harm. The Code gives the example of a parent who named someone they wanted to check their financial accounts. If your parent wrote something like that into the preferences and instructions of their LPA, your sibling should follow it.
What your sibling must do is keep the records. A finance attorney has a duty to keep accounts of your parent's income and spending, and bank statements can be enough where your parent's affairs are simple. They must give the OPG information about how the LPA is being used if the OPG asks, and the Court of Protection can order them to produce accounts and records. So there are people who can look, even if you cannot insist on it yourself.
To search the register, download form OPG100 from gov.uk and email or post it to the OPG, as set out on the register search page. The search will not show an LPA that is still being registered.
Seeing your parent
Whether a sibling with power of attorney can stop you seeing your parent
This is the question that frightens families most, and the answer depends on your parent, not on the document. Find the row that describes your parent.
Who decides who your parent sees
| Who decides | What you can do | |
|---|---|---|
| Your parent can decide who they see | Your parent, whatever kind of LPA exists | Talk to your parent directly. If you think they are being pressured, raise it with the council’s safeguarding team |
| Your sibling holds only a finance LPA | Not your sibling. A finance attorney has no say over care or contact | If your parent cannot decide, the people caring for them make a best interests decision, and your views count |
| Your sibling holds a health and welfare LPA, and your parent cannot decide | Your sibling, in your parent’s best interests, unless the LPA excludes decisions about contact | Ask them to explain the decision. If it is not in your parent’s interests, report it to the OPG or apply to the Court of Protection |
Your parent can decide who they see
- Who decides
- Your parent, whatever kind of LPA exists
- What you can do
- Talk to your parent directly. If you think they are being pressured, raise it with the council’s safeguarding team
Your sibling holds only a finance LPA
- Who decides
- Not your sibling. A finance attorney has no say over care or contact
- What you can do
- If your parent cannot decide, the people caring for them make a best interests decision, and your views count
Your sibling holds a health and welfare LPA, and your parent cannot decide
- Who decides
- Your sibling, in your parent’s best interests, unless the LPA excludes decisions about contact
- What you can do
- Ask them to explain the decision. If it is not in your parent’s interests, report it to the OPG or apply to the Court of Protection
Sources: Mental Capacity Act 2005, sections 11(7), 4 and 17; MCA Code of Practice paragraphs 7.21, 7.23, 7.56 and 7.70.
A parent who is able to decide who they see makes that choice for themselves. No power of attorney changes it, because under section 11 a welfare attorney has no authority over any decision your parent can still make.
Once your parent cannot make that decision, the Code of Practice lists "who the donor may have contact with" among the things a health and welfare attorney can decide. The decision still has to be in your parent's best interests. That means weighing your parent's past and present wishes and feelings, their relationships, and the views of the people close to them. Keeping a parent from a son or daughter they have always been close to is hard to square with that. Your parent may also have written into the LPA that the attorney cannot make decisions about contact, and the Code gives this as an example; if so, the attorney would have to ask the Court of Protection.
The Code also lists stopping relatives or friends from contacting a parent as a sign that an attorney may be failing to act in their best interests (paragraph 7.70). If contact is being cut off, the OPG is the place to report it, and the Court of Protection can decide what contact your parent should have with a named person under section 17 of the Act. A solicitor who works in the Court of Protection can tell you whether your situation needs an application.
There may be reasons behind a restriction that you have not been told, such as advice from your parent's care team about what upsets them late in the day. Ask what the reason is before you assume the worst, and write down what you are told.
If you are worried
What to do if you are worried about how the power is being used
A worry can start with a question about a bill or a change nobody explained. These steps start with the lightest and go up only as far as you need. Each one is open to any member of the family.
- 1
Ask, and write down what you are told
FirstAsk your sibling a specific question, such as what the care costs each month or why a decision was made, and keep a note of the date and the answer. A clear explanation may be all that is needed. - 2
Check the register
Free, about 5 working daysA form OPG100 search confirms whether there is a registered LPA, which type, who the attorneys are and whether they must act together. - 3
Report a concern to the Office of the Public Guardian
Online or 0300 456 0300Anyone can report. The OPG will not tell the attorney who made the report. It can investigate when your parent cannot deal with the matter themselves, and it may contact the attorney, visit, or take the case to court. - 4
Tell the council, or the police if it is a crime
If your parent is at riskIf you think your parent is being harmed or neglected, raise a safeguarding concern with the council. Suspected theft, serious fraud or physical abuse goes to the police as well. - 5
Ask the Court of Protection to decide
Application fee £432The court can settle a dispute about your parent’s best interests, order an attorney to produce accounts, and in serious cases remove an attorney or cancel the LPA.
The online form and phone details are on gov.uk's page to report a concern about an attorney, deputy or guardian. The OPG line is open Monday to Friday, 9am to 5pm, and from 10am on Wednesdays. It will ask what has happened, with dates, amounts and examples if you have them, and you can report without having every detail.
The Code of Practice lists signs that an attorney may be exploiting a parent or failing to act in their best interests, at paragraph 7.70. They include unpaid bills such as care fees, spending that does not relate to your parent's needs, unusual or extravagant spending, a credit card opened in your parent's name, and sudden unexplained changes in who lives with them. None of these proves anything on its own, which is why the OPG's first step is usually to ask questions. Safeguarding adults and how to report explains what the council does with a concern and how to describe what you have seen.
Under section 22 of the Act, the Court of Protection can revoke an LPA, or remove one attorney from it, if an attorney has acted outside their authority or against your parent's best interests. The Court of Protection explains how the court works and what a deputy is, which is what the court may appoint instead.
Working together
How to ask a sibling for information without starting a fight
Being the attorney is a lot of responsibility for one person, and a sibling who feels watched can become more guarded. A few habits on both sides make it easier to stay on the same side.
Ask for what you need to know
If you are asking
Agree a routine update
If you are the attorney
Keep the records you would want to show
If you are the attorney
Use a neutral person when talks stall
Before anyone goes to court
If you are the sibling asking, try to separate the question from how you feel about the choice your parent made. Your parent chose who to trust while they could, and that choice deserves respect even if it hurts. You are still entitled to be consulted and to raise a concern, and you can do both calmly. When siblings disagree about a parent's care covers the wider arguments about what care your parent needs, and when siblings are not helping is written for the sibling carrying most of the work.
If you are the attorney, telling your family what you are doing is not required by law, but it is usually the easiest protection you have. It also meets the duty to consult them. Keeping the family informed has practical ways to do it, and organising care as a family brings together who does what, how you pay for it, and how you keep talking.
Questions
Questions families ask when a sibling has power of attorney
Yes. A parent can appoint more than one attorney, and the LPA says whether they must make decisions together (jointly), can each act alone (jointly and severally), or a mixture of the two. A parent can also appoint one child for money and another for health and welfare, using two separate LPAs.
Not automatically. An attorney owes your mother confidentiality, and the rest of the family has no general right to see the accounts. She must keep accounts, though, and must give the Office of the Public Guardian information if it asks, and the Court of Protection can order her to produce them. If your mother named someone in the LPA to check the accounts, your sister should share them with that person.
Not if your father can decide for himself who he sees, and never with a finance LPA alone. A health and welfare attorney can make decisions about contact once your father cannot make them, but only in his best interests, taking into account his wishes and the views of the family. Cutting off contact is listed in the Code of Practice as a sign that something may be wrong, and you can report it to the OPG or ask the Court of Protection to decide.
A health and welfare attorney cannot. A finance attorney can help with money while your mother still has capacity, but only if the LPA allows it and she gives permission, and she can still make her own decisions about her money.
Fill in form OPG100 and send it to the Office of the Public Guardian. The search is free, the OPG aims to reply within 5 working days, and it tells you whether there is a registered LPA, which type, who the attorneys are and how they must act. Search the register on gov.uk.
Only small gifts on customary occasions such as birthdays, to people connected with your parent, and only if each gift is reasonable given what your parent has. Bigger gifts, loans without interest, or letting someone live in the house without paying market rent need the Court of Protection first. An attorney can claim the expenses of the role, such as postage and travel, with receipts.
While your parent has capacity, only they can change or cancel their LPA. Once they cannot, the Court of Protection can revoke an LPA, or remove one attorney from it, if an attorney has acted outside their authority or not in your parent’s best interests. Report your concern to the OPG first, and take advice from a solicitor before you apply.