The short answer
- Care fees are the straightforward partPaying a carer, an agency or a care home out of your parent’s money sits squarely inside the LPA. You do not have to ask anyone first.
- It stays their moneyThe LPA lets you spend it on them. It does not make it yours. Keep it in their account, spend it in their name, and keep the invoices.
- The gift rule is narrowThe law allows gifts on customary occasions, to people connected to your parent, of reasonable value for their estate. Beyond that, the court decides.
- Paying yourself needs the court firstWhere you are both the attorney and the person giving the care, the Public Guardian expects you to apply to the Court of Protection before any payment.
The rules here are the Mental Capacity Act 2005 and the Office of the Public Guardian’s guidance for England and Wales, checked on 17 September 2026. This is general information, not legal advice.
Your duties
What the law asks of you before you spend anything
A lasting power of attorney is permission to act for somebody, not a transfer of their money to you. Five duties sit behind every payment, and they are what the Office of the Public Guardian looks at if a concern is raised.
Act in their best interests
Section 4, Mental Capacity Act 2005
Let them decide what they still can
Capacity is decision by decision
Keep their money separate from yours
Unless you have long shared an account
Keep a record as you go
One of your legal duties
Do not benefit from the position
Your fiduciary duty
If the LPA is not registered yet, or your parent has already lost capacity and never made one, start elsewhere. How a lasting power of attorney is made and registered covers the two forms, the fee and the wait, the legalities of caring for the elderly covers applying for deputyship, and mental capacity and how it is assessed explains the test you will apply repeatedly.
What you can pay for
Three tiers of spending, from routine bills to the court
Almost every payment an attorney makes falls into one of three groups. The first needs nobody's permission. The second is yours to decide, provided you can show later why it was in your parent's interests. The third needs approval before the money moves.
Yours to pay, on the LPA alone
Money spent on your parent, for your parent
- A carer’s invoices, an agency’s bills or care home fees
- Rent or mortgage, council tax, energy, water, phone and insurance
- Food, clothes, hairdressing, chiropody and the dentist
- Repairs, decorating and adaptations such as a stairlift or a wet room
- Tax, pension and benefit paperwork, including claiming Attendance Allowance
- A solicitor or accountant where the job needs one
No permission needed. Keep the invoices and statements.
Yours to decide, but write down why
Larger or less obvious spending on their behalf
- Selling the car, or selling the house to pay for care
- A holiday with a carer, or paying for company so they can get out
- Keeping up payments they were already making for a husband or wife
- Buying furniture or equipment for the room they now live in
- Small gifts on a birthday or at Christmas, in keeping with the estate
Record who you consulted and why it was in their best interests.
Court of Protection first
A conflict between their interests and yours
- Paying yourself, or your husband or wife, for the care you give
- Any gift beyond a customary occasion, or one that is large for the estate
- Giving away, or transferring a share of, their home or other property
- A loan from their money, to you or to anybody else
- Buying something of theirs yourself, or selling it below market value
- Living in their home rent free, or letting a relative do so
An application costs £432. Only the court can approve these, not the Public Guardian.
Care is in the first tier, and that is worth saying plainly, because it is easy to hesitate over the very payment the LPA was made for. Carers on PrimeCarers charge £18 to £25 an hour with our fee included, around £20 typically, against £28 to £35 an hour at an agency, and live-in care starts at £1,050 a week. What an hour of care at home costs sets the options side by side, and the care cost calculator gives a figure for your parent's area. If they are not yet claiming Attendance Allowance, that is money towards the same bills and is not means tested.
Gifts
What you are allowed to give away, and what needs the court
Gifts are where your authority is at its narrowest. A gift, in the Office of the Public Guardian's words, is moving ownership of money, property or possessions from the person whose affairs you manage to yourself or to others, without full payment in return.
Inside an attorney's own authority
- A birthday, wedding, Christmas, Eid, Diwali or Hanukkah present
- A gift to somebody related to or connected with your parent
- A donation to a charity they supported, or might have supported
- An amount reasonable for their estate and their future care costs
- Possessions or furniture of modest or sentimental value
Court of Protection first, every time
- Anything given outside a customary occasion, whatever the amount
- Giving away their home, a share of it, or the proceeds of a sale
- A loan from their money, interest free or otherwise, to anyone
- School fees, or maintenance beyond what they already provided
- Buying something of theirs yourself, or selling it below market value
Under a registered property and financial affairs LPA all three conditions in section 12 of the Act have to be met at once: the gift is given on a customary occasion for gifts within families or among friends, it goes to somebody related or connected to your parent or to a charity they supported, and it is of reasonable value for the size of their estate. An enduring power of attorney, the older form, is narrower again. The Act does not define reasonable and the Public Guardian will not give you a figure, so you weigh their income, their savings and the care they are likely to need.
There is one narrow relief. The court has accepted that a gift can exceed an attorney's authority by so small a degree that no application is needed, and those de minimis exceptions apply only where the estate is worth more than £325,000. They never apply where your interests and your parent's conflict.
Paying a relative
Paying a family member, including yourself, to provide the care
Families do get paid out of the money of the person they care for, and the Public Guardian accepts such payments can be in that person's best interests. The difficulty is who decides. An attorney paying themselves is on both sides of the decision, and only the court can settle that.
Who is being paid, and what that changes
| A carer or agency | A relative who is not you | You, the attorney | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Do you need the court? | No. This is ordinary spending on care | The Public Guardian may require it where you are closely connected to the person paid, such as your husband, wife or child | Yes, before any payment. You cannot approve a payment to yourself |
| What the OPG looks for | That the care was needed and the money went on it | That the care is reasonably required, of a good standard, affordable and being provided | The same, plus a court order letting you receive it |
| How the rate is set | The rate the carer or agency charges, agreed in advance | Where professional care is already in place, the commercial cost of care less 20%, following Re HC [2015] EWCOP 29 | The court approves it. Such payments are not meant to replace a salary |
| What to keep | Invoices, bank statements and the care plan | How you worked out the rate, the hours given, who you consulted | The order, and everything in the column to the left |
Do you need the court?
- A carer or agency
- No. This is ordinary spending on care
- A relative who is not you
- The Public Guardian may require it where you are closely connected to the person paid, such as your husband, wife or child
- You, the attorney
- Yes, before any payment. You cannot approve a payment to yourself
What the OPG looks for
- A carer or agency
- That the care was needed and the money went on it
- A relative who is not you
- That the care is reasonably required, of a good standard, affordable and being provided
- You, the attorney
- The same, plus a court order letting you receive it
How the rate is set
- A carer or agency
- The rate the carer or agency charges, agreed in advance
- A relative who is not you
- Where professional care is already in place, the commercial cost of care less 20%, following Re HC [2015] EWCOP 29
- You, the attorney
- The court approves it. Such payments are not meant to replace a salary
What to keep
- A carer or agency
- Invoices, bank statements and the care plan
- A relative who is not you
- How you worked out the rate, the hours given, who you consulted
- You, the attorney
- The order, and everything in the column to the left
OPG guidance SD14, "OPG's approach to family care payments", updated 8 April 2026. As a benchmark for the commercial cost of care the OPG generally uses the mean hourly salary for carers in the Annual Survey of Hours and Earnings, less 20%.
Two details are easy to miss. A family payment should represent a saving on the cost of professional care and sit alongside it rather than replace it, so the sums are worked against what a carer would have charged for those hours. The other is tax: HMRC treats family care payments as voluntary payments outside tax and National Insurance, but decides that on the facts. Can my mum pay me to care for her? covers tax, Carer's Allowance and employment in full.
Bills you share with your parentSection titled Bills%20you%20share%20with%20your%20parent
If you live with your mum or dad, or they live with you, the money is harder to keep apart, and this is the third place attorneys get into difficulty. The guidance is direct about it: keep the person's money separate from your own unless you have long held joint accounts, and keep a record of transactions made on their behalf, particularly if you live with them and share costs or bills.
In practice, agree a share rather than paying the whole bill from whichever account is easiest. Work out your parent's share of the heating, the food and the council tax, pay that from their account, and write down how you split it. Living in their home without paying rent is treated as a benefit to you rather than a household arrangement.
More than one attorney
Acting with your brothers and sisters, and what your parent still decides
Read the LPA itself before the first payment. Your parent chose how their attorneys must work together, and the answer changes what you can do on your own.
How your parent appointed you
| What it means in practice | What to watch for | |
|---|---|---|
| Jointly | Every attorney has to agree on every decision, although you do not all have to sign each transaction | Banks often want all of you on the paperwork, so routine bills take longer. If one attorney can no longer act, the LPA usually ends |
| Jointly and severally | Any one of you can decide alone, or you can decide together | Two attorneys can act in opposite directions without meaning to. Agree who pays the care invoices |
| Jointly for some decisions | Your parent named the decisions you must all agree on. Any of you can make the rest alone | Read the wording closely. Selling the house is the decision most often reserved this way |
Jointly
- What it means in practice
- Every attorney has to agree on every decision, although you do not all have to sign each transaction
- What to watch for
- Banks often want all of you on the paperwork, so routine bills take longer. If one attorney can no longer act, the LPA usually ends
Jointly and severally
- What it means in practice
- Any one of you can decide alone, or you can decide together
- What to watch for
- Two attorneys can act in opposite directions without meaning to. Agree who pays the care invoices
Jointly for some decisions
- What it means in practice
- Your parent named the decisions you must all agree on. Any of you can make the rest alone
- What to watch for
- Read the wording closely. Selling the house is the decision most often reserved this way
If attorneys acting jointly cannot agree, the Office of the Public Guardian will talk it through and can advise on disputes within the family. Keep a record of the disagreement and how it was settled.
Registering the LPA does not end your parent's right to decide. A property and financial affairs LPA can be used while they still have capacity, but only with their permission, and capacity is judged decision by decision. Your mum may be unable to follow a conversation about her investments and still perfectly able to say which carer she liked. If she has capacity for a decision and disagrees with you, you must not make it for her. Where a diagnosis is changing month by month, lasting power of attorney and dementia is worth reading too.
Who checks on you
Who supervises an attorney, and how a concern is reported
Attorneys are not supervised year in, year out the way court-appointed deputies are, and nobody asks you for an annual account. What exists instead starts when somebody raises a concern, and that somebody can be a bank clerk, a care worker or a brother who thinks the money is going astray.
Anyone can report a concern
OPG safeguarding, 0300 456 0300
The OPG can ask you for everything
Statements, receipts, explanations
What the court can do
If the money was not yours to spend
A deputy is watched more closely
The court appointed them, not your parent
None of that is a reason to be frightened of the role. Attorneys who spend the money on the person and write things down are not the ones being investigated. Anyone can report a concern about an attorney or deputy to the OPG, and safeguarding adults and how to report it sets out who else to tell. Where there is no LPA at all, solicitors' fees for a deputyship application covers the cost.
Questions
Questions attorneys ask about spending a parent's money
Yes. Paying a carer, a home care agency or a care home out of her money is ordinary spending under a property and financial affairs LPA, and you need no permission from the Office of the Public Guardian or the court. Pay it from her account rather than yours, keep the invoices, and make sure the arrangement is in her name.
Not on your own authority. Where an attorney is also the person giving the care, the Public Guardian treats it as a conflict of interest and expects an application to the Court of Protection before any payment. Payments the court has not authorised can be treated as an unauthorised gift and you can be asked to repay them. An application costs £432, paid from his funds.
Only gifts meeting all three conditions in section 12 of the Mental Capacity Act: given on a customary occasion such as a birthday, wedding, Christmas, Eid, Diwali or Hanukkah; given to somebody related or connected to your parent, or to a charity they supported; and of reasonable value for the size of their estate. Loans and gifts of property need the court first.
Usually, yes. OPG guidance says a property and finance attorney should normally keep the donor’s money separate from their own or anyone else’s. The recognised exception is an account you have shared for years, such as a husband and wife’s. If you are unsure, ring the Office of the Public Guardian before you merge anything.
You can pay his share, and you should write down how you worked it out. The guidance asks attorneys to keep a record of transactions made on the person’s behalf, particularly where you live with them and share costs. Paying a whole household’s bills from his account, or living in his house rent free, is a benefit to you, and the court is the place to have that approved.
It can ask you for statements, receipts and an explanation, and send a Court of Protection visitor to see you and your parent. Depending on what it finds it may ask you to return the money, tell you to apply to the court for approval after the event, or apply to have you removed.