The expected new Powers of Attorney Act will allow some dramatic improvements to the way Lasting Powers of Attorney are established.
For the donor (the person making the LPA), here's a simplified breakdown of the new process:
Account Setup: Create an account with two-factor authentication.
Form 1 Completion: Fill out Form 1, providing ID and paying the fee.
Document Signing: Sign the document, triggering a text message with a verification code to satisfy the witness requirement.
Form 2 Submission: Send Form 2 to the certificate provider for review and signing.
Notification: The donor is informed when Form 2 is completed.
Form 3 Submission: Form 3 is sent to attorneys for their signatures.
For professionals:
Access and Tools: Professionals get case worker profiles, reusable IDs for certificate providers, the ability to pay and register on behalf of donors, and automatic population of details for multiple LPAs.
Personalized Guidance: Each person involved gets personalized guidance
Before you come out in a cold sweat and worry that you or your clients will not be able to cope with this, the option of paper forms will still be available as not everyone will have access to the internet.
As a professional, the most time-consuming aspect is to deal with the attorneys or write to them to get their signatures and to ensure they understand their role. This can sometimes mean sending letters to different countries as not all attorneys are UK based. Â Now emailing Form 3 I suspect will allow for a faster response and therefore get LPAs in place faster. Â
I am looking forward to an improved process, are you?