Acting as a Property & Financial Attorney

You must:

• follow any instructions the donor included in the LPA
• consider any preferences the donor included in the LPA
• help the donor make their own decisions as much as they can
• make any decisions in the donor’s best interests
• respect their human and civil rights

You must make the decisions yourself - you cannot ask someone to make them for you

If you’re not the only attorney

Check the LPA. It will tell you whether you must make decisions:

• ‘jointly’ - this means all the attorneys must agree
• ‘jointly and severally’ - this means you can make decisions together or on your own

The LPA may tell you to make some decisions ‘jointly’ and others ‘jointly and severally’.

Property and financial affairs attorneys

As a property and financial affairs attorney, you make (or help the donor make) decisions about things like:

• money, tax and bills
• bank and building society accounts
• property and investments
• pensions and benefits

You can start making decisions while the donor still has mental capacity if both:

• the lasting power of attorney (LPA) says you can
• the donor gives you permission

Otherwise, you can only start making decisions when they do not have mental capacity.

Looking after money and property

You must keep the donor’s finances separate from your own, unless you’ve already got something in both of your names like a joint bank account or you own a home together.

Spending money on gifts or donations

Unless the LPA states otherwise, you can spend money on:

• gifts to a donor’s friend, family member or acquaintance on occasions when you would normally give gifts (such as birthdays or anniversaries)
• donations to a charity that the donor would not object to, for example a charity they’ve donated to before

You must apply to the Court of Protection for any other type of gift or donation, even if the donor has given them before. These include:

• paying someone’s school or university fees
• letting someone live in the donor’s property without paying market rent (anything they pay below market rent counts as a gift)
• interest-free loans

You must check that the donor can afford the gift or donation, even if they’ve spent money on these types of things before. For example, you cannot donate their money if that would mean they could not afford their care costs.