Ensure the Lawful Use of Online Signatures for General Power of Attorney in the United Kingdom

How to eSign a document: online signature lawfulness for General Power of Attorney in United Kingdom

hello and welcome to another talk to stew with me stuart magoo so uh in this one we're going to talk a little bit about lasting power of attorney do you need it yes should you get it yes should you get both parts yes when should you get it now that's all you need to know in terms of whether or not you should have lasting power of attorney uh you may be in a position where you can't afford to get lasting power of attorney but uh generally speaking you'll be in a worse position to afford it if you don't and then it turns out that you need it because if you don't have a lasting power of attorney in place and something should occur that deprives you of your mental capacity and people either need to access your bank accounts or make decisions for you regarding your health and well-being then the route they will have to go down is deputy ship which is very costly and very time consuming and yeah we don't want to go down that road any of us so the question is should you get lasting power of attorney the answer is yes so what is lasting power of attorney well essentially lusting power of attorney gives somebody else the uh ability to act on your behalf and administer your wishes as they would be for you uh regarding your finances and also regarding your health and well-being uh should you be in a position that you can't make those decisions for yourself so what could cause that well uh car accident acquired brain injury developing dementia having an unexpected stroke there's lots of reasons why you could end up needing to have a lasting power of attorney in place and the older you get the more likely those reasons are to occur though as many people will attest to something can happen at any time in life there's age doesn't have the purview over stroke for example many people of any age can get a stroke uh that could incapacitate you so it's certainly worth thinking about now how do you go about getting it well uh you could go to a solicitor and they will sort out everything for you they'll talk you through absolutely everything and they'll fill in all the paperwork and do all the bits that are needed is that the route you should go down well uh fortunately it's not the only option available to you these days personally i would say if you're capable of doing so then you should set it up for yourself first of all it's a hell of a lot cheaper generally speaking if you go to a solicitor you'll be looking at around about 500 pounds per lasting power of attorney and you will need two you will need one lasting power of attorney for your finances and one for your health and well-being so that's two lasting power of attorneys why are they separate well years ago there was something called enduring power of attorney which generally speaking just uh sort of revolved around finances so uh when lasting power of attorney was created which brought in the health and wellbeing part where somebody can make decisions about your medical treatment or the care that you're receiving things like that when that uh it came into being obviously they needed to for a person to just get to the health and well-being part and not the finances part because they may have already had that with enduring power of attorney equally it also might be that you want somebody to have control of your finances but not your medical decisions or you might want two different people doing two different jobs so there's lots of reasons for keeping those uh separate but it does mean that if you haven't got any kind of power of attorney you will want to get both parts and as i say you don't need to use the same maternity for each part the attorney is the person you nominate to to act on your behalf you don't need to use the same one you could split that across family members if you wish um or friends you know it doesn't have to be a family member but whatever decision or whatever route that you go down with that it is as i say important to get both parts and each part costs 82 pounds to register at well the last time i looked it was 82 pounds anyway so it adds up to just over 160 pounds to get both paths registered bargain uh being as a solicitor's charge in about 500 quid for each part that's quite a saving quite a saving so is there a lot of work involved with doing it not really uh it's it's not difficult to do at all uh generally speaking as people know i can be a little bit critical of the government and the way they do things however lasting power of attorney and the website by which you set it up uh is actually quite good and it's a bit like doing a blue badge you know it's actually probably easier than doing a blue badge all you need to do is just type lasting power of attorney into google and pretty much the first result is a link through to gov.uk where you can start your lasting power of attorney application so the the website itself does talk you through all of the different parts that you need to do but in addition to that there are a lot of websites that will take you through it step by step that said uh it's pretty simple to do or if all you're looking for is a basic power of attorney so it might get more complex if you have specific decisions that you want made it's specific junctures that may crop up um you know so it might be something along the lines of if i were to develop cancer after i've been diagnosed with dementia i don't actually want any chemotherapy so it might be something specific like that and those things can be written into your lasting power of attorney however on the face of it if you're just happy that the person is going to act in your best interest and they are going to make decisions that you would make not decisions that they would make uh you know then and and you're trusting them to do that then you might not need to to put those bits in at all so essentially to make the lasting power of attorney you only need a few bits of information which is your name and address and your national insurance number and the name and address the national insurance number of the attorney or attorneys that responsibility may be shared by a number of people siblings usually um you know uh one person might be a backup because you need you know what if something happens to you what if something happens to your attorney you always need a backup for your backup so uh so you might have more than one attorney and that's absolutely fine and then you need a third person who has known you for two years or longer and isn't a relative you can say that when you sign the form you are of sound mind and body you fully understand what the lasting power of attorney is and you are completely and utterly consenting to this person being your attorney in the event of you using mental capacity for yourself simple enough so it could be a neighbor it could be a close friend uh it could be a professional like a gp it could be your vicar you know if you or or or church leader or not even church leader you know religious leader you know it could be anybody who's known you for two years or longer who isn't a relative who can say yes we are absolutely fine uh to say that this person is of sour mind body and they agree to this person being the attorney and that is pretty much it that's all the information you need of course as i say everyone needs our national insurance number so get all this information together follow the website through step by step you will need an email address as well and you'll also have to put in your telephone number things like that but you probably never get a phone call about it and it just takes you through step by step please put in your details please put in the details of the attorney first attorney do you have a second attorney please put those details in do you have any express wishes that you want to to make known please enter those here please enter the details of the witness and you enter those and you get to the end it says please submit your payment so you probably need a payment card at that point and uh you you enter those details and you press submit and it will say please print out the forms now if you haven't got a printer quite a lot of local post offices i know they're on the wayne but they do have printers or there's local print services so have a look into that or get a friend to print it out if need to be there are quite a lot of pieces of paper so do make sure you've got plenty of paper if you're printing it yourself and plenty of things for that matter and then print it out and if you go through the form you will find uh the sections contain the personal details of you the attorney or attorneys and of course the the witness as well and at the bottom there's a signature box and you basically have to sign it in order so first of all you sign it then the attorney sign it and then the witness signs it and once you've done all that you pop an envelope and you post it off to the office of the public guardian the address will be printed on the form so obviously if you're doing the finance part and the health and well-being part you'll have to go through that process twice uh if you've done both at the same time then yes please do put them in the same envelope together and when sending off any documents like this to government agencies i always recommend sending it sealed and signed for delivery so yeah there you go that in a nutshell is lasting power of attorney once it's in place you're you're done it's registered there's no uh you don't get the situation where it's sat with the solicitor unregistered until the point that you need it and then oh no they've lost it ah they can't find it oh we're not sure about the signature none of that crap it's just sent off and registered if you are going to see a solicitor to get this done make sure they register it as soon as it's done get yourself some certified copies you can get certified copies done with solicitors you can also get them done in government buildings libraries things like that do check your local area and local information services to find out where you can get certified copies of these documents made get yourself some certified copies get as many as you can if you are looking after somebody with dementia you will be able to attest to the fact that almost at exactly the same time there needs to be about three or four lasting power of attorney documents sent off to different organizations so if you've got a good stack of those copies it does does pay dividends if you get into that sort of situation now there are some queries about when you should use a lasting power of attorney ing to the latter of the law the lasting power of attorney should only be used when a person has lost mental capacity however the reality is is that often people are using power of attorney when a person still has mental capacity now a person may have mental capacity but have lost the cognitive ability to manage their own affairs in the way that they always have and may pass a mental capacity test but they're still putting their slippers in the freezer so how do you deal with that situation at that time well there are a lot of organizations that may accept a health and well-being power of attorney without really looking at whether or not that person has lost mental capacity and essentially it is a very good way of demonstrating consent however if you feel that somebody is using a lasting power of attorney when they shouldn't be or in such a way that is not in ance with the person's wishes and isn't the sort of decision that they would make for themselves then please do report it to the office of the public garden guardian immediately and they will investigate it if of course somebody is acting in the best interest of somebody and uh you know doing what they're doing to make sure that that person is getting the right things that they need and they're in no way being abused or financially abused or you know anything like that then it may be that you make a judgment call as to whether or not that needs looking into um that's not my decision to make but the strict letter of the law is that a person has to have lost mental capacity before you can use the health and well-being lasting power of attorney so do bear that in mind um yeah so good luck with the tool and if you're in a position of having to use one then best of luck with everything there because i expect you will be going through a difficult time if however you're not in that position yet you're very lucky but nonetheless hope for the best plan for the worst get yourself a lasting power of attorney thanks for watching oh and don't forget like share and subscribe