Power of Attorney

Step 1: You will meet with one of our Private Client Solicitors, who will take your instructions for your Power of Attorney, noting the details of your proposed Attorney (including full names and addresses), and discuss with you your particular circumstances and go over the nature and types of powers contained in the document.

Step 2: We will draft documents for you as instructed and send them, together with our Letter of Engagement and Terms of Business, to you as soon as they are ready. We aim to send these to you within a week of our first meeting.  

If you are a new client, or these are your first instructions to us for some time, and we have to carry out an identity verification process, we cannot proceed with any work until the process has been completed. If we have to wait for ID from you, this may delay us getting the draft documents to you.

Step 3: Once you have reviewed your draft documents and contacted us to confirm you are happy with them, or to advise of any outstanding information or instructions, we will prepare final versions of your documents for signing and arrange a meeting with you to sign them.

Once you have signed the documents, we will obtain any outstanding signatures, for example from any remote witness. This may take a week or so, depending on the post.

Step 4:

• If your Power of Attorney is not being registered at this time, we will place it in our secure records storage and send a copy to you. At this stage, we will also issue our fee note for the work which has been carried out if it has not already been sent to you.
• If your Power of Attorney is being registered, we will write to your Attorney with the forms they have to complete. Once we have received the forms back from them and the payment of the registration fee for your Power of Attorney document from you, we will submit your Power of Attorney to the Office of the Public Guardian for registration. 

We submit Powers of Attorney for registration using what is known as the ‘EPOAR’ electronic registration service. The Office of the Public Guardian’s website gives information on processing times, which can be months rather than weeks.

Step 5: When we have been notified by the Office of the Public Guardian that the registration of your Power of Attorney document has completed, we will write to you with your registered Power of Attorney. This would normally complete matters.

You can also put a Will in place at the same time as your Power of Attorney. See the separate Wills section for details of the process and timings, which can happen concurrently with setting up your Power of Attorney. 

 Our Power of Attorney service normally involves two meetings and any necessary correspondence outside of the meetings. The length of time to complete the work may be affected by availability for meetings and the time taken by correspondence, as well as how quickly we receive your instructions.  Many Powers of Attorney can be drafted and signed within a month or less.

If a Medical Opinion is required, however, this may add to the length of time needed to carry out your instructions.

Once signed, your Power of Attorney has to be registered before it can be used.  The time it takes to register a Power of Attorney can be affected by:

• Delays in receiving the completed forms from your Attorney
• Delays in the payment of the registration fee from you
• The processing times of the Office of the Public Guardian, which are out with our control and can take months rather than weeks

An expedited facility is available for the registration of Powers of Attorney where they are required urgently.

Fixed fee services:

All fees are subject to VAT, which is currently charged at a rate of 20%

We can provide an estimate of our fee for the preparation of your Power of Attorney, and Will if also instructed, at our first meeting or over the telephone.

Hourly rates: For other Private Client services, such as Inheritance Tax or Care Home planning, if we charge on a time basis rather than an agreed fixed fee , the hourly rates for our specialist Private Client team are as follows:

If we meet with a client in their own home, or in a residential, nursing or care home, hospice or hospital, there may be an additional cost of £135 plus VAT per visit.

Additional costs: We always ensure that the work will be carried out by a team member at a level appropriate for the complexity of the matter and will give you an indication of the anticipated cost at the start of the process.

• When your Power of Attorney is sent to the Office of the Public Guardian (Scotland) for registration, there is a fee for registration , currently £96 per document.
• If there are any issues regarding capacity and an opinion has to be sought from your GP or another medical practitioner, there may be a charge levied for this by the professional who is providing the medical report. The charge would be set by and normally payable directly to them.

Our team of dedicated Private Client Solicitors are very experienced in working with families and individuals in establishing Powers of Attorney. They can advise you of the options available, set up an arrangement that is right for you and your circumstances, and make sure all the documentation is properly completed.