Have a question? Call us on 0800 1979 345
This article was published on July 30th, 2018
Ensuring you have a power of attorney in place is possibly one of the most important documents you can possess when planning your estate. For example, a financial power of attorney, which has been drafted by a specialist LPA solicitor, will safeguard your interests by allowing someone of your choosing, who you trust, to manage your financial affairs should you lose capacity.
However, a recent article on the STEP website highlighted a study by Solicitors for the Elderly (SFE), which discussed the fact that the number of people who are losing capacity in the UK, particularly those who suffer from dementia, is much higher than the number of people who have a lasting power of attorney in place.
According to the report compiled by the SFE, there are currently 540,000 people in the UK who have been diagnosed with dementia, with that number rising to an estimated 850,000 when those who have yet to be diagnosed are taken into account.
Should a lasting power of attorney not be in place for those suffering from dementia, it can make it very difficult to gain access to assets that can help the owner of the assets fund financial and medical requirements such as care fees and medical treatment.
It is the medical requirements that the SFE feature prominently in their report, suggesting that the UK faces an ‘incapacity crisis’.
This ‘crisis’ is mainly due to the fact that of an estimated 12 million people who they describe as ‘at a significant risk’ of suffering dementia at some point in their life, only 928,000 Health and Welfare lasting powers of attorney have been registered, with the issue set to become more prominent by 2025.
According to SFE, the key reason for so few lasting powers of attorney having been set up is the fact that many people are totally unaware of the risks of losing capacity without having an LPA in place.
By ensuring you have a health and welfare LPA in place, you eliminate doubt surrounding your wishes should you lose capacity. If you have assets which are owned solely by you, for example, an ISA account, then you should seriously consider an LPA for property and financial affairs. This will help you guard against any occasion where you need to access assets should you lose your mental capacity. Without an LPA, people acting in your best interests would be powerless to access your assets as they would be frozen after you had lost mental capacity.
While many of us think we are too young for an LPA to be applicable, memory problems including dementia can affect people at various points in their lives, making it vital you are prepared for whatever may lie around the corner.
Our Wills, Trust and Probate solicitors specialise in advising on and providing lasting powers of attorney. We provide you with a sensitive and sympathetic service and will guide you through the process from start to finish. Our team is led by a member of STEP (Society of Trust and Estate Practitioners) who can act as a professional Attorney if required.
If you’d like any more information about LPAs or Wills or would like to book an appointment for a preliminary consultation please call us on 0800 1979 345.
This website privacy notice sets out how Thorneycroft Solicitors uses and protects any information that you give Thorneycroft Solicitors when you use this website.
Thorneycroft Solicitors is committed to ensuring that your privacy is protected. Should we ask you to provide certain information by which you can be identified when using this website, then you can be assured that it will only be used in accordance with this privacy statement.
Thorneycroft Solicitors may change this policy from time to time by updating this page. You should check this page from time to time to ensure that you are happy with any changes. This policy is effective from 01/05/2018.
What we collect
We may collect the following information:
We will collect the information directly from you via completion of our enquiry form on the website.
What we do with the information we gather
We require this information to understand your needs and provide you with a better service, and in particular for the following reasons:
We will also collect and process your personal data if you have consented to receiving marketing in respect of our services. You are able to unsubscribe or withdraw your consent at any time by emailing [email protected] or writing to ‘Marketing’ at Thorneycroft Solicitors, 9a Bridge Street Mills, Bridge Street, Macclesfield, Cheshire SK11 6QA.
Security
We are committed to ensuring that your information is secure. In order to prevent unauthorised access or disclosure, we have put in place suitable physical, electronic and managerial procedures to safeguard and secure the information we collect online.
Retention
If you do not instruct us in relation to your legal matter, your personal details will be retained for a period of 12 months.
If we are instructed in relation to your legal matter, we will keep it in line with our data retention periods. Details of our retention period for your legal matter can be found within our Client Care Letter and/or Terms of Business, under the heading file retention.
Links to other websites
Our website may contain links to other websites of interest. However, once you have used these links to leave our site, you should note that we do not have any control over that other website. Therefore, we cannot be responsible for the protection and privacy of any information which you provide whilst visiting such sites and such sites are not governed by this privacy statement. You should exercise caution and look at the privacy statement applicable to the website in question.
Your Rights
Google AdWords
This website uses the Google AdWords remarketing service to advertise on third party websites (including Google) to previous visitors to our site. It could mean that we advertise to previous visitors who haven’t completed a task on our site, for example using the contact form to make an enquiry. This could be in the form of an advertisement on the Google search results page, or a site in the Google Display Network. Third-party vendors, including Google, use cookies to serve ads based on someone’s past visits to the website. Of course, any data collected will be used in accordance with our own privacy policy and Google’s privacy policy.
You can set preferences for how Google advertises to you using the Google Ad Preferences page, and if you want to you can opt out of interest-based advertising entirely by cookie settings or permanently using a browser plugin.
×