Choosing a certificate provider
Every LPA needs a certificate provider: an independent person who confirms you understand what you’re signing and that nobody is pressuring you. It’s an important safeguard, so there are strict rules about who can do it.
Checked by Steve Ryan, founder
October 2026
What the certificate provider does
When they sign your LPA, your certificate provider confirms that:
- you understand what the LPA is and the powers you’re giving your attorneys
- nobody has pressured you into making it
- there’s no fraud involved
- there’s nothing else that would stop the LPA being made
They need to read the LPA first and, if possible, talk to you about it in private, without your attorneys or anyone else there. They sign after you and before your attorneys, either on the same day as you or as soon as possible afterwards. See the full signing order.
Once your certificate provider has signed, you can’t swap them for someone else. If their section ever needs correcting, the same person has to sign it again.
Who can be your certificate provider
They must be 18 or over, and either:
Someone who knows you well
A friend, neighbour, colleague, or someone from a club or group, who has known you well for at least two years. They must be more than an acquaintance: someone who knows you well enough to have an honest conversation about your LPA.
Someone with professional skills
Someone with the skills to judge whether you understand the LPA and aren’t being pressured, such as your GP or another registered healthcare professional, a solicitor or barrister, or a registered social worker. A professional may charge for this.
Someone you’ve chosen as a “person to notify” can also be your certificate provider.
Who can’t be your certificate provider
Your certificate provider must not be:
- one of your attorneys or replacement attorneys, on this LPA or on any other LPA or Enduring Power of Attorney you’ve made
- a member of your family, or of any of your attorneys’ families. This includes husbands, wives, civil partners, children, parents, brothers and sisters, grandparents, grandchildren, aunts, uncles, nephews, nieces, in-laws and step-relatives
- your unmarried partner, boyfriend or girlfriend, or one of your attorneys’, whether or not they live together
- your business partner or employee, or one of your attorneys’ business partners or employees
- an owner, manager, director or employee of a care home where you live, or a member of their family
- anyone running or working for a trust corporation that’s an attorney on your property and financial affairs LPA
Watch out for in-laws and step-relatives. Family members of your attorneys count too. So if your daughter is your attorney, her husband can’t be your certificate provider, even though he isn’t related to you by blood.
Tips for choosing one
- Ask early. Explain what’s involved, and send them a link to this page.
- One person can do both. The same certificate provider can sign both your property and financial affairs LPA and your health and welfare LPA.
- They can be a witness too. Your certificate provider can witness your signature and your attorneys’ signatures.
- We check before printing. Our online form asks you to confirm your certificate provider meets the rules, and we check again before your LPA is printed.
Based on the Office of the Public Guardian’s guide LP12: Make and register your lasting power of attorney.
Checked by Steve Ryan, founder of yourLPA and a member of the Society of Will Writers, against the Office of the Public Guardian’s guidance in October 2026. This guide is general information for people in England and Wales, not personal advice.