Helping a parent make an LPA

You can help with almost everything except the decisions. Your parent must make their LPA themselves, while they can still understand it, and choose their own attorneys. Here’s the question to answer first, what you can and can’t do, and what happens if it’s already too late.

Checked by Steve Ryan, founder
October 2026

The first question: can they still make their own decisions?

To make an LPA, your parent needs to be able to:

• understand what an LPA is and what it lets their attorneys do
• remember that long enough to decide
• weigh it up
• tell you their choice, in any way

The law assumes people can make their own decisions unless it’s shown that they can’t. A diagnosis such as dementia doesn’t settle it on its own, because what matters is whether they can make this decision at the time. Capacity can come and go, so some people can make an LPA on a good day.

What you can and can’t do

The decisions must be theirs. That protects your parent, and it protects you.

Making their LPA, step by step

1. Talk to them about it. Start with what they want, not what you’re worried about. An LPA keeps them in control: they choose who helps, and while they can still make their own decisions, they stay in charge. Many people tell us they feel relieved once it’s done.
2. They choose their attorneys. Sons and daughters are often chosen, and your parent can choose more than one, plus replacements. They also decide how their attorneys make decisions together. Choosing attorneys
3. Find a certificate provider. This is an independent person who confirms your parent understands the LPA and isn’t being pressured. It can’t be anyone in the family, or anyone who owns, manages or works at a care home where your parent lives. Someone who has known them well for at least two years can do it, or a professional such as their GP. Who can be a certificate provider
4. Fill in the form together. You can sit with them and help with our online form, as long as the answers are theirs. Steve Ryan checks every answer and, if they bank online, adds the wording their attorneys need to use online banking for them.
5. Sign in the right order. Your parent signs first, with a witness who isn’t one of their attorneys, so if you’re an attorney you can’t witness their signature. Then the certificate provider signs, then the attorneys. How to sign an LPA
6. Register it straight away. It can’t be used until it’s registered, which currently takes 8 to 10 weeks. If anything’s wrong with it, a new LPA has to be signed, and your parent can only do that while they can still make the decision.

Once it’s registered, it can be registered with the bank, which then lets attorneys act on behalf of the donor (your parent). Each bank has its own process for this.

If you’ve been helping with their bank account

Many families quietly help a parent for years, paying the bills and popping into the bank for them. It works, until something flags and the bank asks who has the legal right to act. Being their son or daughter isn’t enough, and banks can freeze or limit an account until someone has that authority.

Some banks offer a “third-party mandate”, which lets someone else run the account on the account holder’s instructions. It only works while your parent can manage their own account, and it stops if they lose that ability. A general (or “ordinary”) power of attorney has the same limit: it can only be used while your parent has mental capacity. An LPA keeps working when it matters most.

If it’s already too late

If your parent can no longer make their own decisions, they can’t make an LPA now. The family usually has to apply to the Court of Protection for someone to become their deputy. That costs £432 to apply, plus a £100 assessment fee and a yearly supervision fee, usually £320, and it usually takes several months. What happens without an LPA

If they only need help with state benefits, the Department for Work and Pensions can appoint someone to manage those without a deputyship. For anything else, Futura Planning can explain the options.

Sources

• GOV.UK: Assessing mental capacity (opens in a new tab)
• Mental Capacity Act 2005, section 1: the principles (opens in a new tab)
• GOV.UK: Make, register or end a lasting power of attorney (opens in a new tab)
• GOV.UK: Become a deputy, including fees (opens in a new tab)
• GOV.UK: Become an appointee for someone claiming benefits (opens in a new tab)
• GOV.UK: Make decisions on behalf of someone, including ordinary powers of attorney (opens in a new tab)
• Alzheimer’s Society: Support with managing your money, including third-party mandates (opens in a new tab)

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.