Digital accounts and your LPA
Guidance from Estate Advisory Group
Written and legally reviewed by Ramani Gill TEP, Solicitor and private client practitioner·Last reviewed 13 August 2026
An LPA gives you authority over the donor's affairs. It does not give you their passwords, and terms of service often forbid using them.
The rule of thumb
Deal with each provider as attorney rather than logging in as the donor. Banks, mobile networks and utilities all have attorney routes. Using the donor's credentials breaches the terms, muddles the audit trail and can look like fraud even where you are acting honestly.
What you can usually arrange
- Attorney access to online banking and paperless statements.
- Redirection of email correspondence to you where the provider allows it.
- Cancellation of subscriptions and app store payments through the provider.
- Closure of accounts holding the donor's money, into an account in their name.
Plan for it when you make the LPA
Keep a sealed list, not a clause
Do not put passwords in the LPA — it is a public document once registered. Keep a separate written list of providers and account numbers, stored with the LPA, and update it yearly.
A worked example
Consider Ahmed, who holds a registered LPA for his mother Farida after a stroke leaves her unable to manage her own affairs. Farida had online banking, a mobile phone contract, several streaming subscriptions and a small amount of Bitcoin bought years earlier as a curiosity. Ahmed registers as her attorney with the bank and gets his own login rather than using Farida's, cancels the streaming subscriptions through each provider's official attorney or bereavement-style process, and moves the mobile contract into a plan he can manage. The Bitcoin proves impossible to recover, because Farida never wrote down the private key or seed phrase anywhere Ahmed can find, and no LPA or court order can force a decentralised exchange to hand over an asset nobody can prove access to. It is a loss that a one-page note, made while Farida still had capacity, would have prevented.
Providers with formal attorney processes
| Provider type | Typical attorney process |
|---|---|
| High street banks | Register the LPA with the bank's bereavement or power of attorney team; get separate attorney login |
| Mobile networks and broadband | Call customer services with the LPA; ask to be added as account manager |
| Streaming and subscription services | Cancel through the provider directly using the attorney's own account access, not the donor's saved card |
| Cryptocurrency exchanges and wallets | Usually no attorney process; access depends entirely on holding the private key or seed phrase |
| Social media and email | Most platforms have a legacy or authorised-contact process rather than a full LPA route |
Fraud risk cuts both ways
Because online accounts are a common target for financial abuse, an attorney who logs in as the donor rather than declaring themselves can find their own honest actions look suspicious later, particularly if the OPG or a bank later investigates a complaint under the safeguards process. Registering properly as attorney with each provider, and keeping the record described above, protects the attorney as much as the donor.
Building the digital picture before capacity is lost
The best time to do this is before it is needed
While the donor still has capacity, sit down together and list the providers that matter — banks, utilities, phone, email, and any subscriptions taken by direct debit. You do not need passwords, just the names of providers and whether a password manager is used, so an attorney knows where to start.
This single conversation, repeated once a year, saves far more time later than any technical workaround. Combine it with the record-keeping habits attorneys should already be using for paper accounts, so digital and paper affairs are tracked in one place.
Common questions
Can I access the donor's cryptocurrency?
Only if you hold the keys. Without them no legal authority can recover the asset — record their existence and location while the donor still can.
Can I read the donor's emails?
Only where necessary for decisions you are making as attorney, and preferably through a provider-approved route.
Should I ask the donor to write down all their passwords now?
It is better to record which providers exist and where a password manager or key is kept, rather than the passwords themselves, and to keep that list separate from the LPA.
Can a provider refuse to deal with me as attorney?
Some smaller platforms have no attorney process at all; where a larger provider refuses despite a valid LPA, raise it as a formal complaint and, if needed, with the Financial Ombudsman Service for financial providers.
Read next
Where this fits
This page is part of Money, tax and property. The pages below take it further.
- Property & Financial Affairs LPA
The LP1F: money, bills, savings, property and everything a bank will ask for.
- Make an LPA online
The whole journey end to end: questions, documents, signing and registration.
Review and sources
Reviewed by Ramani Gill TEP, Solicitor and private client practitioner. Last reviewed 13 August 2026. We recheck fees, forms and Office of the Public Guardian guidance whenever they change — see our editorial policy.
Official sources
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Choose one LPA or both, then start online for £49 per LPA.
The Office of the Public Guardian charges a separate £92 to register each LPA.
This is general information about how Lasting Powers of Attorney work in England and Wales. It is not legal advice about your situation. What we do and do not do.
Published by Estate Advisory Group