Making an LPA doesn't need to feel complicated

Why making an LPA feels complicated

A Lasting Power of Attorney has a reputation for being a daunting piece of paperwork, and it's easy to see why. The official forms run to dozens of pages, use precise legal language, and set out a signing process that must happen in a fixed order, on paper, with witnesses. None of that is optional — it's what the Mental Capacity Act 2005 requires to make sure the document is genuine and the donor understood what they signed.

But the underlying decisions are usually simple: who do you trust to act for you, and in what circumstances? The complication is almost entirely in the form-filling, not the choices themselves.

The simplest route, honestly explained

1. Decide whether you want a Property and Financial Affairs LPA (LP1F), a Health and Welfare LPA (LP1H), or both.
2. Answer plain-English questions about yourself and the people you're appointing — no legal terms required from you.
3. We turn your answers into the correctly formatted OPG paperwork and check it for common completion errors.
4. Print it, arrange signing in the right order with the right witnesses, and send it to the Office of the Public Guardian with the registration fee.

That's genuinely the whole process. There's no interview, no court appearance, and nothing that requires a law degree to understand — but there are a few steps that can't be skipped, however simple the rest feels.

What can't be made simpler, and why

• Paper signing. The law currently requires the donor, certificate provider, attorneys and witnesses to sign a physical document, in person, in a set order. No online service can replace this with a digital signature.
• A witness for every signature, who cannot themselves be an attorney on that LPA.
• A certificate provider, an independent person confirming the donor understands the document and isn't under pressure.
• The 4-week statutory waiting period built into registration, during which anyone can raise an objection — and the roughly 8 weeks registration typically takes overall.

The decisions you can't avoid making

• Who your attorney or attorneys will be, and whether you want a replacement attorney in case one can no longer act.
• If you appoint more than one attorney, whether they must act jointly (all agree together) or jointly and severally (each can act alone).
• Whether you want to record any preferences (things you'd like considered) or instructions (things attorneys must or must not do).
• Who will act as your certificate provider.

These are the same decisions whether you use a solicitor, a paper form, or an online service — the format you choose only changes how much effort it takes to record them correctly.

A plain-English glossary

How our process removes the fiddly parts

• Questions in everyday language instead of legal wording, with explanations wherever a term matters.
• Save and return whenever you like, so you're never rushed into a decision.
• Your answers are checked for common completion errors before the final documents are produced.
• A clear summary of exactly who needs to sign, in what order, before you print anything.

It won't remove the paper signing or the OPG's waiting period — nothing legally can — but it removes almost everything else that makes the process feel harder than the decisions underneath it.

If your situation isn't simple

Some situations genuinely call for a solicitor rather than a standard form, however good the form-filling experience is:

• You or a family member run a business, or own assets held in a trust.
• Family members disagree about who should be appointed, or about whether an LPA should be made at all.
• There's real doubt about the donor's mental capacity to make the decision, which needs a proper capacity assessment first.

In any of those cases, a solicitor's tailored advice is worth the extra cost. For everyone else, start my LPA and let the online questions do the organising.