How to Change Your LPA Without Stress
People often struggle with the idea of losing control over their lives. This may be brought on if they foresee health-related challenges or a loss of mental capacity. It can be an especially vulnerable time for your loved ones as they grapple with this sobering reality. However, a lasting power of attorney (LPA) can help you and your loved ones find their way through this potentially stressful time.
Setting up an LPA is an empowering and proactive step towards planning for your future. Having a trustworthy attorney to manage your affairs can bring you peace and relieve your loved ones from additional burdens. Conversely, choosing the wrong attorney or changing preferences, including adding new instructions, can also be a hassle to deal with.
Fortunately, LPAs are not set in stone and can be changed for a variety of reasons provided you are still able to make sound and informed decisions.
This article explains how you can change your LPA in a few simple steps to ensure a stress-free process for yourself and your loved ones!
1. Understanding the Grounds for Changing an LPA
As far as legal frameworks are concerned, LPAs are flexible instruments. While they are empowering, they are also easy to amend and accommodate new changes. This allows you to retain your autonomy to proactively participate in planning your future.
With time, if you feel your initial LPA arrangements are insufficient to address your present or future needs, you can always change them. For example, if your beliefs have changed regarding certain lines of medical treatment, you could add instructions concerning them in your health and welfare LPA.
Furthermore, you can change your LPA if you’ve had a falling out with your attorney, or discovered your attorney had a potential conflict of interest. Other grounds for attorney disqualification include bankruptcy, fraudulent behaviour or losing faith and trust in them to act in your best interest. It is important to be clear about your reasons for changing your LPA.
2. Informing Attorneys and Relevant Parties
A clear understanding of your reasons for changing the LPA is helpful not just for your attorney but also for your loved ones. Once you have determined the areas you want to make changes to, it is important to notify your attorney and family regarding the same. This helps in fostering a cooperative and understanding atmosphere where potential changes are discussed amicably and provided for in your LPA.
Although LPA arrangements are an exercise in personal autonomy, it is crucial to have your loved ones and attorney be on the same page. While it’s impossible to make arrangements in a way that pleases everybody, it’d be helpful for them to understand your reasons for introducing these changes.
3. Deed of Revocation
Changing an attorney, be it the replacement of an existing attorney or adding a new attorney is a significant change to your LPA. Other examples of consequential modifications to an LPA document include changes in preferences regarding health treatments and procedures and estate or personal property. Alterations of a substantial nature require an LPA to be revoked.
This can be done through a ‘deed of revocation’. It is a simple document in which you express your wish to revoke the existing LPA document in favour of a new one. This must be sent to the office of the public guardian (OPG) with a notice to your attorneys. The OPG will then review and revoke your LPA so that you can create a new one. However, if you’re looking to replace only one attorney and keep the other (in case of multiple attorneys), you can use a ‘partial deed of revocation’.
4. Seeking Expert Advice
While a ‘deed of revocation’ will suffice to make substantial amendments to your LPA, if you are unsure or have doubts, it’s best to seek legal counsel. Although the revocation of an LPA is a relatively straightforward process, it must not be taken casually. Its flexibility should not be grounds for constant changes either.
A legal advisor can provide insight and guide you if your LPA involves complex estate or financial arrangements with multiple attorneys. For example, a property and finance LPA that has a trust, sizable digital assets and life insurance with more than one trustee or attorney will require some legal finesse while considering its revocation.
5. Registering Your New LPA
You have to follow the same process you followed to register your initial LPA. All supplementary documents along with your newly created or amended LPA must be sent to the OPG for registration. This includes relevant attorney appointment forms signed by your attorneys and you.
You would also need witnesses for your newly created LPA as before and make payments of relevant fees to the OPG. Please check for exemptions or reductions in donor fees if applicable. An error-free LPA will take anywhere between ten to sixteen weeks for registration.
Conclusion
People change and so do their preferences. With an LPA, you do not have to worry about whether these changes will be accounted for. They are flexible documents that can be amended with a few simple steps.
However, it is advisable to carefully review the changes you want to include to ensure it’s what you want. Doing so can help you minimise the need for constant amendments and hassle when it comes to your LPA. We hope this article has helped you gain clarity regarding the LPA amendment process.
