Lasting Power of Attorney – Easy Read

Why might it be of interest?

If you and your young person – with a learning disability – want to ensure that you have authority to either manage entirely or help them manage their financial affairs and / or health and welfare the young person can give you their power of attorney.

To give a power of attorney a person must have mental capacity to do so.  This means that they understand that they are giving you their authority to manage their financial and / or health affairs on their behalf.  And they have to make decisions about what powers they are giving you and when you can use them.  For example, they may give you power to manage all their financial affairs as soon as the LPA is rubber stamped or they may only allow you to manage their financial affairs when they can’t or don’t want to do so.

A health and welfare LPA is slightly different in that you can only make decisions on behalf of the donor (person granting the LPA) when they lack the capacity to do so.  They must have capacity to grant the LPA.   The health and welfare LPA may also include instructions about end of life care.

There are guides for a supporter (the person supporting the donor through the LPA process); the donor; the attorney and the certificate provider.

The guide for the donor is the simplest and I would suggest that if your young person cannot follow this guide then it may be that they lack the necessary mental capacity to give you their power of attorney.  You can go through it step by step and as slowly as needed but in my opinion this is a good benchmark for deciding if they have the necessary understanding.  They may need some time and support to explain it all but it is important that they understand it.