Before the lasting power of attorney system was introduced in October 2007, you could create an enduring power of attorney (EPA) to give a trusted person control over your finances if you lost the ability to make your own decisions.

Although it’s not possible to create a new EPA, EPAs created before 1 October 2007 are still valid.

Here’s our guide to enduring power of attorney (UK-based) and what to do if someone has named you as their attorney in an EPA.

 

What is enduring power of attorney?

What does ‘enduring power of attorney’ mean?

If someone grants you enduring power of attorney, you have the authority to make legal or financial decisions for them if they become unable to make decisions on their own. For example, you can sign documents, deal with their financial affairs or buy things on their behalf.

When someone uses an EPA to give you power of attorney, that person is called the donor, and you are their attorney.

How to get enduring power of attorney

If the person who appointed you as their attorney begins to lose their ability to make decisions, you need to register their existing EPA in order to get enduring power of attorney. To be valid, the EPA must have been created before 1 October 2007.

The registration form will ask you to confirm that you ‘have reason to believe that the donor is or is becoming mentally incapable’, so you can’t register the EPA while the person who made it is still of sound mind.

You’ll need the original enduring power of attorney form or, if the original is missing, a certified copy.

How to register an enduring power of attorney: telling people you’re going to register

Before you register the EPA, you need to tell certain people that you’re planning to register. You can do this by filling in the notification form EP1PG (‘Notice of intention to register an enduring power of attorney’) and sending it to:

  • the person who made the EPA, and
  • at least three of that person’s family members (see below), and
  • any other attorneys the EPA appoints, if they’re not registering with you.

If the EPA appoints more than one attorney ‘jointly’, all of them have to make decisions together, so you’ll need to register with the other attorneys. If the attorneys have been appointed ‘jointly and severally’, you’re allowed to make decisions on your own as one of the attorneys, but you’ll need to let the others know you’re going to register.

If you’re registering with other attorneys, everyone who’s registering will need to sign the notification form.

The family members you tell must be over 18 and of sound mind. They should be the first three who meet those requirements from this list:

  1. The spouse or civil partner of the person who made the EPA (the donor).
  2. The donor’s children (biological or adopted, but not stepchildren).
  3. The donor’s parents.
  4. The donor’s siblings or half-siblings.
  5. The widow, widower or surviving civil partner of any of the donor’s children who have died.
  6. The donor’s grandchildren.
  7. The donor’s nephews and nieces born to full siblings
  8. The donor’s nephews and nieces born to half-siblings.
  9. The donor’s aunts and uncles.
  10. The donor’s first cousins.

 

You can’t just tell some of the people in one of these numbered categories. If you tell one person in a category, you have to tell everyone else in that category, even if that means you’re sending the form to more than three family members.

If you can’t get in contact with the right people, or if there aren’t enough living relatives for you to notify three of them, tell the Office of the Public Guardian when you send in the registration form (see below).

You’ll need to make a note of when you sent the form to the donor, the donor’s relatives and the other attorneys. When you’re registering the EPA, you’ll be asked for this date.

Once they’ve received the form, the people you’re telling have 35 days to object to the registration, but you can submit your registration as soon as you’ve told them; you don’t have to wait.

You can find the notification form EP1PG on this page of the UK government website.

 

How to register an enduring power of attorney: the actual registration

As soon as you’ve informed the appropriate people using the notification form EP1PG, you can fill out the registration form EP2PG, ‘Apply to register an enduring power of attorney’. You’ll be sending this to the Office of the Public Guardian.

If you’re registering with other attorneys, everyone who’s registering will need to sign the registration form.

You’ll need to pay a registration fee, which is currently £82. When you send the form off, enclose a cheque for the fee, made out to the Office of the Public Guardian. Write the name of the person who made the EPA on the back of the cheque.

You’ll also need to include the original EPA form (or a certified copy if the original is missing).

 

The address you need to send the form to is:

Office of the Public Guardian

PO Box 16185

Birmingham

B2 2WH

 

There’s a different address you can use if you’re a member of DX Exchange:

Office of the Public Guardian

DX 744240

Birmingham 79

 

You can find the EPA registration form EP2PG on this page of the UK government website.

If there are no objections, the registration will usually take eight to ten weeks.

 

How to give someone enduring power of attorney

An EPA can still be used if it was made and signed before 1 October 2007. Since then, though, the lasting power of attorney system has come in to replace it. Take a look at our guide to how to set up a lasting power of attorney.

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