Still time to claim a lasting power of attorney refund

People who were overcharged for registering Lasting Powers of Attorney (LPA) in the past have just under a year left to claim a refund.

A total of £54.8m is due to be repaid, but according to a report in the Sunday Times, only £14.2m has so far been claimed.

LPAs enable you to nominate someone you trust to make decisions on your behalf if you ever lose the ability to do so yourself through illnesses such as dementia.

The property and finance LPA allows you to appoint someone to look after your financial affairs and the personal welfare LPA lets you grant an attorney authority over such matters as health care and the kind of treatment you receive.

Both kinds of LPA have to be registered with the Office of the Public Guardian (OPG), which administers the system. In 2013, the number of people registering LPAs increased, which reduced costs for the OPG. These savings were not passed on to applicants in the form of reduced fees, meaning hundreds of thousands of people paid more than was necessary.

They are now entitled to claim back a proportion of those fees.

The refunds are available if you applied to register an LPA from 1 April 2013 to 31 March 2017. This also applies to Enduring Powers of Attorney (EPA). You must claim your refund by 1 February 2021.

You can make a claim if you’re:

• the ‘donor’ – the person who made the power of attorney
• an ‘attorney’ – appointed by the donor in an LPA or EPA to make decisions on their behalf.

If you were appointed as a replacement attorney, you can only claim when you’ve been formally appointed as an attorney and are now able to make decisions on the donor’s behalf. The refund must be paid to the donor.

You only need to make one claim per donor, even if you made more than one power of attorney.

The amount of refund varies between £34 and £54 and depends on when you paid the fees. You’ll also get 0.5% interest.

You can still claim a refund even if you don’t know when you paid the fees.

You can find out how to apply by visiting https://claim-power-of-attorney-refund.service.gov.uk/when-were-fees-paid, or by email [email protected] or by Telephone: 0300 456 0300 (choose option 6)

Please contact Nigel Gibson-Birch or Jonathan King if you would like advice about registering a Lasting Power of Attorney.