It is a document appointing a trusted person to exercise legal authority to make decisions and deal with a person’s financial and or welfare affairs in the event of their loss of capacity to make those decisions personally.

If you do not have a Power of Attorney in place and were to suffer some incapacity, it may be necessary for your next of kin to apply to the court for a Guardianship Order. Having a Power of Attorney in place avoids this process and provides peace of mind.

You can make a Power of Attorney at any age or time in your life. Please be aware, you can only enter into a Power of Attorney when you have your full capacity to do so, as a Power of Attorney requires to be certified by an independent professional.

Simply call us to make an appointment and we will take care of the rest.

You can appoint as many as you want but we would suggest no more than three. If you only appoint one Attorney, it is highly recommended that you appoint a substitute Attorney. You should appoint people you trust to make the best decisions on your behalf.

Unless you advise otherwise, an attorney with financial powers will be able to act on your behalf, any time after your Power of Attorney is registered. You do not have to suffer from any incapacity before these powers can be exercised.

An attorney having welfare powers will only be able to act on your behalf in the future if you were to lose capacity to make your own welfare decisions.

If you do not have any pressing reason for your Power of Attorney to be registered as a matter of urgency, it will likely take up to six months for an application to be registered. This is because the Office of the Public Guardian (Scotland) were only processing emergency applications during the first lockdown and have a significant backlog.

If you have any health or financial reasons why you need your Power of Attorney back urgently, we can submit an expedited application on your behalf, and if accepted by the Office of the Public Guardian, your Power of Attorney could be registered within two weeks.

Once the Office of the Public Guardian register your Power of Attorney, they send the registered Deed to our firm. Our normal process is to post your registered Power of Attorney to your home address for your retention and safekeeping. We will advise you to keep the registered deed in a safe place, and suggest you tell your Attorneys where to locate it, should they ever have to uplift the document from you and act on your behalf.

They would need to uplift the registered Power of Attorney document from you and exhibit same, along with their ID, to all relevant places.

On the person’s death, or, if the person revoked their Power of Attorney.

As long as you have capacity, you can amend your Power of Attorney. You could remove an Attorney, add an additional Attorney, revoke your Power of Attorney completely or make a fresh new one. A Solicitor could assist you with any amendments you require.