If you wish to be appointed as a property and financial affairs deputy then you must also pay a security bond, which is effectively a type of insurance that protects the finances of the person you are a deputy for. The amount the deputy pays depends on the value of the estate of the person they are deputy for as well as how much of the estate the deputy controls.
This compares with the cost of registering an LPA, which currently stands at £82 for each power of attorney if you are in England or Wales. In Scotland it costs £75 to register a power of attorney while in Northern Ireland it is £115.
There is also an issue of choice. When putting a power of attorney in place, the person chooses someone they trust to undertake the role and this decision is taken while the person still has the mental capacity to make that choice. While there have been some high profile cases where this trust has been misplaced, in most cases it does work.
Under the deputyship regime the deputy is appointed by the Court of Protection for someone who is already suffering from a loss of mental capacity. The person does not have any say over who is looking after their affairs and the Court of Protection may appoint someone the person would not have chosen themselves. LPAs do still have a role to play.
While abuses cannot be stamped out completely, more can be done to make the LPA system more robust. For example, having more than one person acting as an attorney would go some way towards improving the process. Having more than one attorney would mean that decisions are likely to be questioned more. If one attorney wanted to do something, they would need to run it by the other attorney first. As it currently stands, people can appoint more than one attorney – this should be made a requirement.
Warning system
In addition, there is more that can be done to detect whether an attorney is acting inappropriately. For example, institutions such as banks could do more when dealing with people who have power of attorney. In the case of Frank Willett, his attorney withdrew almost £9,000 in one single bank transaction. This is despite the fact that when Mr Willett had been a regular visitor to the branch it was only to cash a weekly £70 cheque.
