If you made a Lasting Power of Attorney and registered it with the Office of the Public Guardian in the period from 1 April 2013 to 31 March 2017 you should be entitled to a refund of part of the registration fee.
The Office of the Public Guardian has just announced that a refund scheme has been set up to allow you to claim your refund either on line or by telephone.
The refund has come about because it has been calculated that the actual cost of registering the LPAs was less than the amount charged.
You can find out more by visiting the OPG’s pages on claiming a refund via the DirectGov website.
If you are not sure whether you actually registered the LPA when you made it you can still contact the OPG and they will be able to tell you if there is an LPA registered in your name.
We will also be happy to check our records to see if we still hold an LPA for you and if it is registered with the OPG.
If your LPA is not yet registered
If your LPA is not registered, we can also advise on whether it should be registered now and can handle the registration for you. The OPG registration fee is now £82 per LPA (although remissions and exemptions are available if you are on a low income), and our charge for dealing with the registration of a single LPA is £250 plus VAT.
The OPG does now recommend that LPAs are registered as soon as possible after they are made, so that any problems can be ironed out while you still have mental capacity.
See our frequently asked questions for more on mental capacity and LPAs.
This also means that if you suddenly lose capacity to make your own decisions, due to an accident or sudden illness, your attorneys would not have to wait for the LPA to be registered before they can help you.
If you would like to speak to someone about your LPA, please call us on 01284 701131 and ask for Gillian Robson, Mary Peck or Laura Ruffell, who will be happy to advise.