A Lasting Power of Attorney (LPA) allows you to appoint someone, or multiple people, to assist you with your financial and/or healthcare decisions if you were unable to manage these yourself in the future due to accident or illness or simply wished to have some help to manage your finances and bills.

Occasionally, persons appointed may be unable to act as attorney in the future due to accident, illness or their own death. To cover such situations, it is possible to appoint replacement attorneys who can then step in and act on your behalf to ensure your affairs are still managed.

In creating an LPA, you should consider whether you should include replacement attorneys carefully and how and when they can act as this will need to be included when setting up the  LPAs.

What are replacement attorneys?

Replacement attorneys are people who are appointed in an LPA to step in and act should your original attorneys no longer be able to.

A replacement attorney cannot stand in for another attorney on a temporary basis, for example if an attorney is on holiday, and will normally step up to act if a main attorney has lost capacity or is deceased.

How do replacement attorneys act?

This depends on how many original attorneys are appointed to act in the LPA and how they are instructed to act if more than one.

Where a sole attorney has been appointed to act, a replacement attorney can only start acting when the original appointed attorney can no longer act.

Where multiple attorneys have been appointed to act jointly, the replacement attorney will step in as soon as one of the original appointed attorneys can no longer act and will also be appointed jointly. Where attorneys have been appointed to act jointly and severally, the replacement attorneys will act jointly and severally with any of the remaining original attorneys.

This is subject to the LPA stating otherwise. For example:

• Replacement attorneys are to act in a certain order i.e. If one of my attorneys Mrs Smith can no longer act, I would like that attorney to be replaced by my substitute attorney Mrs Dawes. If Mr Smith can no longer act then I would like that attorney to be replaced by Mrs Apple.

• Replacement attorneys are not to step in unless all of the original attorneys are unable to act.

Should I include replacement attorneys?

Whether to include replacement attorneys in the LPA is largely dependent on the number of main attorneys appointed and the risk of those persons being unable to act for you in the future.

You may for example only wish to appoint a spouse as a main attorney and include children as substitute attorneys. There can be other reasons, such as the surviving spouse having health concerns of their own, why it may be preferential to include the children as main attorneys, perhaps jointly and severally, with the spouse from the outset, but your preference or circumstances may mean the substitute route is more appropriate.

As always, it is really important to take legal advice off experienced solicitors to ensure the LPA is fit for purpose and tailored to your wishes. How you choose to set up the LPA can have a significant impact on how your attorneys can assist you if required in the future and often problems in operation only become apparent when attorneys need to act, meaning it is too late to change the documents.

Our experienced and trusted solicitors are available to discuss and prepare Lasting Powers of Attorney at your nearest Clark Willis Solicitors office, in either Darlington or Northallerton. We are also able to offer home visits for those who struggle to attend our offices. Our team includes members of the Society of Trust and Estate Practitioners( STEP) and Lifetime Lawyers who specialise in family inheritance and succession planning. For more information contact your local office or call 08000315450 or visit www.clarkwillis.com