Business Power of Attorney – LPA Service

Description

Business Power of Attorney?

Making a Lasting Power of Attorney (also called an LPA) is a big decision. It’s also a vital one if you own a business and/or hold shares in a company.

What will happen if something unforeseen occurs and you can no longer run your business? Who will make decisions about your business? You may have someone in mind who you think will make decisions for you, but this may not be possible.

When you make an LPA you are appointing an ‘attorney’. Your attorney will help you make decisions or make them for you when you no longer can. This will be when you don’t have the ‘mental capacity’ to make those decisions. An attorney can’t make any decisions whilst you are still able to make your own decisions.

Protective Step 

Making an LPA means you can protect your business and everything that you’ve worked for. You can decide ahead and provide instructions and preferences to help your attorney make decisions. You will have some say and control about what happens to your business. You control what happens in advance.

Future decisions

You will be trusting others to make future business decisions. Future decisions like:

• Day to day money management and payments (issuing invoices, collecting payments, paying your bills, paying employees and freelancers)
• How your business will run
• Who will do your work/management duties? How will they do it?

Why should I make a Business Power of Attorney?

Making a LPA is a sensible step to take. It gives you more control over how future decisions will be made when you can’t.

Keeping your choices and control

A lasting Power Of Attorney gives you some control and choices. It means that:

• You decide who can make future decisions
• You can appoint more than one person to be your attorney
• You will be directing how those decisions will be made whilst you are able to do so

What Happens Without an LPA? 

Without a Lasting Power of Attorney you have limited or no say when you can’t make your own decisions. Telling someone what you want to happen does not mean that it will. You need the support of a Power of Attorney.

Safeguards

Remember that your attorney can only make those future decisions for you when you’re unable to make your own. The attorney has a has a legal duty to act in your best interests at all times. They must also follow the Mental Capacity Act 2005 Code of Practice. This provides a legal framework for making decisions when people can’t make their own.

We help you to protect your business

Making a Power of Attorney is difficult.  As a team, we’ve faced those same decisions with our own loved ones.

We will help you make a Lasting Power of Attorney as easily and painlessly as possible.

 

Our Step-by-step Process 

(1) Once you’ve placed your order we start by taking some basic details from you via a questionnaire.

(2) Once we have the questionnaire fully completed from you  we arrange a chat to talk about your Power of Attorney.

Discussion

(3) We will discuss each type of decision that you can include. We’ll  explain the consequences of each one. We’ll also talk about who you’d like to be your attorney. We’ll answer any questions and deal with any queries you might have.

We don’t put a time limit on this chat because we want you to be in control and comfortable with the process.

Governance Documents 

We’ll also ask to see the applicable documents which govern how your business is run. For example, if you’re in partnership we’ll ask to see your partnership agreement. If you run a limited company we’ll ask to see your company’s Articles of Association. This means that we will tell you what changes you make to those document. We’ll also talk to you about other steps that you may want to take, like making a Will.

Draft

(4) The next step is we draft your Power of Attorney and send it to you via email. We’ll ask you to go through it and raise any queries with us.

(5) Once you’re happy with your Power of Attorney we’ll explain how and when the document(s) need to be signed. There’s a very specific signing process and we’ll make sure that you can use our video guide. You’ll need someone independent who confirms that you understand the implications and have chosen to make your LPA (we advise you on who is suitable).

Registration

(6) Once your Power of Attorney is signed you have appointed your chosen attorney(s). To make it official and to protect you, we’ll register it with the Office of the Public Guardian. You’ll need to pay a registration fee to the Office of the Public Guardian (currently £82 for each LPA).

(7) We’ll then finalise things and explain to you what changes you need to report.

Making an LPA should be easy. We’ll be there for you every step of the way.

 

Do you want to to appoint an attorney to deal with your health and welfare issues? 

You can also make a Lasting Power of Attorney about your health and welfare too. Have a look at our service here

 

Do you want a Power of Attorney but you are NOT running a business?

This service is for a financial Power of Attorney for someone who is running a business. If you want a Lasting Power of Attorney but you are not running a business, please look at our service here