Really looking for any practical advice in a situation where:
P now lacks the capacity to make decisions Re property and financial affairs and for most health and care decisions,
LA has found out that P, when they had capacity (NB: these are not case specific dates), created/executed an LPA for P&A and H&W in 2016, and then, it also turns out in 2018 they created another LPA for P&A and another LPA for H&W.
NB: Neither LPA documentation has provided different instructions for the different attorneys, so the instructions section of the form is blank.
In the office today we had assumed this would be an error of the OPG, honest mistake, but apparently not. We have been told by the OPG, not saying they are wrong - just surprised, that in principle a person can have multiple LPA’s, and unless they have revoked previous versions they are in fact all active.
You could maybe imagine that this would be manageable where all the attorneys come together and all agree about best interests for all relevant decisions, or maybe where instructions stated attorney 1 does X and attorney 2 does Y (I am clutching at straws here), but what on earth do you do where they do not all agree? Do you just treat it like a case where 2-joint LPA’s for H&W, for example, disagree? If that’s the case then relatively easy to work through.
I can’t see any practical guidance on this anywhere on the OPG website, I have seen on a few other less reputable forums, so wanted to check here, that if there is a disagreement you would look to take the necessary steps to revoke the LPA that appears not to be acting in P’s best interests.
Has anyone come across this before and what did you do?
First you need the copy of LPA,otherwise confirm with Public Guardianship office.Liaise with them to find out who is doing what,all of them agree with the care plans for Health/care.
Regarding Property/Finances better,if P got any relatives apart from PA,can monitor.
Thanks Sara, we have already liaised with the OPG, and have copies of all 4 of the LPA document (2 for PA & 2 for H&W), my question was really whether anyone has ever come across the situation of multiple LPA’s in place for one person, as I haven’t in 12 years of work and no one in my office had ever seen it either (joint attorneys etc yes / multiple LPA’s created no)… I do agree with your points and that is the process we are following, but as the attorney’s (there are quite a few) across the 4 LPA’s, for the multitude of decisions needed, don’t seem to want to reach a consensus, then I imagine, as you suggest, it is off to CoP we go… Just a situation I have never seen before.
I never heard of this either. I suppose the easier route is to apply for deputyship which would give you overall control and mention the LPAs. If the CoP can duplicate LPAs, then why not give deputyship and override the LPAs? Be curious to know outcome.
Glad it wasn’t just me Kyle , and thanks for your response… Once the case is dealt with I will ask the practitioner leading on the case to write an anonymised/generalise summary of what steps we had to take and the general advice we were given by the OPG and our legal departments, and then post it as an update in case it is of help for future reference.
I’m curious. Have you seen the LP1F form? What did the donor say in section 3? Can the attorneys act jointly or jointly or severally? Did the second form list the original attorneys? It sounds complicated, but applying for deputyship seems drastic at this stage, as the attorneys might work well together in the person’s best interest.
So, without sharing too much about the case, what i can say is first 2 LPA’s are multiple attorneys acting jointly, second set of 2 LPA’s is only 1 attorney (also named as attorney in original LPA’s) named as sole attorney for both on second set… In relation to the ‘attorneys might work well together in the person’s best interest’, oh if only that were the case . I tried to make my initial post vague, but I can say that no, this will not happen in a million years (we have offered support and guidance to attempt to facilitate this - using the OPG guidance for attorneys to help facilitate these discussions)!
This is interesting, like others, this is the first I have heard of multiple LPAs being appointed in this manner. This seems very strange and also confusing for those on the ground supporting the person. I would be interested to hear the outcome, as the OPG surely need to give clear guidance on how such situations are managed.
Out of interest, was the first LPA ended by the person? I read the first LPA had multiple persons and the second LPA had one nominated person (which was one of the original LPAs). This gives the impression the person changed their wishes - this is definitively an issue the OPG need to look at.
I do promise to update everyone when the case is finally concluded.
In relation to ‘was the first LPA ended’, no and that is the problem, it wasn’t revoked and it is now a bit of a tit for tat now between the attorneys (family members) across all the LPA’s… I am also not so sure the person changed their wishes, if you catch my drift! Once the case is resolved i will ask the practitioner to do an update.
It is really strange - as I didn’t think you could do this. I have been having been doing some research for you but cannot find anything relating to this.
I am really surprised the original LPA was not looked at before the second was registered, especially given the same name appears on both. I wonder whether the second LPA was created using the online service or was used as a mechanism to revoke the first.
I hope the OPG will update the website advising there can be multiple LPAs in this manner and how this should be approached, as this just opens a can of worms.
In respect of the case, one would hope the OPG are looking into the LPAs given there is conflict and they are not working together.
So, still looking into this (we have had three cases of this occurring in 6 months in the LA I work in), but thought I would share a response I became aware of from the OPG (no client identifiable information is included):
[…] we hold [more than two] valid and registered LPAs for the donor, which match the details provided in Section 2 of the OPG100 form. All three documents remain active, and the attorneys named within them are authorised to act.
A donor can create and register as many LPA documents as they wish and no document supersedes, cancels or overrides another unless explicitly stated. As you will be aware having multiple documents in place can be confusing on who can act, however as they are [all] registered, the use of the documents will be decided by each individual third party they are used with.
We are requesting that the OPG provides us with further guidance both for us to consider in practice but also to offer to Donor’s and Attorneys where multiple LPA’s have been registered. I will share the guidance here if it is forthcoming.
In short, you need to work with the donor and attorneys to see whether the donor specified what each different attorney should be doing in their specific LPA for H&W of P&A role (question - had the donor stated anything in the ‘instructions’ sections of the relevant LPA form?)… The problem is that most ‘donors’ either have not stated what decision they would like each separate attorney to make. As the below quote from the OPG explains, try and find a way to work with the relevant attorneys, and donor if able, but seek advice from your legal team and OPG if it become unworkable.
A donor can create and register as many LPA documents as they wish and no document supersedes, cancels or overrides another unless explicitly stated. As you will be aware having multiple documents in place can be confusing on who can act, however as they are [all] registered, the use of the documents will be decided by each individual third party they are used with.
, and thanks for your response… Once the case is dealt with I will ask the practitioner leading on the case to write an anonymised/generalise summary of what steps we had to take and the general advice we were given by the OPG and our legal departments, and then post it as an update in case it is of help for future reference.
. I tried to make my initial post vague, but I can say that no, this will not happen in a million years (we have offered support and guidance to attempt to facilitate this - using the OPG guidance for attorneys to help facilitate these discussions)!