Who will look after your affairs if you are longer able to?

As much as you try not to think about it you may sometimes find yourself thinking about what would happen if you lose the ability to manage your own affairs.

By putting a Lasting Power of Attorney (LPA) in place you can ensure that if this should happen your affairs will be looked after by someone you know and trust.

If you don’t set up a LPA and are then deemed mentally incapable of running your finances, your assets may frozen and it will be up to a court to decide who handles your affairs. The court may appoint a Solicitor this process can take a long time and be very costly.

Lasting Power of Attorney – a vital document

An LPA is a legal document which allows you to choose someone now that you trust to make decisions on your behalf about things such as your property and affairs or personal welfare at a time in the future when you no longer wish to make those decisions or you may lack the mental capacity to make those decisions yourself.

A Property and Financial Affairs LPA allows you to plan ahead by choosing one or more people to make decisions on your behalf regarding your property and financial affairs.   You can appoint a property and affairs Attorney to manage your finances and property whilst you still have the capacity as well as when you lack the capacity. For example, it may be easier for you to give someone the power to carry out tasks such as paying your bills or collecting your benefits or other income.  This might be easier for a lot of reasons; you might find it difficult to get about or talk on the telephone, or you might be out of the country for long periods of time. The decisions you could hand over to your Attorney(s) could include paying your bills, collecting your benefits or selling your house.

A Personal Welfare and Health LPA allows you to plan ahead by choosing one or more people to make decisions on your behalf regarding your personal healthcare and welfare.  These personal welfare decisions can only be taken by somebody else when you lack the capacity to make them for yourself; for example if you are unconscious or because of the onset of a condition such as dementia. 

You can give the attorney the power to make decisions about any or all of your personal welfare matters, including healthcare matters. This could involve some significant decisions such as giving or refusing consent to particular types of health care; whether you continue to live in your own home, perhaps with help and support from social services, or whether residential care would be more appropriate for you.

Bicester Wills is highly experienced in preparing Lasting Powers of Attorney for clients with a variety of requirements and expectations. For more information or to set up a Lasting Power of Attorney contact Gail Church on 01869 244329 or gail@bicesterwills.co.uk.

LPAs not just for the Elderly

This article from the BBC shows why Lasting Power of Attorney documents aren't just for the elderly.  Who would look after your financial affairs if you were no longer able to?
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-18067401

3 Simple Steps to Your Will

Want to get your Will sorted out but not sure what it involves?
3 Simple Steps
1 We would meet and have a chat about your own cirsumstances, what things you own, what your family situation is and where you want the things you own to go on your death. Most of the information I need from you comes from our conversation you don't have to fill in any forms or answer any quick fire questions.
2  I draft the Will for you returning again to meet with you and go through the document with you so you understand you Will.
3  Then we arrange the signing of the Will to make it legally binding.
Often my clients comment that the process is far easier than they thought.
It's that easy.
Get in touch now to get the process started.

Lasting Power of Attorney Documents

Lasting Power of Attorney (LPA)

An LPA is a legal document which allows you to choose someone now that you trust to make decisions on your behalf about things such as your property and affairs or personal welfare at a time in the future when you no longer wish to make those decisions or you may lack the mental capacity to make those decisions yourself.

A Property and Affairs LPA allows you to plan ahead by choosing one or more people to make decisions on your behalf regarding your property and financial affairs.   You can appoint a property and affairs Attorney to manage your finances and property whilst you still have the capacity as well as when you lack the capacity. For example, it may be easier for you to give someone the power to carry out tasks such as paying your bills or collecting your benefits or other income.  This might be easier for a lot of reasons; you might find it difficult to get about or talk on the telephone, or you might be out of the country for long periods of time. The decisions you could hand over to your Attorney(s) could include paying your bills, collecting your benefits or selling your house.

A Personal Welfare and Health LPA allows you to plan ahead by choosing one or more people to make decisions on your behalf regarding your personal healthcare and welfare.  These personal welfare decisions can only be taken by somebody else when you lack the capacity to make them for yourself; for example if you are unconscious or because of the onset of a condition such as dementia. 

The Attorney(s) you appoint to make personal welfare decisions will only be able to use this power once the LPA has been registered and provided that you cannot make the required decision yourself.  You can give the attorney the power to make decisions about any or all of your personal welfare matters, including healthcare matters. This could involve some significant decisions such as giving or refusing consent to particular types of health care; whether you continue to live in your own home, perhaps with help and support from social services, or whether residential care would be more appropriate for you.

If you want your attorney to have the power to make decisions about “life-sustaining treatment” you have to expressly give your chosen Attorney(s) the power to make such decisions on the LPA form. You can also give your Attorney(s) the power to make decisions about day-to-day aspects of your personal welfare, such as your diet, your dress, your daily routine. It is up to the Donor which of these decisions he/she wants to allow the Attorney(s) to make.  

Bicester Wills is highly experienced in preparing Lasting Powers of Attorney for clients with a variety of requirements and expectations.

Charitable Benefits - How to Save 4% IHT

From 6^th April 2012 the government is introducing new IHT legislation in the form of the Finance Bill 2012 that could affect anyone planning to pass a proportion of their estate to charity. Gifts to charity are already exempt from IHT but the new rules mean that the rate of IHT on the rest of the estate can be reduced from 40 per cent to 36 per cent. So, although the charity will receive the same amount, the non-charitable heirs should be better off under the new measures.

However, the new rules are complex and careful advice should be given as to how they will apply in each client’s circumstances. On death an estate will be divided into different components for tax purposes – each of which needs to be looked at separately. These are: property held jointly as joint tenants; property held in a trust that is treated as part of the estate for IHT purposes; and a general component – which is essentially everything else.

Within each of these components any reliefs or exemptions, such as the available proportion of the nil-rate band, which will be deducted first to ascertain the chargeable element. The charitable gift is then added back in to reach the “baseline amount”. If more than 10 per cent of the amount (after exemptions) within one component passes to charity then the reduced rate of 36 per cent will apply to the rest of the assets within that section.

Example 1

Let’s assume the survivor of a married couple dies after April 5 2012 leaving an estate of £1m, and that person’s Will leaves £50,000 to charity and the rest of the estate to their children.

After the combined nil-rate bands of £650,000 are taken into consideration the “baseline amount” here would be £350,000. This means that the £50,000 charitable gift comes to more than 10 per cent of the baseline amount so the reduced 36 per cent rate of IHT will apply to the bequest to the children.

As a result, the IHT liability is reduced to £108,000 instead of £120,000; the charity receives £50,000; and the children receive £842,000 – which is £12,000 more than they would have received under the current rules.  Even though the amount passing to charity is less than 10 per cent of the overall estate the reduced rate applies because it is more than 10 per cent of the “baseline amount”.

An added complication is that even a charitable gift under the survivor’s will of say £25,000 (which is less than 10 per cent of the “baseline amount” of £350,000 for the estate) could trigger the reduced rate of IHT if the estate consisted of more than one component.

Example 2

For example if, rather than passing outright, the assets of the first to die were held in trust for the surviving spouse (a common scenario to offer asset protection and tax savings) the estate would be split into two components. This means each component would be £500,000 and the “baseline amount” for the general component would be £175,000. As £25,000 is more than 10 per cent of £175,000, the reduced rate would apply to the rest of the assets passing under the survivor’s will.

It should be noted that the residuary beneficiary will always receive less as a result of the charity legacy both under the present and the proposed systems, but the reduction in the rate of inheritance tax will no doubt encourage more charitable giving which is part of the Government's background policy.

Lasting power of attorney for businesses

I just read this great article on EN the magazine for Entrepreneurs website http://www.enforbusiness.com/smetoolkit/lasting-power-attorney-businesses
it explains why as business owners we need to put provision in place to make sure our businesses can continue should we loose mental capacity.  Call me to discuss in more detail.

Linda Cummins, head of wills at legal firm Goldsmith Williams, explains that company owners should make arrangements to ensure their business continues to operate in the event that they become incapacitated.
If there are no plans in place for someone to have the legal authority to sign cheques and oversee the running of the business, there is every possibility that by the time the Court appoints someone to run it on behalf of an incapacitated owner-manager, the business will failed.
A lasting power of attorney, often referred to as an LPA, is a legal document that enables a selected person, or persons, to take over the day-to-day running of a business should the owner be either mentally or physically unable to do it themselves.
A common mistake many people make is to assume that because they have a will, everything is in order. In fact, a will only takes effect on death; it has no bearing on your business if you lose the capacity to run it but are still very much alive.
Accidents and illnesses that leave people incapacitated or hospitalised for extended periods can strike at any time and any age. According to the Department of Transport Road Casualties Annual Report, 22,660 people were seriously injured in road traffic accidents in 2010.
Over 130,000 people in England and Wales suffer a stroke each year, with around 10 per cent of those being under retirement age. One person in every 500 has Parkinson’s and, of those diagnosed, one in 20 is under the age of 40, while more than 16,000 younger people in the UK are living with dementia.
A lack of knowledge or "ostrich syndrome" is putting businesses at risk of being left in limbo or going under. People tend to think things like this will never happen to them or they have to be old before they suffer a debilitating illness, but "thirty somethings" are no more immune to injury or illness than the rest of us.
And it’s not just the business that will be affected either. The family of the company owner will be left unable to access funds to live off, adding considerable financial worry at an already very distressing situation.
By Linda Cummins

Need a Will but not sure how to go about it?

Do you want to tackle sorting out your Will but don’t know where to start?

Worried about the best way to go about it?

These are the worries of a lot of my clients have until they realise that the process is not as daunting as they first think.

I will visit you at a time and place that suits you, we will then talk about what you have and who you want to leave it to. 

You need to make some decisions about who will carry out your wishes – your Executors and who will look after your children should both parents die before they are 18 – your Guardians. 

But it is my job to guide you through this decision making process and advise you on the best way to express your wishes in your Will.

I have made it sound simple because with the right Will writer guiding you it can be a simple process and give you peace of mind and leave you with the feeling of “Why didn’t I do this years ago”.

Contact me now to discuss your individual needs and get your Will sorted out because without it the law dictates who gets what and Social Services will decide who will look after your children.