Island Life Magazine Ltd June/July 2013 | Page 142

Legal issues with Terence Willey & Company

Thinking more about
our capacity?
As we are told, we are all living longer
and in turn rightly thinking about our
own longer term health and that of
our friends and family.
But it is important to have a Will
in place; we should also consider
making provisions in our lifetime
for circumstances when we may not
have capacity to manage our own
property and affairs. This can be
done by appointing Attorneys in a
Lasting Power of Attorney (LPA), who
can make decisions due to a loss of
capacity due to illness or accident.
LPA’s are something we are going
to start hearing more about as Alan
Eccles, the Chief Executive of the
Office of the Public Guardian (OPG)
- the organisation that handles the
registration of LPA’s - stated when the
Government freeze on marketing is
lifted.
The OPG’s aim is to have everyone
over 18 in the UK have an LPA, which
I feel is overly optimistic and unlikely.
But in what Eccles called ‘phenomenal
growth’, LPA registrations rose from
64,000 in 2009 to an estimated
210,000 In 2012/13, potentially
indicating that we are all thinking
more about making provisions should
our capacity become an issue.
The OPG’s drive is to target younger
people to get them thinking about
making such provisions, including
members of the Armed Forces, which
I feel is going to be a tall order as
in reality clients generally prefer to
put things off. Maybe the OPG

142

www.visitislandlife.com

may consider incentives such as a
reduction or even a waiver of their
own registration fee of £130 for those
in the Armed Forces to kick start this
as a new demographic of customer?
I agree with the OPG that LPA’s
are not merely for the reserve of
the elderly client concerned about
dementia or other mental health
issues, but also for people running
businesses who should give an LPA
serious thought as an essential
provision for the continued running of
the business in the case of incapacity.
If you would like any further advice

or assistance with LPA’s, or need
advice relating incapacity issues then
please contact Mark Willey on 01983
611888 or Terence Willey on 01983
875859.
Terence Willey & Company,
Lawyers and Commissioners for
Oaths (incorporating Malcolm
Daniells & Company and The
Bembridge Law Practice)
Terence Willey 01983 875859
Mark Willey 01983 611888
www.terencewilley.co.uk