What is a property and financial affairs LPA?
This type of lasting power of attorney covers money and property: operating bank accounts, paying bills, managing investments, claiming benefits and selling a home. Once registered it can be used while you still have capacity, if you have given permission for that in the document.
That immediate-use option is more useful than it sounds. It allows an attorney to help during a temporary illness, an extended hospital stay, or a period abroad — without waiting for capacity to be lost.
Attorneys must keep the donor's finances separate from their own and maintain records of what they have done. Gifts are tightly restricted: customary gifts of reasonable value on customary occasions only. Anything larger needs Court of Protection approval, and this is the single most common cause of OPG investigations.
Registering the LPA with each bank, platform and provider takes time, and each has its own process. Doing it in advance, rather than in a crisis, is the difference between an inconvenience and a genuine problem.