You will be able to explain what an LPA does and the steps to make one.
Farah, from lesson 4.4, is 29 and sends her mother S$800 every month by standing transfer. Picture a bad accident on the way home. She survives, but a head injury leaves her unable to understand or make decisions for months. Her salary stops after a while. Her rent, her card bill and her mother's allowance keep coming. Her mother has the bank's phone number and nothing else, and the bank will not let her touch Farah's account.
That is the situation an LPA is built for. A will deals with what happens after you die. This lesson is about the gap before that, when you are alive but cannot decide for yourself.
A Lasting Power of Attorney, or LPA, is a legal document in which you choose one or more people, called donees, to make decisions for you if you lose mental capacity. It is made under the Mental Capacity Act and registered with the Office of the Public Guardian.
An LPA covers two areas, and you can give one or both. Personal welfare covers decisions about your care and daily life: where you live, who looks after you, who you see. Property and affairs covers your money and possessions: your bank accounts, your bills, your investments and your home. You can choose different donees for each, and you can name a replacement donee in case your first choice cannot act.
The LPA only takes effect if you lose capacity. While you can still decide for yourself, you stay in charge, and you can cancel the LPA as long as you have capacity. It ends when you die, and at that point your will and your nominations take over.
Farah could name her mother as her welfare donee, because her mother knows her best. For property and affairs she might choose her older brother, who is organised with money and lives nearby, so the rent, the bills and the S$800 allowance carry on being paid.
If you lose capacity without an LPA, nobody has an automatic right to manage your affairs. That includes your parents, your spouse and your adult children.
Your family would have to apply to the court to be appointed as your deputy, so they can make decisions on your behalf. That means forms, often a lawyer's bill, and weeks or months of waiting at a time that is already hard. The court may also limit what the deputy can do. Meanwhile, bills go unpaid and accounts sit frozen.
An LPA settles the question in advance, and the person you chose is the one who acts.
The process runs through the Office of the Public Guardian, and most people use the standard form.
First, choose your donees and decide what each one covers. Talk to them before you put their names down, since they are taking on real work and should hear from you what you would want.
Second, fill in the form. The standard form, known as Form 1, can be completed online through the Office of the Public Guardian's website using Singpass. If you need wording outside the standard options, there is Form 2, which a lawyer drafts for you.
Third, have the form certified. You sign it in front of a certificate issuer, who must be on the approved list: an accredited doctor, a practising lawyer or a registered psychiatrist. The issuer checks that you understand what you are signing and that nobody is pressuring you. Your donees sign their part too.
Fourth, the form is submitted to the Office of the Public Guardian, which registers it. Only a registered LPA can be used.
The forms, the fees, the list of certificate issuers and the eligibility rules for you and your donees are all on the Office of the Public Guardian's website. They are revised from time to time, so check them there rather than relying on a figure someone mentions. The certificate issuer also charges for their time, so ask before booking.
Most people find the form easy and the names hard.
For welfare, pick someone who knows your values and will speak up for you with doctors and family. For property, pick someone careful with money and honest, who lives close enough to sit in a bank branch and sort out paperwork. One person can do both. Often two people do it better, because the relative you feel closest to may be the one who loses receipts.
Think about whether your choices will still make sense in five or ten years, and whether a replacement donee would help if your first choice is your parent and may not be able to act later. Farah names her brother as the replacement for her mother.
Before you go further, settle the two names. Think about who you would trust with your welfare and who with your money, and what makes each of them the right person.
Write down who you would choose as your donees for welfare and for property, and one reason for each choice.
Junxiong-WFG Organisation is an authorised representative of AIA Financial Advisers Private Limited (Reg. No. 201715016G).