If you’ve started looking into a Lasting Power of Attorney, you’ll quickly come across two versions: Health and Welfare, and Property and Financial Affairs. They sound similar, but they cover entirely different parts of your life, and understanding the difference matters when deciding what you actually need in place.
Property and Financial Affairs LPA
This covers the practical, financial side of your life: bank accounts, bills, pensions, investments, and property. Your attorney can, depending on how you set it up, manage everyday finances such as paying household bills, dealing with your bank or building society, collecting pension or benefit payments, and, if needed, selling or managing property on your behalf.
One useful feature of this type of LPA is flexibility over when it can be used. You can allow your attorney to start helping while you still have full mental capacity, useful if a physical illness or mobility issue makes managing your own affairs difficult even though your mind is entirely sound, or you can restrict it so it only comes into effect once you’ve lost capacity. That choice is yours to make when you set it up.
Health and Welfare LPA
This covers decisions about your medical treatment, day-to-day care, and where you live, including whether you move into a care home. Unlike the financial version, a Health and Welfare LPA can only ever be used once you’ve lost the mental capacity to make those decisions yourself. It has no earlier application, so your attorney cannot use it while you’re still able to decide for yourself.
You can also give your attorney specific authority over life-sustaining treatment decisions if you choose to, though this is entirely optional and something we’d discuss carefully together, since it’s a significant decision to hand over.
Why most people benefit from having both
These two LPAs work independently of each other and cover genuinely separate ground. Having only a Financial LPA means your attorney could manage your bank account but would have no legal authority to decide where you live or discuss your care with doctors. Having only a Health and Welfare LPA means the reverse: someone could make care decisions on your behalf but couldn’t access your bank account to pay for that care. For most people, particularly those thinking ahead about later life and the possibility of needing care, having both in place gives complete, joined-up protection.
Can you choose different attorneys for each?
Yes. There’s no requirement to use the same person or people to be named as attorneys for both documents.
A practical example
Consider a couple in their early 70s living near Exeter. The wife has both types of LPA in place naming her husband, and a son as a backup attorney. When she later needed to move into residential care following a decline in health, her husband was able to use the Health and Welfare LPA to be involved in decisions about her care home and treatment, while using the Financial LPA to arrange the sale of a property to help fund her care fees, all without needing to apply to the Court of Protection or wait for lengthy court approval at a time when the family needed to act relatively quickly.
What happens if you only set up one type?
If you later need the LPA you don’t have, your family would need to apply to the Court of Protection for a deputyship covering that specific area, a slower, more restrictive and costly process than simply having both LPAs already in place. It’s a common reason families come to me after a health scare wishing they’d set up both at the same time as the first.
Cost and registration
Each LPA is registered separately with the Office of the Public Guardian, and each currently costs £92 to register (with reductions or exemptions available for those on a low income or certain benefits). Since they’re treated as two separate legal documents, setting up both together, rather than one now and one later, is usually the more efficient approach, both in terms of time and the overall process.
What if you want to make one type?
There’s no rule requiring both, and it’s possible to set up one now and add the other later, though most people find it more straightforward, and often more cost-effective in terms of time and legal fees, to deal with both at the same time.
Attorneys acting jointly, or independently
For both types of LPA, you decide whether attorneys must act jointly (agreeing on every decision together) or jointly and severally (able to act independently, either together or alone). For a Health and Welfare LPA in particular, where decisions sometimes need to be made quickly, for example in a medical emergency, many people prefer “jointly and severally” so a single attorney isn’t held up waiting to consult another. For financial matters, some prefer requiring joint agreement on larger decisions as an extra safeguard, while allowing either attorney to handle day-to-day matters independently although this requires careful consideration and legal advice.
What attorneys cannot do
It’s worth understanding the limits too. Attorneys must always act in your best interests, not their own, and the OPG can investigate if there’s a concern about misuse. For a Health and Welfare LPA specifically, attorneys cannot refuse life-sustaining treatment on your behalf unless you’ve explicitly given them that authority in the document itself.
Reviewing your LPAs over time
Once registered, an LPA doesn’t expire, but it’s still worth reviewing periodically, particularly if your relationship with your chosen attorney changes, or if you’d now choose differently given how your circumstances have developed. You can revoke an LPA and create a new one at any point while you still have capacity to do so.
Frequently asked questions
Do I need both types of LPA, or can I choose just one?
You can set up either one on its own, but most people benefit from having both, since they cover different, non-overlapping areas of your life.
Can my attorney use the Health and Welfare LPA while I still have capacity?
No. Unlike the financial version, this LPA only becomes usable once you’ve lost the capacity to make those decisions yourself.
Is it more expensive to set up both LPAs at once?
Each LPA has its own £92 registration fee, so setting up both costs £184 in registration fees combined, but doing them together is typically more efficient than two separate processes at different times and can save on legal fees.