Business and Lasting Powers of Attorney
A Lasting Power of Attorney is a legal document which allows you to choose the people who may make decisions for you in the event you are not capable of doing so yourself.
There are two types of Lasting Power of Attorney available, one for management of your financial affairs (a Property and Financial Affairs LPA) and one to cover decisions regarding your personal care and medical treatment (a Health and Welfare LPA).
Before it can be used a Lasting Power of Attorney must be registered with the Office of the Public Guardian. Once registered a Property and Financial Affairs LPA can be used with the consent of the person who made the LPA, however a Health and Welfare LPA may only be used once the donor lacks adequate understanding to make decisions themselves. Many people assume that if they become unable to make decisions for themselves their spouse or close family can make decisions for them automatically. This is not the case and this is why making LPAs is so important.
A business owner needs to give particular thought to what would happen to their business if they were not able or available to run their business, and they could not pay their business’ bills and salaries, enter contracts, make management decisions and so on. This situation could arise not only if the business owner became unwell, but if they were absent traveling.
At Rogers & Norton we can advise when a second LPA for Property and Financial Affairs to cover business decisions, might be needed. This could be made alongside a LPA to cover Personal Property and Financial Affairs. A carefully worded Business Property and Financial Affairs LPA (‘A Business LPA’) is likely to be an important part of your plan for the long term security of your business.
It is often not appropriate to choose the same people to make decisions in respect of both your personal affairs and your business affairs, and for this reason you may wish to make one LPA for personal Property and Financial Affairs and the other LPA for business decisions choosing different attorneys. To be effective these LPAs would need to be carefully drafted to work alongside each other, a task which we can assist you with.
For a sole trader, your business is not likely to have a separate legal identity to you and making a business LPA may be particularly important for you.
If you are in partnership you may wish for our advice as to what provision your partnership agreement contains in the event of the incapacity of a partner. If this provision is inadequate we can assist in the preparation of the necessary Business LPA for you.
For a director of a company, once again you might seek our advice as to the provisions contained in the company’s Articles of Association for the incapacity of a director, and whether a Business LPA would be needed to keep the company running.
Until the end of March we are offering 20% off on all Lasting Powers of Attorneys. Should you wish to discuss Lasting Powers of Attorney further, please contact us and we will be happy to answer any questions.