Explaining what a lasting power of attorney is takes a paragraph. The thing that actually stops applications is more mechanical: the pages have to be signed by the right people in a fixed order, and a signature out of sequence can stop the whole thing being registered.
The two forms, and which one you need
There are two lasting power of attorney forms. LP1F covers property and financial affairs. LP1H covers health and welfare. You can make one or both, but they are separate forms, separate applications and separate fees, and they cover things the other cannot.
Each runs to 20 pages, including the information page at section 8, page 9. The Office of the Public Guardian’s own advice is to check the bottom right of every page to confirm you are using the right form and that the pages are in order (GOV.UK, Avoiding errors when completing a lasting power of attorney form, checked 10 September 2026).
If you are making both at once, keep the two sets of pages apart. The OPG warns that mixing them can mean making a new LPA and paying the fee again.
The signing order is not a suggestion
This is the part with the least margin for error, and it is set out in one OPG document rather than on the form. You, the donor, must always be the first person to sign. After that the order is fixed, and a signature made out of sequence can stop the application being registered at all.
The order is the same on both forms, with one extra step at the start of a health and welfare LPA (GOV.UK, Avoiding errors when completing a lasting power of attorney form, checked 10 September 2026):
- On a health and welfare LPA only: you sign and date section 5, and your witness signs it.
- You sign and date any continuation sheets.
- You sign and date section 9, and your witness signs it.
- The certificate provider signs and dates section 10.
- Each attorney signs and dates section 11, each with their own witness.
- The applicant signs section 15, once every attorney has finished.
Everyone can sign on the same day. What matters is the sequence, not the interval — the OPG’s own worked example runs across five separate dates in September and October.
Everyone signs the same piece of paper
One rule shapes the logistics of the whole thing, and it sits in a single sentence on GOV.UK. GOV.UK states that everyone must sign the same original document, and that they cannot sign copies or use digital signatures (GOV.UK, Make a lasting power of attorney, checked 1 November 2026). There is one form, and it has to physically reach every person who signs it.
If your attorneys live in different parts of the country, that means posting the form between them in the right order rather than sending each of them a copy. Build the time for that into your plans, because the order below still has to hold while the document travels.
Who can witness what
Witnesses must be 18 or over and give their full name and address, and full name means first names and last name rather than an initial. The rules on who may witness differ between sections rather than applying uniformly across the form.
The witness for section 5 cannot be an attorney. The witness for section 9 cannot be an attorney either. The witness for section 11 can be another attorney. And the donor cannot witness an attorney’s signature at all (GOV.UK, Avoiding errors when completing a lasting power of attorney form, checked 10 September 2026).
The certificate provider has to be impartial
The certificate provider is the person who confirms you understand what you are signing and that nobody is pressuring you into it. That role only works if they are genuinely independent, so the OPG rules out several of the closest people to you.
Family members are not accepted. An attorney is not accepted. Your employee is not accepted. The full list of who can and cannot act sits in the OPG’s guidance booklet, the LP12 (GOV.UK, Avoiding errors when completing a lasting power of attorney form, checked 10 September 2026).
Preferences are wishes, instructions are orders
The form lets you add both, and the difference between them is legal rather than stylistic. Preferences are guidance your attorneys should consider and may depart from. Instructions are mandatory and must be followed. The OPG suggests specific wording that keeps the two apart on the page.
For a preference, write “I would like…” or “I wish my attorneys to…”. For an instruction, write “My attorneys must…” or “My attorneys have to…”.
An instruction that is unlawful has to be removed by the Court of Protection before the LPA can be registered, and the OPG says this will significantly delay registration. Its own example is assisted dying. Instructions also cannot cross between the two forms: health and welfare instructions do not belong on an LP1F (GOV.UK, Avoiding errors when completing a lasting power of attorney form, checked 10 September 2026).
Mistakes: no correction fluid, ever
There is a right way to correct an error on the form and several wrong ones. Correction fluid and stickers are the wrong ones: the OPG states it will not be able to register an LPA that has them, and you will have to pay again for a new one.
The right way is to put a line through the error, write the correct version next to it, and have the person who made the mistake write their initials beside the correction. If the witness put the wrong address, the witness initials it — not you (GOV.UK, Avoiding errors when completing a lasting power of attorney form, checked 10 September 2026).
What it costs and how long it takes
Registering a lasting power of attorney costs £92, and GOV.UK states that both types together cost £184. A reduction or exemption may be available (GOV.UK, Register a lasting power of attorney, checked 1 November 2026). Registration takes 8 to 10 weeks if there are no mistakes, and GOV.UK says it is usually quicker if you make it and pay online (GOV.UK, Make a lasting power of attorney, checked 1 November 2026).
Before registering you must send a notification form (the LP3) to everyone you listed as a person to notify, and they have three weeks to raise concerns with the OPG. The online service creates and fills in the LP3 forms for you (GOV.UK, Register a lasting power of attorney, checked 1 November 2026).
You can pay by credit or debit card, or by cheque made payable to ‘Office of the Public Guardian’ with your name written on the back. Completed forms go to the Office of the Public Guardian, PO Box 16185, Birmingham B2 2WH, with the original form and the fee (GOV.UK, Register a lasting power of attorney, checked 1 November 2026).
Two people you cannot appoint
Most guidance covers who you should choose, and rather less covers who you cannot. Two categories are barred outright from being an attorney on a property and financial affairs LPA: anyone who is bankrupt, and anyone subject to a Debt Relief Order. GOV.UK attaches both bars to the property and financial affairs LPA specifically.
Beyond that, an attorney must be 18 or over and have the mental capacity to make their own decisions. They do not need to live in the UK or be a British citizen (GOV.UK, Choose your attorney, checked 1 November 2026).
If you appoint more than one, you decide whether they act jointly — all decisions together — or jointly and severally, where any of them can act alone. That choice has consequences later, because the OPG cancels an LPA if an attorney dies and the attorneys had to act jointly, or if there was only one attorney (GOV.UK, Changes you need to report, checked 1 November 2026).
The final check before you post it
The OPG publishes a checklist for the moment before the envelope is sealed, and it is worth working through rather than trusting a read-through. Pages 1 to 20 all present, and — against every instinct about posting a legal document — not stapled, fixed or bound together in any way.
Then, six checks, each from the OPG’s own list (GOV.UK, Avoiding errors when completing a lasting power of attorney form, checked 10 September 2026):
- The form type is the same on every page.
- There are no printing errors.
- On a health and welfare LPA, option A or B is chosen in section 5.
- The sections are signed and dated in the right order.
- Your details and your attorneys’ details are correct.
- Every witness has given a full name on every section they signed.
Going further
Two things this page does not do are done elsewhere. Our LP1F walkthrough and LP1H walkthrough take each form section by section. Our cost page covers who pays £92, who pays £46 and who pays nothing, and the which form do I need tool answers both questions in five clicks.
If an attorney already appointed is misusing the power, our misuse page sets out who can stop them.
If it is already too late for an LPA, our deputyship page covers the Court of Protection route.
When to pay someone instead
This is a form you can complete yourself, and it is written to be completed without a lawyer. But there are situations where the cost of getting it wrong could exceed a solicitor’s fee: where the estate is complicated, where family members disagree about who should act, or where you want instructions that go beyond the ordinary.
An unlawful instruction has to be removed by the Court of Protection before the LPA can be registered, and the OPG says this will significantly delay registration (GOV.UK, Avoiding errors when completing a lasting power of attorney form, checked 10 September 2026). If you are unsure whether what you want to write is an instruction or a preference, that uncertainty is itself a reason to ask.
Our guide to what happens when there is no will covers the other side of the same problem: what the law decides when nobody wrote anything down.
Once the power is registered, the job starts: managing a parent’s money covers bank access, records and gifts, when a company will not accept it the complaints route, and when a relative refuses to make one what happens if there is never a power at all.
If the attorneys need to change later, changing or removing an attorney covers revoking a power, taking one attorney off, and when an appointment ends by itself.