LP1F is 24 pages (GOV.UK, Lasting power of attorney forms, checked 1 November 2026), and most of them ask for names and addresses. The sections that decide whether the document does what you want are 3 and 5: how your attorneys make decisions, and when they can start. This walks the current edition of the form (08.25) in order, using the form itself and the Office of the Public Guardian’s own guide to it, the LP12, as the sources throughout.
Before section 1
LP1F is for property and financial affairs. It lets the people you appoint deal with your money, your bills, your bank, your benefits and your home, and it does nothing about your care or medical treatment; that is LP1H, our health and welfare walkthrough. You can make one or both.
GOV.UK’s forms page now titles them “LPA for financial decisions (LP1F)” and “LPA for health and care decisions (LP1H)” (GOV.UK, Lasting power of attorney forms, checked 1 November 2026).
You can only make it while you have mental capacity, which the OPG defines as the ability to make and understand a specific decision at the time it needs to be made (GOV.UK, LP12 guide, checked 10 September 2026). Someone else can fill the form in for you, but the guide is clear that you must still choose what goes into it.
The form exists on paper and through GOV.UK’s online service, which fills in the same sections and prints the same form for signing. Either way, everyone signs one original document (GOV.UK, Make a lasting power of attorney, checked 1 November 2026).
Section 1: the donor
Your name, date of birth and address, with an optional email address. The line worth pausing on asks for other names you use, such as a married name: the guide warns that an LPA missing a name you are known by can mean confusion or delays when your attorneys come to use it (GOV.UK, LP12 guide, checked 10 September 2026).
The guide also lists two things that can complicate a property and financial affairs LPA in particular: living or having property outside England and Wales, and being bankrupt or subject to a debt relief order. The LPA is made under the law of England and Wales and has no effect outside it.
Section 2: the attorneys
Full names, addresses and dates of birth for each attorney, in any order; the guide says each attorney is as important as the others. The form holds four. For more, you mark the “More attorneys” box and use continuation sheet 1, signed and dated before you sign section 9 (GOV.UK, LP12 guide, checked 10 September 2026).
You need at least one attorney and there is no upper limit. Two rules narrow who: an attorney must be 18 or over, and for this form cannot be someone who is bankrupt or subject to a debt relief order (GOV.UK, Choose your attorney, checked 1 November 2026). The guide adds a practical one: make sure each person has agreed before you name them, because an attorney can later object to the appointment and stop the LPA being registered.
A trust corporation can also be an attorney. The form says to fill in the first attorney space and tick the trust-corporation box, and the trust corporation signs continuation sheet 4 (OPG, form LP1F (PDF), 08.25 edition, checked 30 October 2026).
Section 3: how should your attorneys make decisions?
Mark one box. With one attorney, tick “I only appointed one attorney” and move on. With two or more, you choose between jointly and severally, jointly, or jointly for some decisions and jointly and severally for the rest (GOV.UK, LP12 guide, checked 10 September 2026).
The words you choose in section 3 change how your attorneys can act. Jointly and severally means attorneys can act on their own or together. Jointly means every decision needs all of them. The guide says most people choose jointly and severally because it is the most flexible and practical, and it warns that under any other option, if the attorneys cannot agree on a joint decision it cannot be made, and the LPA might become unworkable.
Leave the box blank with more than one attorney and the law decides for you: the guide says the legislation appoints them to act jointly, which may mean the LPA does not work the way you wanted. If you choose the mixed option, the decisions to be made jointly go on continuation sheet 2, in a statement such as “My attorneys must act jointly in decisions about selling or letting my house and may act jointly and severally for everything else”.
The form itself spells out what each option means if one attorney dies or can no longer act, and the answer ties section 3 to section 4.
| Section 3 option | How the attorneys decide | If one attorney dies or can no longer act |
|---|---|---|
| Jointly and severally | On their own or together | The LPA still works |
| Jointly | All of them must agree on every decision | All the attorneys become unable to act, and the LPA stops working unless you named at least one replacement in section 4 |
| Jointly for some decisions, jointly and severally for others | The decisions you list need all of them; the rest can be made alone | None of them can make the joint decisions, and the LPA stops working for those unless you named at least one replacement in section 4 |
Source: OPG, form LP1F, section 3 (PDF), 08.25 edition, checked 30 October 2026.
Section 4: replacement attorneys
Section 4 is optional; if you appoint no replacements, the guide says to leave it blank but still include the page. The form says replacements usually step in if an original attorney dies, loses capacity, no longer wants to act, becomes bankrupt or subject to a debt relief order, or is no longer legally your husband, wife or civil partner.
Those reasons are printed on section 4 of the form itself (OPG, form LP1F (PDF), 08.25 edition, checked 30 October 2026). Two replacements fit on the form; more go on continuation sheet 1.
There is a box for changing how or when replacements act. The guide says marking it can create complications, asks you to read its further guidance first, and suggests legal advice. If you do not have a reason to change the default, the box stays empty.
Section 5: when can your attorneys make decisions?
Section 5 is the choice that exists only on LP1F. You mark one of two boxes: as soon as the LPA has been registered, which also covers when you lack capacity; or only when you do not have mental capacity (GOV.UK, LP12 guide, checked 10 September 2026). A health and welfare LPA can never be used while you have capacity.
The guide’s examples for the first option are practical rather than dramatic: if you cannot leave the house or find it hard to talk to your electricity supplier, an attorney could deal with the bank or pay bills, or act for you while you are away on holiday. You can limit that in section 7 with an instruction, and the guide’s own example is “While I have mental capacity, my attorneys must not make any decisions about” selling your house.
The second option means nobody can use the LPA until you have lost capacity to make the decision in question, which is safer against misuse and slower when help is actually wanted. The form adds its own warning: this option can make the LPA “a lot less useful”, because your attorneys might be asked to prove you do not have mental capacity each time they try to use it (OPG, form LP1F (PDF), 08.25 edition, checked 30 October 2026). Neither is the correct answer; the form is asking which you want.
Section 6: people to notify
Section 6 is optional. You can name up to five people who will be told when the LPA is about to be registered, and who can object if they think you were pressured or that fraud was involved. Four fit on the form, and a fifth goes on continuation sheet 1 (GOV.UK, LP12 guide, checked 10 September 2026).
Whoever applies to register the LPA has to notify them using form LP3 immediately before the form goes to the OPG, and they have three weeks to raise concerns (GOV.UK, Register a lasting power of attorney, checked 1 November 2026). The guide says naming people is especially worth doing where there is a long gap between making and registering.
Section 7: preferences and instructions
Section 7 is optional, and it has the most scope for getting it wrong. Preferences are wishes your attorneys should keep in mind; instructions are orders they must follow. The OPG’s suggested wording keeps them apart, and an unlawful instruction has to be removed by the Court of Protection before registration. Our forms page sets out the wording.
Extra preferences and instructions go on continuation sheet 2, signed and dated before you sign section 9. Health and welfare instructions do not belong on this form.
Section 8: your legal rights and responsibilities
Section 8 is an information page, not a form to fill in, but it must stay in the document, and the OPG says the page is where you, your attorneys and your certificate provider read what you are each agreeing to. Remove it and the form is incomplete.
Sections 9 to 11: the signatures
Three signatures in a fixed order: you in section 9, witnessed; the certificate provider in section 10; each attorney in section 11, each witnessed. You sign first, always, and any continuation sheets before section 9. Who may witness which section, and who may be the certificate provider, is set out on our forms page.
Sections 12 to 15: registering it
Section 12 asks who is applying to register, you or the attorneys. Section 13 asks who the OPG should contact with questions and send the registered LPA to: the donor, an attorney, or someone else. Section 14 is the fee. Section 15 is the applicant’s signature, which comes last of all (GOV.UK, LP12 guide, checked 10 September 2026).
The form says the donor and the attorneys should not apply together. If the attorneys apply and you appointed them jointly in section 3, they must all sign section 15; otherwise one attorney can sign (OPG, form LP1F (PDF), 08.25 edition, checked 30 October 2026).
Section 14 has three boxes worth knowing about before you reach it. A box for a reduced fee, which sends you to form LPA120. A box for a repeat application, if a returned form is being resubmitted within three months, which needs the case number from the OPG’s letter. And the choice of card or cheque. The fee is £92, or £46 or nothing depending on the donor’s income and benefits; our cost page covers who pays what.
Registration takes 8 to 10 weeks if there are no mistakes (GOV.UK, Register a lasting power of attorney, checked 1 November 2026). The OPG cannot register the LPA until the fee is paid.
You do not have to register straight away, but the form says it is a good idea in case you have made mistakes. If registration waits until after the donor loses mental capacity, errors cannot be fixed, which could make the whole LPA invalid (OPG, form LP1F (PDF), 08.25 edition, checked 30 October 2026).
If you are not sure this is the form you need
Our which form do I need tool asks five questions and tells you whether it is LP1F, LP1H, both, or something else entirely, and what the fee would be. It takes a minute, it never asks for a name or an email, and nothing you enter leaves your browser.