Thousands of Lasting Power of Attorney applications are being rejected as a result of mistakes, according to a Freedom of Information request by Quilter.
The request by the wealth manager showed that since 2018, over 20,000 LPA applications have been rejected per year due to mistakes, totalling nearly 128,000 to April 2023.
In 2022, there were 777,741 total registered applications for LPAs but this is 8% lower than during the same period pre-pandemic, with 842,778 registered in 2019. However, this has improved from being 22% lower in 2020 and 16% lower in 2021.
The FOI data also showed that in 2022-23, it took an average 91.5 working days to register and dispatch an LPA application.
Quilter said common reasons for LPA applications being rejected include an incorrect signing order, missing information such as the date that the donor, attorneys or certificate provider have signed the LPA and incorrect witnesses being used.
Quilter said unworkable LPA requests, such as witnesses failing to put their full details on the LPA, also causes applications to be rejected as well as a failure to provide full names.
Rachael Griffin, tax and financial planning expert at Quilter, said: “LPAs are a crucial part of financial planning and it’s worrying to see so many rejected over the past five years. We can only hope that following rejection people still went through the reapplication process. There is no getting around the fact that it can be a long-winded process and, in some cases, can take months to be accepted.
“However, the attorney will ultimately be taking on a huge amount of authority over someone’s life, so the Ministry of Justice and Office of Public Guardian are right to ensure they are thorough and spot any mistakes to help avoid problems down the road.”
Griffin also called it a “worry” that the number of applications being accepted is still yet to reach pre-pandemic levels and urged the backlog to be tackled as quickly as possible.
She added: “This is one of those tasks that is easy to put off or put to the bottom of the to-do list. However, an LPA can only be registered while you have mental capacity – once you’ve lost capacity it is too late and while we can only hope for the best we should prepare for the worst.”
