Do I Need Both Types of LPA?

Two forms, two different jobs

The property and financial affairs LPA lets your attorneys deal with money: bank accounts, bills, pensions, investments, and selling property. The health and welfare LPA lets them make decisions about your care: where you live, your daily routine, medical treatment, and (only if you grant it) life-sustaining treatment.

They are separate legal documents on separate forms, registered separately, each with its own £92 fee. Making one does not give your attorneys any power under the other.

What one without the other looks like

Picture a stroke that leaves you unable to communicate for months.

With only a finance LPA, your attorneys can pay the mortgage and keep the household running, but they have no legal say in your care. Decisions about where you live and what treatment you get sit with doctors and social services, who will consult your family but do not have to follow them.

With only a health LPA, your family can direct your care but cannot touch your money to pay for it. The care home fees, the bills, the pension: all frozen behind accounts nobody can lawfully operate, until someone applies to the Court of Protection anyway.

Either gap forces your family into exactly the court process the LPA was meant to avoid.

Is there ever a case for just one?

Sometimes. If you already have one type (perhaps an old enduring power of attorney covering finances), adding just the missing type makes sense. And some people feel strongly that medical decisions should rest with doctors rather than family, though the health LPA handles that directly: you can choose Option B for life-sustaining treatment and still give your attorneys a voice in everything else.

Cost is the honest objection, since two LPAs mean two registration fees. If it genuinely comes down to one, most advisers would say the finance LPA is the more urgent, because money problems arrive on day one of incapacity. But it is a compromise, not a plan.

The practical answer

Make both at once. The forms ask for almost identical information, the people involved are usually the same, and every signing session you need for one covers the other. Doing them together roughly halves the effort per document.

With PureWill

One set of questions fills in both official forms for £129, against £79 for a single LPA, and a couple can do all four for £199. The registration fees (£92 per LPA) are separate and paid to the government. If you are new to all this, start with what an LPA is, and note an LPA does not replace your will.