General Power of Attorney (England & Wales)

Overview

A general power of attorney is a document by which one person, the donor, authorises another person, the attorney, to act on their behalf across the general run of their affairs. In England & Wales it is governed by the Powers of Attorney Act 1971, and it is a purely ordinary-law instrument: it is not registered with any public body, it can be created quickly and simply, and — critically — it is freely revocable by the donor and is automatically revoked by operation of law in certain circumstances. The single most important thing to understand about a general power of attorney is what it does NOT do: it does not survive the donor's loss of mental capacity. Section 1 of the Powers of Attorney Act 1971 and the general common law position mean that a general power of attorney is automatically revoked the moment the donor becomes mentally incapable of managing their own affairs, whether that loss of capacity is sudden (an accident, a stroke) or gradual (dementia). This makes a general power of attorney fundamentally unsuitable for incapacity planning — it offers no protection whatsoever for the exact situation most people are actually worried about when they think about giving someone authority to manage their affairs in case something happens to them. The document that IS designed for incapacity planning is a Lasting Power of Attorney (LPA) under the Mental Capacity Act 2005. An LPA is a fundamentally different legal instrument: it must be made on a prescribed statutory form, it must be registered with the Office of the Public Guardian before or at the point it is used, it comes in two distinct types (property and financial affairs, and health and welfare), and — unlike a general power of attorney — it is expressly designed to continue in effect, or in the case of a property and financial affairs LPA to be used at all, when the donor loses mental capacity. Anyone whose real objective is to plan for a future loss of capacity (their own, or that of a family member they are helping) needs an LPA, not a general power of attorney, and should take independent legal advice on setting one up. This template does not create, and must never be presented as, an LPA. When a general power of attorney IS appropriate: for short-term, ordinary-law delegation while the donor remains mentally capable — for example, the donor is going abroad for an extended period, is temporarily hospitalised for a physical (not cognitive) condition, or simply wants someone to handle day-to-day administrative or financial matters for a defined period while they remain fully capable of understanding what is happening. Parties: the Donor, who grants the power, and the Attorney, who receives it and undertakes to exercise it in the Donor's interests and to account for their actions. Key clauses: the precise scope of the powers granted (the Donor should always consider limiting the scope rather than using an unqualified general formula), the duration of the power (a fixed period, or until express revocation), whether the Attorney may appoint a substitute, the Attorney's obligation to account for their dealings, the circumstances of revocation, and an explicit, prominent statement that the power ends automatically if the Donor loses mental capacity. Mistakes to avoid: using a general power of attorney as a way to plan for the possibility of future incapacity — it will not work, and the family may discover this only when it is too late to arrange an LPA, at which point the only route is an application to the Court of Protection for a deputyship order, which is slower, more expensive, and less flexible than an LPA arranged in advance; granting an unnecessarily broad, unqualified set of powers, which increases the risk of financial abuse; and failing to set any time limit, leaving the power in effect indefinitely until expressly revoked.