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Reinstate the ability to grant an Enduring Power of Attorney

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The big idea

To reinstate the ability for someone to grant an Enduring Power of Attorney, as was previously possible under the Enduring Powers of Attorney Act 1985.

The replacement "product", the Lasting Power of Attorney, is a typical example of involving excessive bureaucracy, designed to prevent a perceived "evil". There may have been some abuse of the Enduring Power of Attorney regime (for which there was likely, anyway, to have been a remedy) but to impose an expensive alternative regime upon everyone, to govern against the possibility of occasional abuse is what this whole exercise should be seeking to resolve.

The old Enduring Powers of Attorney were a model of a simple and easy to understand  document, which anyone could read and understand, particularly with the excellent guidance notes embeded in the form itself.

Many Enduring Powers of Attorney, under the old regime, never needed to be registered and could, quite simply, be kept in reserve against the possibility of being needed at some time in the future when, quite properly, they needed to be registered.

It is possible that the Enduring Powerof Attorney and the Lasting Power of Attorney regimes could run in parallel but if the Government is serious about simplification the re-instaement, for the future, of the old regime, alone, has much to commend it.

Why does this matter?

For simplification, saving in cost (both for the individual and the State) and to avoid unnecessary interference with an individual's life and life choices.

The need for  Lasting Powers of Attorney to be registered when they are granted is of no use or benefit in the vast majority of cases.

Many people who would have "grasped the nettle" of completing an old style Enduring Power of Attorney now do nothing, instead, because the only available alternative is too bureaucratic, intrusive, complicated and expensive.

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