I work with clients locally and nationally; for my local clients I act as the Certificate Provider and witness, for clients I support locally I advise on who can fulfil the role of witness. In the previous blog I described the role of a Certificate Provider ( No just in Certificate Provision ) and this follow on blog describes who can be a witness for a Lasting Power of Attorney.

Ae ever, I will set the scene by describing briefly what a Lasting Power of Attorney is, then I will describe what needs witnessing before moving on to who can be a witness.

What is a Lasting Power of Attorney?

A Lasting Power of Attorney is an important legal document that lets you chose who would speak for you if you ever couldn’t speak for yourself through a sudden accident, illness or longer-term ill health. There are two different Lasting Powers of Attorney, one covers Health and Welfare and the other Property and Finance.

The person for whom the Lasting Power of Attorney is created is called the donor and the people (or persons) nominated to speak on behalf of the donor are called attorneys.

I have blogged previously about How to make a Lasting Power of Attorney and provide events for anyone wanting to find out more Advance Care Planning which includes sessions on Lasting Power of Attorney.

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What needs to be witnessed in a Lasting Power of Attorney?

For a health and Welfare Lasting Power of Attorney an independent witness must be present for the signing of section 5 about who can make life sustaining treatment decisions.

The next section to be witnessed is section 9 of the Lasting Power of Attorney, this means you are forming a legal agreement with your attorneys. It looks like this on a Lasting Power of Attorney document:

All attorney signatures then require witnessing.

There are more witnesses required for situations when a donor is physically unable to sign a Lasting Power of Attorney which warrants a blog for another day.

Who can witness a signature for a Lasting Power of Attorney

I’ll start by identifying who can witness the donor’s signature and it will be easier to say who cannot be a witness.

People who cannot witness a donor’s signature

· Anyone under the age of 18

· One of the attorneys

· One of the replacement attorneys (if applicable)

· An employee of a trust corporation that is your attorney or replacement attorney (for Property and Finance Lasting Power of Attorney only)

Moving now to who can witness an attorney’s (and replacement attorney’s) signature. All attorneys (and replacement attorneys must sign the Lasting Power of Attorney and their signatures must be witnessed. The same guidance applies for attorney witnesses as for donor witnesses (listed above).

It is worth noting that guidance states attorneys or replacement attorneys can witness each other’s signatures. When asked, I would always advise witnesses to be independent, this isn’t based on formal information but on an initiative feeling that it would be more appropriate to have independent witnesses.

Signatures cannot be witnessed online and must be done in person, and I’ll shout out here too to remember that all signing is done in black pen.

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Resource and information

You can find out more in LP12 Make and register your lasting power of attorney: a guide

Drafting this blog led me to find this Office of the Public Guardian video about witnessing signatures, a resource I hadn’t previously been aware of.

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