What Happens If No Power of Attorney in England
Nobody Can Act on Their Behalf
When someone in England loses mental capacity — through dementia, stroke, a serious brain injury, or any other cause — and they have no registered Lasting Power of Attorney, no one has automatic legal authority to manage their affairs. If they signed an LPA before losing capacity, the attorneys may still be able to apply to register it; an unregistered Enduring Power of Attorney can also be registered before use. Not their spouse, not their adult children, not their next of kin.
Marriage does not grant the right to access a partner's sole bank accounts. Being listed as next of kin does not give authority to make medical decisions. A joint account may continue to function, but the other person's sole accounts, pensions, investments, and property are effectively locked.
The Court of Protection Route
If there is no signed LPA or EPA available for registration, the usual route for ongoing authority is to apply to the Court of Protection for a deputyship order. This is the legal process by which the court appoints someone — usually a family member — as a deputy with authority to make decisions on behalf of the person who has lost capacity.
The costs are significantly higher than registering an LPA would have been:
Application fee: £432 (as of July 2026). This is per application, and separate applications are required for property/financial affairs and health/welfare deputyship if both are needed.
Assessment fee: £102, payable to the Office of the Public Guardian.
Hearing fee: £266 if the court orders an oral hearing (common when family members disagree about who should be appointed).
Security bond: The deputy must take out a security bond to protect the person's assets against mismanagement. The cost depends on the value of the estate but typically runs to several hundred pounds.
Annual supervision fee: £320 per year for general supervision, payable every year the deputyship remains active. The deputy must also file annual financial reports to the OPG.
By contrast, registering a Lasting Power of Attorney costs £92 per document (£184 for both types) with no ongoing fees.
The Timeline
A deputyship application currently takes 6 to 9 months to process. During complex cases — particularly where family members dispute who should be deputy, or where the court needs additional medical evidence of incapacity — the process can extend to 12 months or longer.
During the ordinary application waiting period, no one automatically has authority to access the person's accounts, sell their property, manage their investments, or make binding decisions about their care. For an urgent specific decision, the Court can be asked for an interim order. Bills can go unpaid, care-home fees can accumulate, and the family may end up covering costs from their own pockets until the deputyship is granted.
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Healthcare Decisions Without an LPA
On the medical side, the position is different but still difficult. If someone loses capacity without a Health and Welfare LPA, healthcare decisions are made by the clinical team under the Mental Capacity Act 2005's "best interests" framework.
Doctors must consult family members and anyone involved in the person's care, but the family does not have the final say. The clinical team makes the decision, weighing the patient's past expressed wishes, their values and beliefs, and the views of those close to them.
This framework works adequately for routine medical decisions, but it creates real friction in contested situations — disagreements about whether to continue life-sustaining treatment, disputes about care-home placement, or conflicts between family members about the right course of action. Without a named attorney who has clear legal authority, these disputes can escalate to the Court of Protection, adding further delay and cost.
What Families Actually Experience
The practical reality is often worse than the legal framework suggests. The family learns their parent has dementia. They contact the bank, expecting to be able to manage their parent's accounts. The bank refuses. They contact social services, expecting to direct their parent's care. Social services explains the family has no legal authority.
The family then begins the deputyship application — a process that requires completing court forms, obtaining a medical assessment of capacity, notifying the person who lacks capacity and their close relatives, and waiting months for the court to process the application.
Meanwhile, the parent's bills are piling up. Their house may need maintenance. Care-home fees are accumulating. The family is paying from their own savings with no legal mechanism to access the parent's funds until the court acts.
The Prevention
An LPA costs £92 and takes 8 to 10 weeks to register. A deputyship has substantially higher first-year costs, including the £432 application fee, assessment fee, and annual supervision fee; it takes 6 to 9 months and imposes annual supervision while the deputyship remains active. The LPA must be created and registered while the donor still has mental capacity — once capacity is lost, it is too late.
Our Lasting Power of Attorney guide walks through the full registration process, including the fee remission options for low-income families and the signing sequence that must be followed to avoid OPG rejection.
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