Lasting power of attorney - acting jointly and severally

[hellothere]

Hi,

I have a question about a lasting power of attorney (LPA) where several attorneys are appointed to act jointly or severally.

If say three attorneys disagree with each other (for example, as to where the donor should live), how is the dispute resolved? Is there any majority rule, whereby two attorneys would take precedence over the third attorney, if they disagreed? And if the donor wanted one of the attorneys to have final say on a specific matter (e.g. where the donor should live), should that be specified in the initial LPA?

Thanks,
Clara

 

[nitram]

I don't think there is a majority rule, if they can't agree I don't think anything would happen until an attorney took action that another did not agree with. The dissenting attorney could then inform the OPG/COP that they thought the action was not in the donor's best interest and as he had a duty to oversee that any action was in the donor's best interest ask for a ruling.

This would be a sledge hammer approach, some compromise should be sought.

The form allows 3 choices of how attorneys can act, jointly, jointly and severally, jointly for some actions and severally for others.

Specifying that a certain attorney is uniquely empowered to perform a specific act does not fit in with any of the above choices which means that the application would be rejected as the statement would be in contradiction with the choice. There may be a way round this, you need specialist legal advice.

 

[hellothere]

Thanks, that's really helpful.

 

[optocarol]

Not sure about UK, if that's where you are. I'd think where someone lives is a welfare issue and in NZ there is only one welfare attorney.