Registering a Lasting Power of Attorney: Step-by-Step Guide 2026 UK

How do you register a Lasting Power of Attorney?

1An LPA must be registered with the Office of the Public Guardian (OPG) before it can be used — a signed but unregistered LPA has no legal effect whatsoever.
2GOV.UK says registration takes 8 to 10 weeks if there are no mistakes in the application. The fee is £92 per LPA, or £184 for both a Property and Financial Affairs and a Health and Welfare LPA.
3A reduction is available if you earn less than £12,000, and an exemption if you are on certain benefits such as Income Support. GOV.UK points you to the application form, which sets out the eligibility.
4Register immediately after signing. Even at 8 to 10 weeks, an application made during a health crisis can easily be too late — and a mistake on the form restarts the wait.
5If the LPA is not registered before the donor loses mental capacity, the only alternative is a Court of Protection deputyship, which is significantly more expensive and time-consuming.

A Lasting Power of Attorney (LPA) must be registered with the Office of the Public Guardian (OPG) before it can legally be used. A signed but unregistered LPA has no legal effect whatsoever. GOV.UK gives the registration time as 8 to 10 weeks if there are no mistakes in the application, and the fee as £92 per LPA.

Register before you need it: even at 8 to 10 weeks, an LPA registered only during a health crisis will often be too late
Fee: £92 per LPA — £184 if registering both a Property and Financial Affairs and a Health and Welfare LPA. A reduction or exemption is available on low income or certain benefits.
Online or paper: you can build the LPA online, but you still have to print and sign it and post it to OPG — GOV.UK: “If you create your LPA form using the online service, you will need to print it out to do this”

The gap between signing an LPA and registering it is one of the most dangerous mistakes people make in planning for the future. Signing an LPA is only the first step — until it is registered with the Office of the Public Guardian, it cannot be used by anyone. This guide explains the registration process in full and highlights the critical timing considerations.

Which jurisdiction: this page describes the England and Wales lasting power of attorney. GOV.UK: “Your LPA will be legally binding only in England and Wales.” Scotland has continuing and welfare powers of attorney, registered with the Office of the Public Guardian (Scotland); Northern Ireland uses enduring powers of attorney, registered with the Office of Care and Protection. The forms, fees and timescales below are the OPG (England and Wales) ones and do not apply in Scotland or Northern Ireland.

Signed vs Registered: A Critical Distinction

An LPA document becomes legally valid only once it has been registered with the Office of the Public Guardian. A signed, even witnessed and certified LPA that has not been registered has no legal effect and cannot be used by the attorney.

This matters enormously in practice. Consider a common scenario: an elderly person signs an LPA in case they lose mental capacity, but does not register it immediately, thinking they will do so “when needed.” If they then have a stroke or are diagnosed with dementia, they may no longer have the mental capacity to consent to registering the LPA — and if the LPA has not already been registered, it cannot be used. The family is then left with no choice but to apply to the Court of Protection for a deputyship order, which is far more expensive, time-consuming, and intrusive.

The only safe approach is to register the LPA immediately after it is signed and witnessed. Registration costs £92 per LPA and there is no disadvantage to registering early.

GOV.UK gives the registration time as 8 to 10 weeks if there are no mistakes in the application — and a mistake can restart it, since OPG may let you correct it and apply again within 3 months for £46. On top of that the people you have listed to notify get 3 weeks to raise concerns. If you delay until the donor is unwell, there may not be time. Register as soon as the LPA is signed.

Making the LPA online still ends in the post

GOV.UK has an online service for creating an LPA, and it does some useful work for you — if you use it, it generates and fills in the LP3 ‘notify people’ forms. But it does not turn registration into a wholly online process. GOV.UK is explicit under How to register: “To register, you need to sign your completed LPA form and send it to OPG. If you create your LPA form using the online service, you will need to print it out to do this.”

The sequence is:

Notify people first. Before registering, send an LP3 to everyone you listed as a ‘person to notify’. They have 3 weeks to raise concerns with OPG. LP3 is the notification form — it is not the registration application.
Apply to register as soon as those forms have gone out. Sign the completed LPA and post it to the Office of the Public Guardian, PO Box 16185, Birmingham, B2 2WH, with the fee. The address is on the form too.
Send the original. GOV.UK: “Make sure you include the original LPA form and the fee.” A certified copy is accepted only if you do not have the original, with a covering letter explaining why.

Older paper LPAs have their own route: if the LPA was made on forms LPA114 or LPA117 before 1 January 2016, or on LP PA or LP PW before 1 April 2011, you register using form LP2. Otherwise you will need to make a new LPA.

If there is a mistake on the form, GOV.UK says OPG may let you correct it and apply again within 3 months for £46 — which is the real cost of a rushed application, on top of restarting the wait.

The Registration Fee and Fee Remission Scheme

The current fee for registering an LPA with the OPG is £92 per LPA. If you are making both a Property and Financial Affairs LPA and a Health and Welfare LPA — they cover different areas of decision-making, so many people make both — the combined cost is £184. You can pay by credit or debit card, or by cheque made payable to ‘Office of the Public Guardian’ with your name on the back, sent with the forms.

GOV.UK describes two routes to paying less:

A reduction if you earn less than £12,000
An exemption if you are on certain benefits, such as Income Support

GOV.UK does not set out the eligibility on the page itself — it points you to the application form, which “has more information about eligibility”. Download and complete that form and send it with the registration application rather than relying on any figure quoted elsewhere.

The Certificate Provider’s Role

Before an LPA can be registered, a certificate provider must have signed the document to certify that the donor understands what they are signing and is not being pressured into making the LPA. This is a fundamental safeguard against abuse.

A certificate provider must be someone who:

Has known the donor personally for at least two years (a “person of knowledge”), or is a professional such as a solicitor, GP, or registered social worker (a “professional certificate provider”)
Is not a family member of the donor or any of the attorneys
Is not an employee of the donor’s care home (if they live in one)
Is mentally capable and over 18 years of age

The certificate provider certifies that in their opinion:

The donor understands the purpose of the LPA and the scope of the authority being granted
No fraud or undue pressure is being used to induce the donor to create the LPA
There is nothing else to prevent the LPA being created

If the OPG receives an LPA without a properly completed certificate provider section, the application will be rejected. This is one of the most common reasons for registration delays, so it is worth ensuring the certificate provider section is completed correctly before submission.

Current Registration Timescales and Why Acting Early Matters

GOV.UK’s published figure is 8 to 10 weeks “if there are no mistakes in the application”. That qualification is doing a lot of work: an error can mean re-applying within 3 months for £46, and the people you have to notify get 3 weeks of their own before you can even apply.

Even two or three months is a very long time in the context of a sudden health event. A person who has a heart attack, suffers a stroke, or receives a diagnosis of dementia may lose capacity within days or weeks — long before a newly submitted LPA comes back registered. And an LPA cannot be made at all once capacity has gone.

This is why the consistent advice from solicitors, the OPG, and financial advisers is to:

Create and register both types of LPA while you are in good health and have full mental capacity
Do not treat an LPA as something to do “when needed” — the moment you need it may be exactly the moment you can no longer make it
Review registered LPAs periodically to ensure the named attorneys are still suitable and willing to act
If circumstances change (attorneys move abroad, relationships break down), update the LPA sooner rather than later — changes require creating and registering a new LPA

A registered LPA that is never needed costs £92 and sits in a drawer. If capacity is lost before an LPA is in place, the alternative is an application to the Court of Protection for a deputyship, which is a longer and more expensive process — the court publishes its own fees, so check those rather than any figure quoted second-hand.