·         It is a wise move for those over the age of 75 to initiate a Power Of Attorney. This allows other people to look after your interests if you become incapacitated in any way. It should be on the ‘Ten things to do before you are 75’ list! Other younger people should do it too if they think they are ‘at risk of incapacitation’.

·         The best form would be a ‘jointly’ arrangement where two people nominated by you take decisions. It minimizes the likelyhood of ‘dodgy behaviour’ by the Attorneys towards you (The Donor).

·         Currently people are put off, either because they don’t know about it or they fear the expense (£120) or sometimes the complication of ‘jointly’ signatures and approvals puts off Attorneys.

·         Even if you go ahead it takes two months to set up and then around six weeks of hard work to actually implement. This is because it’s based on a 19th century system. The PoA is conferred by a 18 page document instead of by ‘THE REGISTER’ of the document. Numerous copies are taken of the document by each institution. Trees literally die!

The petition aims to rapidly speed up the process by making the Office of the Public Guardian store the PoA digitally. I. E. As part of the application process they would carry out a full ID proofing process on the Attorneys. This process could be held in abeyance until activated by The Donor or the Joint Attorneys. Once activated each Financial Institution; Utility etc would pay OPG to verify the PoA on the database via a secure; password protected link. There would be no need for paper copies to be held in each branch of your bank for example. Each Attorney could live miles apart, like lots of family members do these days. By charging the institutions the cost of creating the PoA for the Donor would fall. The speed of implementation would increase dramatically. Everyone in the chain would be better off.

What’s not to like?

So please sign: