Lasting Power of Attorney – Registration times.
The office of the Public Guardian, in charge of applications to register Lasting Power of Attorneys and Enduring Power of Attorneys have stated that they are experiencing exceptionally high levels of applications to register LPA’s. They have stated that this is partly due a feature on the BBC One Show in January.
The number of applications received have more than doubled than those received in the same period in 2009 as can be seen from the table and statement prepared by the OPG below:
Total Number of LPA Applications Received by Month
March April May
2009 7,669 7,030 6,312
2010 16,103 14,266 13,552
From a high of 14 weeks, our measures to deal with the high volumes have already brought the timescale from receipt to dispatch of a registered LPA down to 12 weeks. Our target (since April 2010) for returning your registered document is 9 weeks from receipt. We will continue with our measures to reduce the waiting time until we have hit this target. Please note that 6 weeks of this period is the statutory waiting time that we must allow for any objections to the registration to be received.
If you are making an application to register an LPA, please take these revised turn around times into consideration before calling us to discuss the progress of your application. These figures are correct as of 22nd June 2010. Our website is updated regularly so for an up to date figure, please visit:
http://www.publicguardian.gov.uk/opg-court-application-times.htm