You may be interested to read about the following proposals that have been made regarding changes to fees for Lasting Powers of Attorney (who isn’t?!)
‘OPG’ stands for Office of the Public Guardian – the civil service body which undertakes all the paper work for the Court. The consultation ends May 21st 2011.
The proposed changes below will help ensure full recovery of OPG costs:
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- Raising the LPA Application to Register from £120 to £130;
- Implementing a new ‘Resubmission Fee’ of £65 each time an LPA is resubmitted to the OPG within 3 months of it being returned to the Applicant as invalid;
- Discontinuing the production of LPA office copies by the OPG, except in extreme and limited circumstances, and for a £50 fee;
- Removing the Application to search the Registers fee;
- Replacing Type 1, 2A and 2 supervision fees with a flat fee of £320 and introducing an administration fee of £35 for those in Type 3 requiring the de minimis level of supervision;
- Raising the maximum threshold of capital for those cases qualifying for Type 3 supervision from £16,000 to £21,000 over a period of 4 years;
- Introducing a new Fee Remissions policy of 50% for those who have a gross income of up to £12,000;
- Allowing the Public Guardian to vary the levels of fees payable in the future, examples of which could be:
a. Implementing a new discounted fee for any LPA applications that are submitted together
b. Removing or discounting the LPA Registration Fee for Armed Service Personnel
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- Renaming a number of OPG Fees in order to make it clearer what they cover
The full consultation document and response form are available to view on the Ministry of Justice Website via the below link. Your views and opinions would be most welcome.
http://www.justice.gov.uk/consultations/opg-fees-consultation.htm