England & Wales · What to record, the £500 gift rule, and the accounts you must be able to produce on demand.
If you act as a property and financial affairs attorney under a registered Lasting Power of Attorney (LPA), here is the first thing to know: unlike court-appointed deputies, attorneys are not required to file a routine annual return with the Office of the Public Guardian (OPG). Deputies appointed by the Court of Protection must submit a yearly deputyship report; attorneys acting under an LPA have no equivalent standing obligation to send the OPG an annual accounting.
That is where the good news ends. The OPG can ask to see your financial records at any time, and it does so when something looks wrong: a worried relative writes in, a bank flags unusual transactions, a social worker raises a concern. Serious cases go to the Court of Protection, which can order an attorney to produce a full account of everything received and spent on the donor's behalf — and can cancel an LPA where the accounts, or the absence of them, do not satisfy it. Nobody chooses when the question arrives. The only reliable answer is a set of records you have been keeping all along, which is precisely why record-keeping matters even though nobody collects your paperwork each year.
Good LPA attorney records are not complicated, but they must be complete enough to reconstruct any period on request. For each year — ideally for each month — be ready to show:
Three habits keep the account defensible:
Gifts are where well-meaning attorneys most often go wrong. The Mental Capacity Act 2005 Code of Practice allows an attorney to make gifts on the donor's behalf only in narrow circumstances: customary gifts on customary occasions — birthdays, weddings, anniversaries, festivals — to relatives and friends, and donations to charities the donor supported. The customary benchmark is small: no more than £500 per recipient in a year.
Even within that ceiling, a gift must pass two further tests: the donor can afford it out of their own resources, and the gift is in the donor's best interests. And one rule has no exceptions: an attorney must never make a gift to themselves. "For all the running around you do" is not an occasion — self-gifting is among the fastest routes to an OPG investigation and a referral to the Court of Protection.
Anything larger or outside the customary pattern — a sizeable transfer, an advance on inheritance, a loan to a relative — needs the Court of Protection to authorise it first. Keep a simple gifts log alongside your accounts: recipient, occasion, amount, date. It takes a minute per gift and answers the question permanently.
Attorneys who act without payment — the great majority, since most are family members — may still claim reasonable out-of-pocket expenses properly incurred while acting: mileage for trips to the bank, postage, photocopying, the stationery for the record-keeping itself. Claim them from the donor's funds, keep the receipts, and record each reimbursement as its own line so the account shows exactly what it is.
Payment for your time is different. A lay attorney is not paid unless the LPA or the Court of Protection provides for it. Professional deputies have fixed annual fees under Practice Direction 19B, and professional attorneys (a solicitor or accountant named in the LPA, for example) charge under their own agreements. Whatever the arrangement, record every payment to yourself as its own line, with the authority it rests on written beside it.
Much of the confusion about attorneys' duties starts before the LPA is ever used. Since 17 November 2025 the OPG registration fee is £92 per LPA — so registering both a property and financial affairs LPA and a health and welfare LPA for the same donor costs £184. A 50% remission is available where the donor is on a low income or receives certain means-tested benefits.
Registration takes several weeks, and an LPA cannot be used until it is registered — one reason to register when the document is signed rather than at the moment it is needed. Fees and remission criteria change from time to time; check the current fees on gov.uk before applying. An application with errors must be corrected and re-submitted, which costs further weeks, so it pays to get the form right first time.
The records that stand up when the OPG, the Court of Protection, or the family ask are the ones that were kept as you went along:
The fidubond · UK LPA product is built around exactly this routine: a transaction ledger in OPG-format categories, gift tracking against the customary limits, a decision log for the "why" behind each judgement call, and an annual accounting PDF in British English — ready to print or hand over if the OPG asks. Everything is recorded locally in your browser; nothing is uploaded to any server, and no account is required.
This guide is general information, not legal advice. The Mental Capacity Act 2005, the Code of Practice, and OPG procedures change over time — confirm specifics with a qualified professional for your situation.