Why should you make Lasting Powers of Attorney and pay all that money to a solicitor?

On being asked by a colleague why (entre nous) it would be a
good idea to get some expert advice on making LPAs as opposed to just downloading the forms from the internet… 
Are legal fees worth paying, as opposed to doing it yourself?

Well, certainly the forms are available online.  And there is good advice in the explanatory leaflet. You still have to pay for the registration fees.

But that’s as far as it goes in terms of legal advice – and if you want to consider a scenario which is not covered by the advice – or the phrasing of it means you don’t understand, there is not really much of a substitute for being able to ask someone who knows what they are talking about and can answer.  That’s the real reason why you pay a lawyer – to tell you the trips and pitfalls, and to answer tricky scenarios, if you think there might be one for you.  To make sure you really know what you are signing, especially when it is a powerful document.  Sometimes words used in legal documents already have a specifically understood meaning (rather than the basic meaning of ordinary words).  Sometimes phrases like “appropriate investment advice” covers a wide range of what has been considered to be appropriate in different circumstances. 

In addition, if you think it might be a good idea to restrict the powers that you give to attorneys, you might actually be making matters far worse – your wording may in time come to be very restrictive.

If there is, later on, any question about whether you understood what the power was – either given or received – then you may have had a good start if you saw a solicitor who explained it to you, or who gave you some tips and notes for future reference.

Lets be honest, the law applies to all, and breaking it is a possibility – finding ways round scenarios and using the Ways and Means Act – all of those things are what people do in real life – but there has to be a point at which the buck stops – and that is on the written word of the law, and of the power given.   Because human beings are imaginative, there is always the opportunity for a new situation to come up which no one ever thought was an issue.  So the law moves on, shading ever closer to the “real” meaning of a law.   If the sea is blue, then it is cerulean blue, deep blue, wine-dark, green, grey, flecked with white or a certain shade as defined by Pantone?  And which sea?  The sea I view from my window, or yours? the sea in summer, at Margate, or at Whitby?