The Powers of Attorney Bill makes a series of targeted statutory changes aimed at reducing financial abuse of people who have granted a Lasting Power of Attorney (LPA). It requires UK banks, building societies, electronic money and payment institutions to notify the Office of the Public Guardian (OPG) when they have reasonable grounds to suspect an attorney is misusing a donor’s money; gives the OPG the power to apply for court account-freezing orders during investigations; and imposes duties on care homes and attorneys to notify the OPG of key events (new or registered LPAs and deaths).
The Bill also requires the Secretary of State to commission an independent review of the OPG’s investigatory powers, adds a duty on the OPG to publicise its register-search facility, and amends notification recipients so donors’ general practitioners are told when an LPA is registered (including how to register objections). Together these changes increase early detection and statutory intervention options, while shifting new reporting, operational and data-sharing burdens onto banks, care-home managers and the OPG itself.
At a Glance
What It Does
The Bill forces ‘relevant financial institutions’ (banks, building societies, electronic money and payment institutions) to notify the Public Guardian if they have reasonable grounds to suspect misuse of a donor’s funds by a registered attorney. It gives the Public Guardian statutory standing to apply for court account-freezing orders during investigations and requires care-home managers and attorneys to notify the OPG of specified events (registration of LPAs, changes of resident details, death of a donor).
Who It Affects
Retail banks and other deposit/payment firms with UK operations, the Office of the Public Guardian and courts asked to issue freezing orders, care-home registered providers and managers in England and Wales, registered attorneys (donees), and general practitioners who will be added to notification recipients.
Why It Matters
The Bill converts practices that have mostly been discretionary into statutory duties and a court remedy, increasing the OPG’s tools to stop suspected financial abuse. For regulated firms and care homes it establishes new compliance and reporting obligations that will require policy, process and likely systems changes; for the OPG and courts it creates demand for investigative and urgent judicial capacity.
More articles like this one.
A weekly email with all the latest developments on this topic.
What This Bill Actually Does
The Bill is a compact package of statutory interventions that aim to detect and disrupt misuse of Lasting Powers of Attorney earlier than at present. It starts by placing a duty on defined financial institutions to notify the Public Guardian "as soon as practicable" when they have reasonable grounds to suspect an attorney is acting contrary to fiduciary duties, or when there is suspected misuse, negligence or fraud involving a donor’s account.
The Secretary of State will be able to make regulations about what must be included in those notifications and the timeframe for reporting; those regulations can also protect institutions from breaching confidentiality where disclosure is in the public interest, subject to limits.
To give the OPG a practical tool to secure assets while it investigates, the Bill authorises the OPG to apply to the relevant court for an account-freezing order. The court may make such an order if satisfied the application is for investigatory purposes and the named registered donee(s) are or may be breaching fiduciary duties or acting against the donor’s best interests.
Applications may be made without notice where giving notice would prejudice preventing misuse; orders can cover all accounts, categories of accounts or specific accounts, and the court may create exclusions—most importantly to allow payments that meet the donor’s reasonable living expenses—but the Bill bars exclusions that would facilitate payment of an attorney’s legal costs in proceedings about the investigation.The Bill also tightens the information flow between care settings, the OPG and medical professionals. Care-home registered persons or managers must tell the OPG when residents make or register LPAs, arrive with a registered LPA, change name or address, or die; on receiving such notifications the OPG must carry out a review to check whether undue influence or coercion is suspected.
Schedule changes to the Mental Capacity Act 2005 add a donor’s GP to the list of persons notified on registration of an LPA and require that the notification explains how to register an objection. Separately, the Bill imposes a duty on registered donees to notify the OPG of the donor’s death and its date "as soon as is practicable".Finally, the Secretary of State must appoint an independent reviewer within three months of the Act’s passage to assess whether the OPG’s investigatory powers are sufficient and being used effectively; the reviewer must report back and the Secretary of State must lay the report before Parliament.
The OPG must also take steps to promote public awareness of how to use its search facility to check whether someone has applied for or registered an LPA. The Act extends to England and Wales and leaves most commencement detail to the Lord Chancellor by regulation.
The Five Things You Need to Know
Banks and other defined payment or deposit institutions must notify the OPG "as soon as practicable" if they have reasonable grounds to suspect an attorney is misusing a donor’s account.
The Public Guardian can apply to the court for an account-freezing order during an investigation; courts can make no-notice orders where giving notice would prejudice the investigation.
The Bill allows freezing orders to include exclusions for reasonable living expenses but explicitly prohibits exclusions that would cover an attorney’s legal costs in relation to the investigation.
Registered care-home managers must notify the OPG of LPA-related events (new/registered LPAs, arrivals with LPAs, name/address changes, deaths) and the OPG must review notifications for signs of undue influence.
The Secretary of State must appoint an independent reviewer within three months of the Act’s passage to assess the OPG’s investigatory powers and lay a report (with recommendations) before Parliament.
Section-by-Section Breakdown
Every bill we cover gets an analysis of its key sections.
Mandatory reporting by financial institutions
This section defines which firms are "relevant financial institutions" (banks, building societies, electronic money institutions and payment institutions) and creates a duty to notify the Public Guardian where there are reasonable grounds to suspect fiduciary breach, misuse, negligence or fraud by a registered attorney. The Secretary of State may make regulations specifying notification content and timing, and can protect firms from breaching confidentiality where disclosure is in the public interest — but regulations cannot force disclosures that would breach other legal restrictions. Practically, firms will need criteria for what constitutes "reasonable grounds", incident-handling workflows and secure channels for reporting to the OPG.
Court account-freezing orders available to the Public Guardian
Section 2 gives the Public Guardian standing to apply to the court for an account-freezing order where the OPG suspects accounts in the donor’s name are being misused by a registered donee. The test for the court is investigatory purpose plus a finding that named persons are behaving, or planning to behave, contrary to fiduciary duties. The provision permits applications without notice if notice would prejudice preventing unlawful use of funds, allows orders to target all or particular accounts, and contemplates exclusions and conditional releases — notably to meet the donor’s reasonable living expenses. The prohibition on exclusions for an attorney’s legal expenses narrows one way attorneys might try to resist freezes.
Independent review of the OPG’s investigatory powers
The Secretary of State must appoint an independent reviewer within three months of the Act to examine whether the OPG’s powers are sufficient and used effectively. The reviewer’s remit is focused on regulation and effectiveness of investigation powers; they must report back, may recommend legal or policy changes, and the Secretary of State must lay the report before Parliament. The mechanism creates a short-window external scrutiny designed to prompt reform or funding decisions if the reviewer finds gaps.
Care-home notification duties and OPG review duty
This section requires the Public Guardian to maintain a register of persons whose primary residence is a care home and who have registered an LPA. Providers’ registered persons or managers must notify the OPG in writing "as soon as it is reasonably practicable" about several events (making/registering an LPA, arrival with a registered LPA, proposed name/address change, death). Each notification triggers an OPG review to confirm whether undue influence, coercion or manipulation is suspected. The definition of care home mirrors the Mental Capacity Act categories, meaning the obligations apply broadly across residential and nursing settings in England and Wales.
Notifying the donor’s GP on registration of an LPA
An amendment to Schedule 1 of the Mental Capacity Act 2005 adds the donor’s general practitioner to the list of people notified when an LPA is registered. The notification must include the grounds and process for registering an objection to the registration. This introduces primary-care clinicians into the LPA notification loop, which is intended to widen professional oversight but raises questions about how GPs will be expected to act on or process these notifications.
Duty on attorneys to notify a donor’s death
The Bill inserts a new duty into Schedule 1 requiring registered donees to inform the Public Guardian, as soon as practicable, of the donor’s death and the date of death. The provision places an affirmative reporting obligation on attorneys that aligns the OPG’s registers with mortality events and helps terminate ongoing investigatory or safeguarding activity promptly. The Bill does not specify sanctions for failure to notify, leaving enforcement and compliance mechanisms to future rules or general statutory offences.
Promoting the OPG’s register-search facility
This section adds a function to the OPG to promote and publish information so the public knows how to apply to the OPG to check whether someone has applied for or registered an LPA. The change is administrative rather than substantive, seeking to increase public awareness of the register and the search process; implementation will require communications activity and likely digital-access improvements within the OPG.
Territorial extent and commencement
The Act extends to England and Wales. Most operational clauses come into force on days appointed by the Lord Chancellor by statutory instrument; the section authorises transitional and different treatment by purpose. The staged commencement model gives ministers flexibility to sequence regulations, training and IT changes required across banks, care homes and the OPG.
This bill is one of many.
Codify tracks hundreds of bills on Justice across all five countries.
Explore Justice in Codify Search →Who Benefits and Who Bears the Cost
Every bill creates winners and losers. Here's who stands to gain and who bears the cost.
Who Benefits
- Vulnerable donors and their families — earlier detection, investigative powers and freezing orders increase the chance of stopping financial abuse and preserving assets for the donor’s needs.
- The Office of the Public Guardian — gains statutory notification streams and a court remedy that formalises and strengthens investigatory work and may improve case prioritisation.
- Care-home residents as a cohort — the care-home notification regime and OPG reviews create an additional safeguarding layer where LPAs are being registered or used within institutional settings.
- Members of the public seeking transparency — expanded promotion of the OPG search facility and GP notifications increase the number of routes through which concerns about LPAs can surface.
Who Bears the Cost
- Retail banks, building societies, electronic money and payment institutions — will need to build and operate incident-detection systems, staff reporting workflows, and secure ways of transferring potentially sensitive data to the OPG.
- Care-home registered providers and managers — must add written-notification tasks to operational duties and may face increased OPG follow-ups and reviews, creating administrative burden.
- The Office of the Public Guardian and courts — face increased workload: triaging notifications, conducting reviews, making applications to court and managing freezing orders, likely requiring extra resources.
- General practitioners — will receive additional notifications about registered LPAs and potential objections, adding to primary-care administrative responsibilities without an explicit resourcing mechanism.
- Registered attorneys (donees) — face new statutory duties (e.g., to notify death) and the practical effect of account freezes during investigations, which may interrupt their ability to manage finances for legitimate reasons.
Key Issues
The Core Tension
The central dilemma is how to stop and reverse financial abuse quickly without turning every contested financial decision by an attorney into a reportable incident that overwhelms the OPG and courts, breaches privacy, and undermines donor autonomy; the Bill tips the balance toward earlier intervention and mandatory reporting, but does so at the cost of heavier administrative burdens, potential over-reporting, and unresolved data-protection and resourcing questions.
The Bill targets an acute problem — financial abuse via LPAs — by layering reporting duties and a judicial freezing power on top of existing safeguards. That design produces several implementation challenges.
First, the "reasonable grounds" threshold for bank reporting is inherently subjective; firms will likely err on the side of reporting to avoid regulatory risk, generating a high volume of notifications the OPG must triage. Second, mandatory reporting and the broad definition of "relevant financial institution" raise data-protection and confidentiality questions: the Bill allows regulations to protect disclosures where public interest applies, but it does not set out the legal basis under data protection law nor how firms should document their decision-making to disclose potentially sensitive customer data.
Operationally, account-freezing orders are powerful but resource-intensive. Courts will need to manage emergency, often ex parte, applications and to supervise exclusions tailored to donors’ living expenses.
The Bill bars exclusions for an attorney’s legal costs, but it does not address costs associated with administering freezes or the practical mechanics for banks to implement complex conditional exclusions across payment rails and third-party beneficiaries. Care homes and GPs will be pulled into administrative loops without dedicated funding or clear guidance on their role in safeguarding vs. respecting resident autonomy.
Finally, the Bill frequently uses "as soon as practicable" and leaves many details to secondary regulations — that flexibility helps tailor implementation but also creates uncertainty for the firms and professionals who must change processes quickly.
Try it yourself.
Ask a question in plain English, or pick a topic below. Results in seconds.