LPA Registration: The Complete Guide

Written by Anthony Dalton · Reviewed by James Tyrrell · Last reviewed 11 April 2026

Creating a Lasting Power of Attorney is only half the job. Until the Office of the Public Guardian (OPG) has registered your LPA, it carries no legal weight whatsoever. No bank will honour it, no hospital will consult your attorneys, and no care home will follow their instructions. This guide brings together everything you need to know about the registration process — from filling in the forms and paying the fee, to tracking your application and understanding what happens once the stamped document lands back on your doormat. We have also linked to our detailed guides on each topic so you can dig deeper wherever you need to.

Why You Need to Register Your LPA

Under the Mental Capacity Act 2005, a Lasting Power of Attorney only becomes a functioning legal document once it has been registered with the Office of the Public Guardian. Before that point, it is simply a set of signed papers with no legal standing. Your named attorneys cannot use an unregistered LPA to manage your finances, make decisions about your medical care, or speak to organisations on your behalf. This is true regardless of how carefully the document was prepared or how clearly your wishes are set out within it.

The importance of early registration cannot be overstated. Many families make the mistake of creating an LPA, signing it correctly, and then putting it away for safekeeping with the intention of registering it “when it is needed.” The problem is that registration takes weeks, not days. If a sudden illness, accident or diagnosis of dementia means you lose mental capacity before the LPA has been registered, your family will not be able to rely on it. Instead, they would need to apply to the Court of Protection for a deputyship order — a process that is slower, far more expensive, and considerably more stressful.

Registering early does not mean giving up control. A registered Property and Financial Affairs LPA can sit unused until the donor chooses to activate it, or until they lose capacity. A Health and Welfare LPA can only ever be used once the donor lacks the capacity to make a specific decision for themselves. In both cases, the donor remains fully in charge for as long as they are able. Registration simply ensures the safety net is in place when it is needed.

There is also a practical reason to register sooner rather than later. If the OPG finds a problem with your application, you will have time to correct it without pressure. Discovering an error at a moment of crisis — when a parent has just been admitted to hospital, for example — turns a manageable administrative task into an urgent and deeply upsetting one.

How to Register an LPA With the OPG

The registration process begins once your LPA has been properly completed, signed by the donor, witnessed, certified by a certificate provider, and signed by each attorney. Getting the signing order right is essential — the OPG will reject an LPA where signatures are out of sequence, even if every person involved did eventually sign.

Either the donor or one of the named attorneys can apply to register the LPA. In most cases, it makes sense for the donor to do this while they still have mental capacity, because it keeps them in control of the process. The applicant completes the relevant registration section of the LPA form, pays the fee, and sends the original signed document to the OPG. If you created your LPA using the government’s online service, you can apply for registration and pay the fee digitally, although the physical signed document still needs to be posted.

Before submitting, it is worth double-checking every section of the form. Small mistakes — a date written in the wrong format, an address that does not match, a witness who is also named as an attorney — are the most common reasons applications are sent back. Our detailed guide on how to register an LPA with the OPG walks through each step of the process and highlights the pitfalls to avoid.

If you are using a professional LPA service, the registration paperwork is typically handled for you. The service will check the document for errors before it is submitted, which significantly reduces the risk of rejection. At UKLPA, for example, we review every LPA before it goes to the OPG, so our clients do not have to worry about whether they have filled in the forms correctly.

Once your application reaches the OPG, they will write to any “people to notify” named in the LPA, giving them three weeks to raise objections. Assuming no objections are received, the OPG will check the document, register it, stamp each page, and return it to you. The whole process currently takes 8 to 10 weeks from the date they receive a correctly completed application.

Where to Send Your LPA

All LPA registration applications in England and Wales are handled centrally by the Office of the Public Guardian. The postal address for sending your signed LPA document and registration fee is:

It is strongly recommended that you send your LPA by recorded or tracked delivery. The original signed document is irreplaceable — if it goes missing in the post, you would need to start the entire process again from scratch. Royal Mail’s Special Delivery Guaranteed service provides both tracking and compensation cover, which gives peace of mind when sending something this important.

If you created your LPA using the government’s online digital tool, you can complete the registration application and pay the fee online before posting the physical document. However, the original signed LPA must still reach the OPG by post — there is no fully digital registration route at present. Our guide on where to send your LPA registration covers the postal process in more detail, including what to include in your envelope and how to package the documents safely.

Do not send your LPA to a local court or to any other government department. The OPG’s Birmingham office is the only place that processes LPA registrations. Sending your documents elsewhere will cause unnecessary delays and you may not get them back.

LPA Registration Fees

The OPG charges a government fee of £92 per LPA for registration. Since there are two types of LPA — Property and Financial Affairs, and Health and Welfare — most people register both, bringing the total government fee to £184. This fee is separate from any costs you may have paid to a solicitor or professional service for help creating the LPA itself. For a full breakdown of all the costs involved, see our guide on the government LPA registration fee.

Payment can be made by cheque (payable to “Office of the Public Guardian”) or online if you used the government’s digital LPA service. If you are sending a cheque, include it in the same envelope as your signed LPA document. Do not send cash.

The OPG recognises that the registration fee can be a barrier for some people, and offers two forms of financial help. If the donor receives certain means-tested benefits — including Universal Credit, Income Support, Income-based Jobseeker’s Allowance, Income-related Employment and Support Allowance, or the Guarantee Credit element of Pension Credit — the fee is waived entirely. If the donor’s gross annual income is below £12,000, a 50% remission reduces the fee to £41 per LPA.

To claim a fee reduction or exemption, you need to complete form LPA120 and submit it alongside your LPA registration application, together with evidence of the donor’s income or benefit entitlement. Our guide on LPA fee reductions and exemptions explains exactly what evidence is needed and how to fill in the form. It is worth checking your eligibility before you apply — many people qualify without realising it.

How Long Does Registration Take?

The OPG’s published processing time for LPA registration is currently 8 to 10 weeks from the date they receive a correctly completed application. This is not a guarantee — it is a target — and in practice the timeline can vary depending on the OPG’s workload and whether any issues arise with your paperwork.

Part of the reason registration takes so long is the mandatory waiting period built into the process. Once the OPG receives your application, they write to any “people to notify” named in the LPA. These individuals then have three weeks to raise objections on specific legal grounds — for example, that the donor was put under pressure to create the LPA, or that they lacked mental capacity when they signed it. This safeguard is required by the LPA Regulations and cannot be skipped.

The most common cause of delays beyond the standard timeline is errors in the paperwork. If the OPG finds a problem — signatures in the wrong order, missing dates, an ineligible certificate provider — they will write to you explaining the issue. Depending on the nature of the error, you may be able to correct and resubmit the document, or you may need to start a new LPA from scratch. Either way, the clock resets once the corrected application is received.

If someone raises a formal objection during the waiting period, the OPG is required to investigate before they can proceed with registration. This can add weeks or even months to the process, depending on the complexity of the objection. For a detailed look at what affects the timeline, read our guide on how long it takes to register an LPA.

Tracking Your LPA Registration

Once you have submitted your LPA for registration, it is natural to want to know how things are progressing. The OPG provides a few ways to check on the status of your application, although the level of detail they can share is limited for data protection reasons.

If you created your LPA using the government’s online service, you can log in to your account to see updates on your registration. The system will show you when your application was received, when the waiting period letters were sent, and when the LPA has been registered. This is the easiest way to keep track of things if the online route is available to you.

You can also contact the OPG directly by telephone on 0300 456 0300 (Monday to Friday, 9am to 5pm) or by email. You will need to provide the donor’s name, date of birth, and the OPG reference number if you have one. The OPG can tell you whether your application has been received, whether it is being processed, and whether any issues have been flagged.

If more than 10 weeks have passed since you sent your application and you have not heard anything, it is worth getting in touch. Occasionally applications do go astray in the post, and the sooner you discover this, the sooner you can take action. Our guide on how to track your LPA registration explains all of your options in detail.

Urgent Registration

In certain circumstances, the standard 8 to 10 week timeline is simply not fast enough. If the donor is terminally ill, or if they are rapidly losing mental capacity due to a condition such as dementia, the family may need the LPA to be registered as quickly as possible so that attorneys can step in and manage the donor’s affairs.

The OPG does offer an expedited registration service for urgent cases. To request it, you need to write to the OPG explaining why the application is urgent and provide supporting medical evidence — typically a letter from the donor’s GP or consultant confirming their condition and prognosis. The OPG will assess the request on a case-by-case basis. If they agree that urgency is justified, the statutory three-week waiting period may be shortened or waived, and the application can be processed in a matter of days rather than weeks.

It is important to understand that urgent registration is not available simply because the family finds the standard timeline inconvenient. The OPG reserves this service for genuine emergencies where a delay would cause serious harm to the donor’s welfare or financial interests. If the donor’s condition is deteriorating but not immediately critical, the application will still go through the standard process.

This is one of the strongest arguments for registering your LPA early. If the document is already registered, there is no need to worry about urgent timelines at all. Our guide on urgent LPA registration covers the process, what evidence is required, and how to phrase your request to give it the best chance of being accepted.

Common Reasons an LPA Is Rejected

The OPG checks every LPA application carefully before registering it, and a surprising number are returned because of avoidable mistakes. Understanding the most common reasons for rejection can help you get your application right first time and avoid weeks of unnecessary delay.

The single most frequent cause of rejection is errors in the signing order. The law requires that the LPA is signed in a specific sequence: the donor signs first, then the certificate provider, then the attorneys, and finally any replacement attorneys. If anyone signs out of order — even by a single day — the entire document may be invalid and you could need to start again from scratch. Witness signatures must also be completed at the same time as the person they are witnessing.

Problems with the certificate provider are another common issue. The certificate provider must be someone who has known the donor personally for at least two years, or who has relevant professional skills (such as a doctor, solicitor, or social worker). They cannot be a family member of the donor, an attorney named in the LPA, or a member of the attorney’s family. If the OPG determines that the certificate provider was ineligible, the LPA will be rejected.

Other common reasons include missing or incomplete sections, incorrect witness details, contradictory instructions, and the donor lacking mental capacity at the time of signing. For the full list of pitfalls and how to avoid them, see our guides on common reasons an LPA is rejected and whether an LPA can be rejected by the OPG.

If your LPA is returned as “imperfect” (the OPG’s term for a document with a correctable error), you may be able to fix the problem and resubmit. However, if the error is fundamental — such as a completely invalid signing sequence — the only option is to create and sign a new LPA document from the beginning. This is why it is so important to get it right the first time, and why many people choose to use a professional service to check their paperwork before submission.

What Happens After Registration

Once the OPG is satisfied that your LPA is valid and no objections have been raised, they will register the document. Each page of the original LPA is stamped with the OPG’s official seal, and the registered document is returned to the applicant by post. You will also receive a registration letter confirming that the LPA is now active and can be used.

For a Property and Financial Affairs LPA, the attorneys can begin acting straight away if the donor wishes — for example, managing bank accounts, paying bills, or dealing with investments. The donor can choose to let their attorneys act immediately alongside them, or they can keep the registered LPA in reserve until it is needed. For a Health and Welfare LPA, the attorneys can only act once the donor lacks the mental capacity to make a particular decision for themselves.

In practice, you will need to show the registered LPA to banks, building societies, utility companies, the NHS, care homes, and any other organisation that needs to know your attorneys have authority to act. Many organisations will want to take a copy for their records. Some may also ask for a certified copy rather than the original, which is why it can be useful to order additional certified copies from the OPG at the time of registration.

The OPG has also introduced a digital system called the Use a lasting power of attorney service, which allows donors and attorneys to create access codes. These codes can be shared with organisations so they can verify the LPA online without needing to see the physical document. This is becoming increasingly common and can make the process of proving attorney authority much quicker and simpler.

Your registered LPA also appears on the OPG’s public register, which authorised third parties can search to confirm that an LPA exists and is valid. Our guide on the OPG LPA register search explains how this works. For a full overview of what to do once your LPA comes back from the OPG, read our guide on what happens after an LPA is registered.

Updating an LPA After Registration

Life circumstances change, and it is not unusual for people to wonder whether they can update their LPA after it has been registered. The short answer is that the scope for changes is very limited. An LPA is a legal document, and once it has been registered, the core details — who the attorneys are, what powers they have, and any instructions or preferences — are fixed.

The OPG can update certain administrative details on a registered LPA, such as a change of address for the donor or an attorney. These changes are straightforward and can be requested by contacting the OPG directly. However, you cannot add or remove attorneys, change the type of authority granted, or alter the instructions and preferences set out in the document without creating an entirely new LPA.

If you need to make a substantive change — for example, if you want to appoint a different attorney because your original choice is no longer willing or able to act — you have two options. You can revoke the existing LPA and create a new one with the updated details, or you can create an additional LPA that runs alongside the original. In either case, the donor must still have mental capacity to make the change.

It is also worth knowing that certain events will automatically affect a registered LPA. If an attorney dies, becomes bankrupt (in the case of a Property and Financial Affairs LPA), or loses mental capacity themselves, they can no longer act. If you appointed replacement attorneys, they will step in automatically. If not, and the LPA no longer has any active attorneys, the document becomes ineffective and a new one would need to be created. Our guide on updating an LPA after registration covers all of these scenarios in detail.

All Registration Guides

We have written detailed guides covering every aspect of LPA registration. Whether you need help with a specific step or want to understand the process in full, the guides below will point you in the right direction.

Common Questions About LPA Registration

This guide was last reviewed and updated on 11 April 2026. Information is based on current legislation and OPG guidance for England and Wales.

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