Home Economics: Why is an enduring power of attorney so complicated?

I read a recent question to you relating to enduring power of attorney (EPA). In it, you mentioned the new process using the Decision Support Service. My experience of it was very bad.

My wife and I decided to complete EPAs. In the old system, we would only have to fill out one form and get it signed by a solicitor and a doctor.

In the new system, you have to go online, wade through pages of detail, download separate documents, get them printed, signed by solicitor, doctor, donor, attorney, inform children, scan and upload the signed forms to the website etc.

I am reasonably tech savvy and I found it confusing! I can only imagine how challenging it might be for people with limited online experience, no access to a printer or in poor health and anxious to organise their affairs. Now mine is stuck in a black hole while it awaits completion.

​Answer

I couldn’t agree more. Firstly, in mitigation, EPAs are an expensive piece of kit, so by undertaking the digital process, you can save between €800-€1,200. And cost is definitely a consideration in people’s decision not to have one in place at all.

Setting up an enduring power of attorney is a very complex legal thing. Unlike a will, which is relatively straightforward and cheap, it must outline a whole range of decision-making that should happen while you are still alive, but lack capacity to do yourself. And of course, it may never be used at all.

In creating it under the Assisted Decision-Making (Capacity) Act, it has replaced the old Ward of Court system under, (and I apologise for the outdated language), the Lunacy Regulation Act of 1871. So I had high hopes for the digital move. There is no doubt it needed amending.

I waded through the more than 20 minutes of video on the process (see decisionsupportservice.ie) which is excellent, but honestly, the process is so lengthy, complicated and onerous, even on someone who is fully across IT, I’m at the point, having heard so many complaints about it (from solicitors too!), that one may well be better off paying the cash and simply going to a solicitor to draw everything up.

Adult children sometimes club together to get the EPA in place for an aging parent. As it stands, there are 10 separate steps, the first six of which must be done before you can even get the application documents for the EPA:

1. Set up your GovID account (you need a PSC card if you haven’t one).

2. Open a separate DSS account.

3. Upload a bunch of documents (fairly intensive ones) about your personal circumstances.

4. Give your attorney(s) details.

5. Outline your Decision Support arrangements (what assistance or representation order you want, old EPAs, Advanced HealthCare Directives etc).

6. Outline the decisions you want and in what capacity (e.g. general or specific authority over certain finances).

7. Now you can begin to download the six application documents.

8. Get agreement from attorney(s). Get agreement from siblings who are not attorneys.

9. Complete all six stages, with supporting documents. You cannot progress until everything is shipshape.

10. And finally, after all that, you still have to get everyone together in the same room, with a solicitor and two witnesses, to ‘wet’ sign the lot.

If you can complete that process, there’s no doubt you have mental capacity and more! I hate bashing something new, but why don’t the State subsidise the fee of a lawyer to draw it up, especially for those of low means?

​Send your property questions to siryan@independent.ie. Sinéad presents ‘The Home Show’ on Newstalk from 8am on Saturday.