Con­sumer cham­pion Mar­tin Lewis has put powers of attor­ney firmly in the spot­light, with wide­spread cov­er­age high­light­ing just how ser­i­ous the con­sequences can be when one is not in place.

This is timely, as Feb­ru­ary is Power of Attor­ney Month, with cam­paigns tak­ing place to raise aware­ness of these vital doc­u­ments and encour­age every­one to arrange one. Fewer than one in 10 Scots have a power of attor­ney, so it’s often only at dif­fi­cult times that fam­il­ies real­ise, and have to nav­ig­ate, the prob­lems this can cre­ate.

Ever-stricter data pro­tec­tion and pri­vacy laws have aligned with a gen­eral prin­ciple that no-one should be able to inter­fere in the affairs of another without their prior con­sent. An adult with full legal capa­city can give author­ity to someone to take actions on their behalf by way of a man­date or let­ter of author­ity, but this tends to relate to spe­cific trans­ac­tions or courses of action only, and the author­ity would ter­min­atein­theevent­oft­headult los­ing capa­city.

A power of attor­ney (POA) gives this author­ity for a wide range of actions and decisions and, cru­cially, con­tin­ues to have effect if the adult loses capa­city. This can cover two key areas, the first being fin­an­cial and admin­is­trat­ive mat­ters, such as access­ing bankac­count­sto­pay­bills,pur­chas­ing items for the adult’s use, and deal­ing with sav­ings, invest­ments and prop­erty. The second key area is per­sonal wel­fare mat­ters, includ­ing decisions about care and accom­mod­a­tion, con­sent­ing to med­ical treat­ment, and detailed day-to-day decisions such as diet, dress, involve­ment in phys­ical or social activ­it­ies and so on.

A key dif­fer­ence between these two ele­ments is that the author­ity to act on wel­fare mat­ters can only be used when the adult has lost capa­city,where­as­an­at­tor­ney­act­ing in rela­tion to fin­ances can also act while the adult has capa­city, if the adult has given per­mis­sion.

The prob­lems that arise withouta­poacan­range­from bills remain­ing unpaid and bank accounts unman­aged, with no access to funds to pur­chase food, cloth­ing, toi­letries and other essen­tials, to major decision­sreg­ard­ing­dis­charge from hos­pital.

This is per­haps the most dis­tress­ing impact. If an adult who has lost capa­city is to be dis­charged­from­hos­pital,with decisions needed about care pack­ages or accom­mod­a­tion, they are in the hands of social work­andmed­ic­al­teams–and alengthy­cour­tac­tion­mustbe raised to appoint a guard­ian. This can take upwards of a year, with the adult remainingin­hos­pital,andpro­longed hos­pital stays can lead to more rapid deteri­or­a­tion of men­tal and phys­ical health.

The pro­cess of drawin­gupa­poacantakeas­little as a couple of weeks. There are stat­utory pro­ced­ures to be fol­lowed, designed to pro­tect the adult; the decision as to who to appoint rests solely with the adult, and there is a require­ment to sign the power of attor­ney in the pres­ence of a soli­citor, or med­ical pro­fes­sional,who­cer­ti­fi­esthatthe adult has capa­city.

However, the POA must be registered at the Office of the Pub­lic Guard­ian and there is a back­log with wait times of around a year. This is another reason to start the pro­cess as soonas­possible.thebest­case scen­ario would, indeed, be to plan ahead, put your POA in place now and hope you never need to rely on it.

This art­icle was co-writ­ten by Olivia Fawl, Soli­citor, Balfour+Man­son

This article was also published in the Scotsman on Monday 16th February 2026.