The number of people registering a Lasting Power of Attorney (LPA) has dropped 30% year on year following the disruption to the process for applying during the Coronavirus pandemic.

Whilst numbers have improved from April 2020 when only 19,829 LPAs were registered (April 2019: 67,279 LPA’s registered), they are still not at their pre pandemic levels with February this year (62,014) still 25% below February 2020 (82,373).

Wealth management and Financial Planning firm Quilter submitted a Freedom of Information Request to the Ministry of Justice in order to obtain the figures.

Rachael Griffin, tax and Financial Planning expert at Quilter, criticised the speed at which the Office of the Public Guardian took to produce guidance on how to apply for an LPA during the Coronavirus pandemic.

She said: “At the beginning of the pandemic everyone rushed to figure out how they could continue to offer services that previously required physical contact. Things such as getting a wet signature became problematic. In the instance of applications for Lasting Power of Attorney it took the Office of the Public Guardian (OPG) about a month to produce guidance on how to apply in the Covid-19 environment.

“On top of this, the OPG expressed they were seeing large levels of enquiries and it was taking longer than usual to process applications.  It is no wonder we saw the year-on-year level of registrations drop by 70.5% for the month of April alone.”