What does the Office of the Public Guardian charge?

The Office of the Public Guardian (OPG) is the UK government body that registers Lasting Powers of Attorney for England and Wales. Their registration fee is currently £92 per LPA, paid directly to them when you submit the signed application. This fee applies whether you prepare the LPA yourself, use a specialist service, or instruct a solicitor.

If you are registering both a Property & Financial Affairs LPA AND a Health & Welfare LPA, you pay £92 for each, so £184 to the OPG in total. This fee is non-refundable, so it is critical that your LPA is correct first time. Rejected LPAs cost another £92 to resubmit, plus another 8 to 12 weeks of waiting.

The OPG offers a fee reduction or full exemption for donors on a low income. See "Are there fee reductions?" below.

Why do professional fees vary so much?

The big range you see (anywhere from free to £600 per LPA) reflects three very different ways of preparing an LPA in the UK:

• Do-it-yourself through GOV.UK. The government website lets you complete the LPA forms online for free (you still pay the £92 OPG fee). Cheapest option, but you do all the work yourself with no guidance through the signing process. Most rejections come from this route.
• A specialist LPA provider like Legacy Creators. We charge £99 for a single LPA, or £150 for both (which works out at £75 each), plus the OPG £92 per LPA. Most other specialist firms in the UK charge more. You get full preparation, step-by-step guidance through the signing process, and the signing pack posted to you — at a fraction of solicitor fees.
• A solicitor or wills & probate firm. Typically £300 to £600+ per LPA plus the OPG £92. You get a regulated solicitor giving advice, useful for complex estates. Overkill for a straightforward LPA.

What is included when you use a specialist?

At Legacy Creators, your £99 single LPA (or £75 per LPA when you buy both together) includes:

• The full intake interview (online, walked through by our Co-Founder Sean F Godson)
• Drafting of the LPA forms with your attorneys, decision-making mode, and instructions all correctly captured
• Step-by-step guidance through the signing process — designed to help your LPA go through first time, the place where most DIY LPAs trip up
• The signed pack delivered to you with clear instructions on the signing order (donor first, Certificate Provider second, attorneys third, all with independent witnesses)
• Step-by-step videos and a printed guide showing exactly how to sign
• A return route directly to the OPG with a prepaid envelope

What you don't get for the £99 is regulated legal advice on complex estates. If your situation needs a solicitor, we partner with regulated firms who handle that and we will tell you upfront.

Are there fee reductions for low income?

Yes. The OPG offers two forms of help with the £92 registration fee:

• Fee remission (50% off): if the donor's gross annual income is under £12,000, the OPG fee drops to £46 per LPA. You apply for this when you submit the LPA.
• Fee exemption (100% off): if the donor receives certain means-tested benefits (Income Support, Income-based Jobseeker's Allowance, Universal Credit if eligible, certain disability benefits), the £92 fee is waived entirely. Supporting evidence required.

You apply for either by completing form LPA120A alongside the LPA itself.

Can I do an LPA for free or by myself?

You can prepare your own LPA on the GOV.UK Make a Lasting Power of Attorney service for free, paying only the £92 OPG fee. Many people do exactly this and it works for the most straightforward family situations.

Where DIY LPAs often go wrong:

• Sections signed in the wrong order (the LPA is rejected, you start over)
• The wrong type of witness (e.g. a person who is also an attorney, which is not allowed)
• Confusion between "Property & Financial Affairs" and "Health & Welfare" preferences and instructions
• Missing Certificate Provider (CP) section, or a CP that doesn't meet the eligibility criteria
• Mistakes that don't get caught until the OPG rejects the form, 8 to 12 weeks later

Every rejection costs another £92 and another 8 to 12 weeks of delay. For some families, those weeks are the ones their LPA was meant to cover.

What's the total cost of an LPA over a lifetime?

An LPA is a one-time, lifetime document. There are no annual fees and no ongoing maintenance costs unless you choose to revoke and replace it. So the £191 (one LPA) or £334 (both LPAs, bought together with us) is what you pay across the entire life of the document.

For context: the alternative if you lose capacity without an LPA is the Court of Protection deputyship process, which costs around £408 in court fees plus £750 to £1,500 in solicitor costs, plus an annual deputy supervision fee of £320 to £820 every single year for as long as the deputyship runs. See our LPA page for the full comparison.

Why do most cheap LPAs end up costing more?

Because rejection compounds. The most common pattern we see:

1. A family tries the GOV.UK DIY route to save money.
2. They get the signing order wrong, or a witness doesn't qualify, or the CP section is left blank.
3. The OPG rejects 8 to 12 weeks later. Another £92 fee due. Another 8 to 12 weeks of delay.
4. Sometimes the rejection happens twice. By the time the LPA is finally registered, the family has paid £276 in OPG fees alone, and they have waited 6 to 9 months from the first submission.
5. If capacity is lost in that window, the LPA has not yet activated and the family is back to Court of Protection.

The cheapest LPA is the one that goes through first time. That is what we are designed to do.