Bit of anecdotal evidence required if possible. Clients signed Lasting Powers of Attorney on 18th January 2018 and we set about obtaining Attorneys signatures. One of the sons lives abroad and as of yet we have not received his signed forms, despite chasing both him and his parents.
Have set in motion another chase but realistically it is going to be June before we receive his signature. Clients are putting in place as a precaution and so are not planning to register immediately.
Does anyone have any evidence either way as to whether the OPG is likely to deny registration because of the time elapsed between signatures?
From memory (at my former firm so I can’t check the old file) we had trouble where the gap was about 14 months and had to redo the whole process. I can’t say exactly what the OPG’s cutoff period for all the signatures was, but possibly a year.
I recently registered an LPA that had been made some years ago. Upon checking it prior to registration, I found that one of the attorneys had incorrectly completed his signature page (I believe that he had put his date of birth rather than date of signing of the LPA). Therefore we had to get his page resigned.
I checked with the OPG as to whether this would cause a problem – given that this would mean that the time between the donor and the attorney signing would be measured in years. I was told this wouldn’t be a problem and therefore I got the page resigned and the registration went through without query.
I do not think you will have a problem, based on my experience. There is no set time limit as far as I am aware. However, you can always call the OPG and check with them by way of independent verification.
Anecdotally you should be fine - I have had a few gaps longer than that due to inattentive attorneys and the LPAs have been registered by the OPG without incident.
I attended an OPG presentation a couple of years ago. The presenter advised a time limit of 12 months from date of signing by the donor to the last Section 11 being signed was allowed. Beyond that timeframe the OPG would question why the delay.