Attorneys, donors, executors, grants: families mix up power of attorney and probate constantly, and the confusion has real consequences. Here is the short answer to the question most people arrive with: having power of attorney does not remove the need for probate. A power of attorney, including a lasting power of attorney (LPA), operates only during the donor's lifetime and ends automatically at the moment of death. Probate is the entirely separate legal process that begins after death. Whether the estate needs a grant of probate depends on what the person owned and how it was held, and the existence of an LPA makes no difference to that question either way.
If someone close to you has died and you were their attorney, the practical question is simply whether the estate now needs a grant. You can work that out in about two minutes with our free do I need probate checker, which walks through the assets and how they were held. The rest of this guide explains what each instrument actually does, why they are so often mixed up, and what a former attorney must do the moment the donor dies. It covers England and Wales; Scotland uses different terminology (confirmation rather than probate, and its own power of attorney regime).
Two instruments, two ends of a life
The neatest way to hold the distinction in your head is this: power of attorney is for the living, probate is for the dead. They never operate at the same time.
| Lasting power of attorney | Probate | |
|---|---|---|
| When it applies | During the donor's lifetime | After death only |
| What it does | Lets chosen attorneys make decisions for the donor about finances or health and welfare | Gives the executor or administrator legal authority to collect assets, pay debts and distribute the estate |
| Who sets it up | The donor, while they still have mental capacity | The executor named in the will (or an administrator under the intestacy rules) applies after death |
| Which body handles it | Office of the Public Guardian (OPG) | HM Courts and Tribunals Service (the probate registry) |
| Fee | £92 per LPA to register | £526 application fee for estates over £5,000; no fee at or below £5,000 |
| When it ends | Automatically at the donor's death (or if revoked earlier) | When the estate is fully administered |
What a lasting power of attorney is for
A lasting power of attorney is a legal document in which a person (the donor) appoints one or more people (attorneys) to make decisions on their behalf. There are two types: a property and financial affairs LPA, covering things like bank accounts, bills, pensions and selling property, and a health and welfare LPA, covering care and medical decisions. The framework comes from the Mental Capacity Act 2005, and an LPA must be registered with the Office of the Public Guardian before it can be used. Registration costs £92 per LPA, so a couple putting both types in place would pay £92 four times.
The point of an LPA is continuity during life. If the donor loses mental capacity through dementia, a stroke or an accident, their attorneys can keep the household running: paying bills, managing accounts, dealing with the local authority about care fees. A property and financial affairs LPA can also, if the donor chooses, be used while they still have capacity, which is useful for someone who is physically unwell or simply wants help. This article keeps the LPA detail deliberately brief; our full lasting power of attorney guide covers the types, the registration process and how to choose attorneys.
What probate is for
Probate is the process of getting legal authority to deal with someone's estate after they die. Where there is a valid will, the executors apply for a grant of probate. Where there is no will, the closest relative applies for letters of administration under the intestacy rules. Either way, the resulting document (a grant of representation) is what banks, investment firms and the Land Registry require before they will release or transfer the deceased's sole assets.
Not every estate needs a grant. Small accounts are often released without one, and assets held as joint tenants pass to the survivor automatically. Whether a particular estate needs probate is a question in its own right, and our sibling guide on whether you need probate covers it in depth. The application fee is £526 for estates over £5,000 (following the rise on 13 July 2026), with no fee at or below £5,000; ordering extra sealed copies of the grant at the same time costs £2 apiece.
The core misconception: an LPA does not survive death
The single most important rule in this whole area is also the most frequently misunderstood. A power of attorney ends automatically at the moment the donor dies. It does not wind down, transfer or convert into anything else. From that moment the attorney has no legal authority whatsoever over the donor's money or property, and must stop acting immediately. Government guidance on ending a power of attorney is explicit that death ends the LPA and that the original document and a copy of the death certificate should be sent to the Office of the Public Guardian so the registration can be cancelled.
In practice this catches people out in painful ways. An attorney who has been managing a parent's account for years may instinctively carry on after the death, perhaps to pay the funeral director or clear an outstanding care home bill. However well intentioned, using the LPA after death is unlawful. Banks freeze the deceased's sole accounts as soon as they are notified of the death, and money can then only be released to the estate's personal representatives, either under a grant or, for smaller sums, under the bank's own bereavement procedures. Funeral costs are a legitimate first call on the estate, and most banks will pay a funeral director's invoice directly from a frozen account when shown the death certificate and the invoice, but that is a bereavement process, not an attorney one.
Want this checked against your specific situation?
Leave your details and a one-line summary. A probate specialist will reply within 24 hours, with no obligation.
Why an LPA does not exempt the estate from probate
A related misconception is the belief that because the family "already had legal authority" through the LPA, probate is unnecessary or a formality. It is neither. The probate registry does not care whether an LPA ever existed. What determines whether a grant is needed is the estate itself: broadly, sole-name property or balances above an institution's own limit mean a grant will be required, while jointly held assets and small estates usually pass without one. The asset-by-asset tests are set out in our guide to whether you need probate.
If anything, years of attorneyship can create a false sense that the paperwork is done. It is not: the LPA's authority died with the donor, and the estate now needs its own, separate authority. The quickest way to find out whether that means a full probate application is to run the estate through the do I need probate checker.
Attorney to executor: same person, different legal hat
Very often the person who held the LPA is also the executor named in the will, typically a spouse or an adult child. That is sensible planning, but it is worth being clear that these are two distinct legal roles that happen to sit on the same shoulders. The attorney role is created by the LPA, supervised by the Office of the Public Guardian, and ends at death. The executor role is created by the will, confirmed by the grant of probate from HMCTS, and begins at death.
Nothing carries over between them. Being a registered attorney does not shortcut, speed up or replace any part of the probate application. The executor must still value the estate, deal with any inheritance tax reporting, and apply for the grant in the normal way. What an organised attorneyship does provide is practical: the person who has been running the finances usually knows exactly what accounts exist and where the paperwork lives, which makes valuing the estate far quicker. Once the executor does apply, the court wait is usually measured in weeks rather than months: digital grants averaged 4.5 weeks in the January to March 2026 official statistics. If you are stepping into the executor role for the first time, our guide for executors walks through the whole job, and the sibling post on how long probate takes covers timescales in detail.
What to do at the moment of death if you were the attorney
- Stop using the LPA immediately. Make no further payments, transfers or withdrawals from the donor's accounts, even for estate expenses.
- Register the death and obtain several copies of the death certificate. Institutions will each want to see one.
- Notify the banks and other institutions. Tell every organisation you dealt with as attorney that the donor has died. The government's Tell Us Once service covers most public bodies in one go.
- Send the LPA and a death certificate copy to the Office of the Public Guardian so the registration is formally cancelled.
- Locate the original will and establish who the executors are. If that is you, the estate is now yours to administer; if not, hand over what you know about the assets to whoever it is.
- Check whether the estate needs probate. List what the person owned and how each asset was held, then use the do I need probate checker to see whether a grant will be required before anything can be released.
Speak to a specialist
This guide is general information about how power of attorney and probate fit together in England and Wales; it is not legal advice, and every estate has its own wrinkles. If you have just lost someone and are unsure whether the estate needs a grant, start with the free do I need probate checker, and if the position is complicated, for example a property in sole name, a dispute over the will, or years of attorney accounts to reconcile, we can connect you with a vetted probate specialist who deals with this every day.