What Happens After Everyone Signs the LPA?
15th July 2026
The short answer:
After everyone has signed the LPA in the correct order, the application is sent to the OPG for registration. They check the forms have been completed correctly and all the legal requirements have been met. Once registration is complete, the LPA becomes legally valid and can be used by your attorneys when the circumstances allow. Until then, your attorneys can’t generally act under the LPA.
Once your paperwork is complete, What Happens After Everyone Signs the LPA? becomes the next question for many people. You could assume the process is finished once everyone has signed, but there’s still one important step to go before you’re complete. The LPA must be registered with the Office of the Public Guardian before it can be used. Understanding what happens next helps avoid confusion and gives you confidence that everything is progressing as it should be.
Registration is the next step
Signing the paperwork is a significant milestone, but it isn’t the end of the process.
The completed forms need to be submitted for registration together, with the appropriate registration fee, unless you’re entitled to a reduction or exemption on that.
The OPG will then review the application. This includes checking the document has been completed properly, that signatures appear in the correct order and there are no issues preventing registration.
If everything is in order, the application continues to move through the registration process.
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OPG rejections
We check LPAs every day. Not one has been rejected by the OPG.
See exactly what our specialists check before each LPA is submitted.
Why does my registration take time?
Many people are surprised that registering an LPA doesn’t happen immediately.
The OPG follows a legal process that includes a waiting period before registration can be completed. This helps ensure there’s an opportunity for concerns to be raised if necessary and allows the application to be checked thoroughly.
Processing times also vary depending on demand at the time, so it’s sensible to plan ahead, rather than waiting until the LPA is urgently needed in hand.
Can attorneys do anything while you’re waiting?
In most situations, unfortunately it’s a no.
Until the LPA has been registered, your attorneys can’t rely on it to make decisions or deal with banks, investment providers or other organisations.
That’s why creating an LPA early, using a service like Power of Attorney Online, is so crucially important. Registering it well before it’s needed means your attorneys are ready to act if circumstances change unexpectedly at any moment.
If the donor loses mental capacity before registration is complete, the application can usually continue, provided it was validly signed while they still had their mental capacity.
If your LPA gets rejected, the real cost is time.
A rejection means another £92 OPG fee – and 8-10 weeks back at the bottom of the queue. For families facing a diagnosis, a property sale, or hospital decisions, weeks of delay is the part that hurts most.
£92 + 8–10 wks
Another OPG fee + delay if rejected
£99, Same-day check
Specialist review before submission
What happens once registration is complete?
After the OPG registers the LPA, the document becomes legally effective.
For a Property and Financial Affairs LPA, attorneys can usually begin acting immediately, but only if the donor has chosen that option. Alternatively, they may only act if the donor later loses mental capacity, depending on the instructions within the document itself.
A Health and Welfare LPA is different. Attorneys can only make decisions once the donor has lost the mental capacity to make those decisions themselves.
Once registration is complete, it’s usually also worth contacting banks, pension providers and other organisations in advance. Many have their own process for recording an LPA, and completing this before it’s urgently needed can make things much easier later on down the line if it comes to it.
Although the waiting period can feel frustrating, registration is what gives your LPA its legal effect. Once that’s done, you have the reassurance that the document is ready whenever in life you might require it.
A friend of mine used the gov.uk site directly. I went round to witness it and noticed they’d made lots of avoidable errors. Their LPA would almost certainly have been rejected by the OPG. Our system catches this before it ever gets sent.
Matt Cresswell, Power of Attorney Online
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