Do You Still Need a Power of Attorney If Assets Are in Joint Names? A Winscombe Guide

This is where most people trip up. You co-own the family home. You have a joint bank account. So surely that means you can look after everything if your partner becomes ill?

Unfortunately, not quite.

Joint ownership means you have access to assets held together. It does not give you legal authority to handle your partner's other financial affairs, healthcare, or welfare decisions. Nor does it allow you to sell their half of any property if they lose the mental capacity to consent to the sale.

What Joint Ownership Covers

If you hold a bank account jointly, then generally either of you can withdraw money or pay any bills. That feels like enough. However, if one account holder loses mental capacity, the financial institution may freeze a joint account, says the Financial Conduct Authority. We've seen families across Winscombe have exactly that happen. One minute there's no issue, then the next the bank closes down access.

Joint ownership of property is a more complex area. If your name is entered on the land registry alongside your partner, it does not follow that you can sell it without the consent of your partner. And what if they cannot give that consent now? Then you'd need to make an application to the court for a deputy to act. This is a long, stressful, and expensive process.

What a Power of Attorney Does

A Lasting Power of Attorney (LPA) gives legal authority to someone of your choosing to act for you in situations where joint ownership cannot provide it. There are two types of LPA.

• A Property and Financial Affairs LPA enables your chosen person to manage your bank accounts, bills, investments and selling property
• A Health and Welfare LPA enables them to make decisions about medical care, where you live, and your personal care
• Both types have to be registered with the Office of the Public Guardian (OPG), and they can only be set up while you still have mental capacity

Joint assets alone can never substitute either type of LPA. You might say it's the difference between sharing something together, and trusting that someone will be able to act on your behalf when you cannot.

A Scenario We See Regularly

A couple in their sixties own the family home jointly and their savings are in a joint account too. They feel they are in a safe place. Then one partner is hit with a stroke that affects their ability to communicate properly.

The other can still access the joint account for now, but the bank will start asking questions. Unfortunately, they can't sell their family home, which is in joint names, without both signatures. They don't have LPAs in place. That means the family has to apply to the Court of Protection to appoint a deputy. This takes six months or more and involves the court charging a few hundred pounds. In the meantime, a stranger at the Court of Protection decides what's best for her husband and makes the day-to-day decisions about how he spends his money. All of that could have been avoided with the right LPA documents.

We speak to families from Winscombe and the nearby villages in Somerset, all of whom thought joint names were enough and are surprised to discover that joint names offer little protection at exactly the time it's most needed.

It's also worth knowing that banks don't all follow the same rule when one account holder loses mental capacity. Some will let you keep using a joint account. Others freeze it entirely until a registered Lasting Power of Attorney is shown. Banks have a duty to protect both account holders' money, so if a withdrawal isn't clearly in that person's interest, the bank could be held responsible for negligence in allowing it. We regularly see this catch couples out, sometimes only realising there's a problem when they're refused at the counter.

Once a bank is made aware that a customer has lost mental capacity, they will typically ask to see:

• A registered Lasting Power of Attorney for property and financial affairs, giving one individual authority to make such decisions on behalf of the other
• An order made by the Court of Protection called a Deputyship Order (if an LPA was not made previously)
• On rare occasions, a letter from a doctor

Note the word "registered." An LPA that has been signed but not registered with the Office of the Public Guardian (OPG) will be no use at your bank. It needs to be fully registered before it can be used at a bank branch. There are now over 9.3 million registered Lasting Powers of Attorney and Enduring Powers of Attorney in England and Wales as at 31 March 2025, according to the Office of the Public Guardian, yet millions still don't have one.

The Real Price of Not Having an LPA

If you do not have a Lasting Power of Attorney in place, the only way forward is to make an application to the Court of Protection for a Deputyship Order. It takes time (many months), is more expensive to set up than an LPA, and leaves your family in a stressful position at a time they're already facing plenty.

Say your parents are unable to manage their own finances. You're at home in Winscombe and need to pay the mortgage, council tax, care fees and so on. But because there's no Lasting Power of Attorney in place, the joint account is frozen and you must wait for the court order before you can act.

We have many clients who are currently facing this scenario. It's why we always encourage families to sort LPA paperwork well in advance, rather than when there's already a crisis.

If you'd like to see how LPA documents fit around any joint ownership arrangements, our Lasting Power of Attorney page walks through the process in plain English, with no pressure.

Having a joint names bank account allows you to access funds, but does not enable you to act on someone else's behalf when they cannot act for themselves. It's that latter situation, where one person loses capacity to deal with finances, that most people get wrong, and that leads to problems further down the line.

This is the question we most often hear from married couples in Winscombe. "We own everything jointly, surely my wife or husband can do everything if I can't?" It may make sense to you, but it's not how the law operates.

Joint ownership deals with what happens to a particular item of property. A Lasting Power of Attorney deals with what happens to you.

These are separate things that work for different purposes and protect you differently, so let's consider why married couples and those owning a property jointly still need to have a Lasting Power of Attorney in place.

What Joint Ownership Does

Property owned as joint tenants will pass to the survivor on the first death. That's the "right of survivorship," and it works once one party has passed away. But it doesn't do you a great deal of good if you and your partner are both still alive and one of you loses mental capacity.

For example, imagine you and your partner jointly own your Winscombe home. Suddenly, one of you has a stroke. The other wants to sell the home to pay for care. With no LPA documents, that's not possible. You just don't have the authority to act for your partner, or on their behalf. We see this time and again, and it always shocks the people concerned.

Jointly owned assets don't automatically become owned by your partner alone while you're both still living, and joint ownership only covers what's jointly owned anyway. It doesn't cover decisions about your health and welfare, and a partner can't make care or treatment decisions on your behalf without LPA documents, even if you're married.

Without LPA documents in place, your partner can't:

• Access or run your sole-name bank accounts
• Make treatment and care home decisions on your behalf
• Deal with your pension or insurance policies
• Sell, re-mortgage, or change the terms on any jointly owned property if you've lost capacity
• Deal with your investments, savings and ISAs

Most people don't know that until they find themselves in that situation. According to the Office of the Public Guardian, there have been 6.4 million LPAs registered in England and Wales, and the number increases every year.

Without an LPA, if your partner were to lose mental capacity, you would need to make an application to the Court of Protection for a Deputyship. This can take months and be very stressful. Bills still need to be paid during that time, and care decisions still need to be made, even though you have no authority to act on them yet.

An LPA is one of the most generous gifts you can give to your family or friends. It means you are thinking ahead, and it means the people you care for most won't be blocked at a time when they need to act.

There are two types of LPA document: a Property and Financial Affairs LPA gives someone the authority to make decisions on property and finances, and a Health and Welfare LPA gives them the right to make decisions about your care, treatment and living arrangements. It's common for us to sit with couples in the Winscombe area to discuss the need for LPA documents and to set both of those up. One is for your assets, the other is for you. Joint property ownership does neither alone.

So, even if you and your spouse are on the property deeds, should you still have LPA documents? The answer is yes. Joint names will protect your home or business asset on death. LPA documents protect you in life. The two work together; they don't work as substitutes for each other.

If you'd like to see how LPA documents fit with your own situation, our Lasting Power of Attorney page sets out exactly how they're completed and registered, at your own pace and with no pressure.