If the person you want to help has lost mental capacity

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If someone really can’t manage their own affairs, you can arrange to manage them yourself for them. You’ll usually be carefully monitored to make sure that you’re always acting in the person’s best interests, and you will be restricted with the types of financial decisions you can make – every case is different.

Before you can begin, you need to check if the person really has lost the ability to make their own decisions.

Checking if someone has lost mental capacity

In general, unless it’s a person who has mental capacity and gives you permission through an ordinary power of attorney you can only take over managing someone’s money if they’ve lost mental capacity. The first thing to do is to check whether this is true.

You should check whether they can:

Weigh up the pros and cons of a decision about their money
Understand the kind of decisions they might need to make about their money
Communicate with you to make their decision clear (even if it’s a blink of an eye or a squeeze of a hand)

If they can do these things, the law says they have the capacity to make their own decisions.

The Mental Capacity Act Code of Practice gives more detailed guidance on how to assess someone’s ability to make decisions.

Find out more about the Mental Capacity Act and download the Code of Practice on the GOV.UK website.

Top tip: Always check if the person has an enduring or lasting power of attorney set up. If they do, it might save a lot of time and effort.

If you’re sure someone doesn’t have mental capacity, you can still get the right to manage their money for them.

However, you have to apply to a court to get this right.

There are a few steps to follow to get this done:

Step 1 – Check for an existing power of attorney?

Step 2 – Apply for the power to manage a person’s financial affairs where there is no existing power of attorney?

Step 3 – Show the document to the person’s bank?

Step 4 – Manage the money according to the rules?