LPA Fees: What Changed in 2025 and What It Costs Now

On 17 November 2025, the Office of the Public Guardian put the cost of registering a Lasting Power of Attorney up from £82 to £92 per document. That is £184 if you want both types (Property and Financial Affairs plus Health and Welfare), and most people do.

It was the first fee rise in several years. A tenner per LPA is not exactly catastrophic, but it annoyed a lot of people because the government had actually cut the fee not that long before. The direction of travel now is upward, which raises the obvious question: is it still worth it?

We think so, yes. But there are details worth knowing about, particularly around fee exemptions and a fairly big change to the Universal Credit rules that came in during February 2026. This guide runs through all of it.

The registration fee went from £82 to £92 per LPA document. Both types cost the same to register, same as before.

If you want both a Property and Financial Affairs LPA and a Health and Welfare LPA registered, you are paying £184 in OPG fees. Before the increase that figure was £164. So the total jump is £20 across both.

Anyone who got their application in before 17 November 2025 paid the old rate. If your application landed at the OPG on 17 November or later, you paid £92. No grace period. No transitional arrangement.

The fee is the same however you submit. Online payment through the gov.uk service, cheque in the post, it does not matter.

The government's reason is pretty simple: the OPG needs cash to modernise.

Look, the LPA registration service has been paper-heavy for years. Applications arrive by post, caseworkers go through physical forms by hand, and stamped documents get sent back through the mail. The OPG has been building a digital LPA service that would let the whole process happen online, from creation right through to registration, without a single piece of paper changing hands.

That costs money. The Powers of Attorney Act 2023 gave the legal framework for fully digital LPAs, but turning that into working technology takes real investment. Server infrastructure, identity verification, digital signing processes, security audits, training staff, and getting banks and other organisations to verify LPAs digitally.

The fee increase is meant to plug the gap between what the OPG takes in from registrations and what it actually costs to run the service plus fund these changes. The previous 82 pound fee was, according to the Ministry of Justice, running at a loss once you factored in the modernisation programme.

Whether £10 more per document is reasonable is a judgement call. But the OPG wants to build a faster, fully digital system, and the people using the service are being asked to pay for it.

Some people do not have to pay the registration fee at all. The exemption rules survived the increase.

You qualify for a full exemption if you receive any of these means-tested benefits at the time you apply:

Income Support. Income-based Jobseeker's Allowance (not the contribution-based version). Income-related Employment and Support Allowance (again, not contribution-based). Pension Credit Guarantee Credit. Housing Benefit in certain circumstances. Council Tax Reduction in certain circumstances. A combination of Working Tax Credit and a disability element in some cases.

Universal Credit also used to qualify you automatically, but that changed in February 2026. We cover that separately below because it is a big deal and a lot of people have missed it.

To claim the exemption, you must fill in Form LPA120 and send it with your registration application. The form asks which benefit you receive and requires evidence, usually a recent award letter or benefit statement. The OPG will not take your word for it.

If you do not qualify for a full exemption but your gross annual income is under £12,000, you pay half. That is £46 per LPA instead of £92. For both types together, £92 instead of £184.

Gross annual income means before tax and National Insurance come off. It includes earnings from employment, self-employment, pensions, and most other regular income. The OPG may ask for a recent P60, tax return, or benefit statement as proof.

Honestly, this reduction is worth knowing about because plenty of retired people on modest pensions fall into this bracket. If your total income from State Pension plus any private pensions comes in under £12,000 a year, you should be claiming it.

The same Form LPA120 covers both exemptions and reductions. Tick the relevant box, attach your evidence, send it with the application. No separate form for the half-price rate.

This is the one that has tripped people up, so pay attention.

Before February 2026, being on Universal Credit meant you automatically qualified for a full fee exemption when registering an LPA. No further questions. If you received UC, you paid nothing.

That is no longer the case. From February 2026, the OPG checks your gross annual income even if you are on Universal Credit. The automatic exemption is gone.

Here is how it works now. If you are on UC and your gross annual income is under £12,000, you get a 50 per cent reduction. You pay £46 per LPA instead of 92. If your gross annual income is £12,000 or above, you pay the full fee regardless of being on UC.

The full exemption (paying nothing at all) is now reserved for people on the other qualifying benefits listed above: Income Support, income-based JSA, income-related ESA, Pension Credit Guarantee Credit, and the rest. UC on its own no longer gets you to zero.

Why the change? Universal Credit covers a wide spread of incomes. Someone earning £30,000 a year with children might still get a small UC top-up. The government decided it was not right to exempt them from the fee when someone on a similar income without UC had to pay the full whack.

Whether you agree with that or not, the practical result is that thousands of people who would have paid nothing before February 2026 now owe either 46 or £92 per document.

If you are claiming an exemption or reduction, you must send Form LPA120 with your LPA registration application. This is not optional and it is not something you can sort out afterwards.

The OPG used to accept late claims in some cases. Not any more. If your application arrives without a completed LPA120 and the full fee, the OPG will process it at the full price. You cannot phone up afterwards and ask for a refund because you forgot the form.

Form LPA120 asks for your personal details, which benefit you receive or what your income is, and needs you to attach evidence. A benefit award letter, a recent bank statement showing benefit payments, a P60, or a tax calculation from HMRC will usually do.

Download the current version from gov.uk. Do not dig out an old copy from your computer because the form gets updated from time to time and the OPG will reject outdated versions.

Fill it in. Attach the evidence. Send it with the registration application. Treat it as part of the application, not something to sort out later.

When people complain about paying £92, we get it. Nobody enjoys handing money to the government for a document they hope they will never actually need. But look at what happens when nobody bothers.

If you lose mental capacity without an LPA in place, the only route for your family is a Court of Protection deputyship. Here is what that runs to.

The court application fee is £371. If the court holds a hearing, add £385 on top. Solicitor fees for preparing a deputyship application typically sit between 2,000 and £5,000 for a straightforward case. Contested cases, where family members disagree about who should be deputy, can blow past 10,000 to £20,000 without much trouble. On top of all that, there is a deputyship bond (100 to £300 a year) and the OPG's annual supervision fee (35 to £320 depending on the size of the estate).

An LPA costs £92. No ongoing fees. A deputyship costs thousands in year one and keeps charging every year after that.

Put it another way. Both LPAs registered and ready to go: £184. A deputy managing your money for ten years at the standard supervision rate: £3,200 in supervision fees alone, before you even count the application costs.

The LPA is one of the cheapest legal documents you can get. The alternative is one of the most expensive.

We will be upfront about this. The 92 pound OPG registration fee is a government charge that every LPA application attracts, no matter who helps you prepare it. That money goes to the OPG, not to us.

On top of that, Keystone Estate Planning charges a service fee for helping you through the LPA process. Our online service walks you through each section with plain-English questions, checks your answers, and produces finished LPA documents ready for signing and registration. We offer tiered pricing depending on how much hand-holding you want, from a digital-only option through to a fully managed service.

A single LPA through our digital service starts at 89.£99. If you want both types, the second document is discounted. Our fully managed tier, which includes checking, printing, and posting everything for you, costs more but takes the admin off your plate entirely.

So for a pair of LPAs using our standard digital service, your total cost is the Keystone fee plus £184 in OPG registration fees. Even at the top end, you are looking at a fraction of what a solicitor would charge for the same two documents, and a tiny fraction of what a deputyship would cost your family down the line.

We show all prices on our website before you commit. No hidden charges. No surprise extras.

Yes. Without question.

At £82 it was good value. At £92 it is still good value. Honestly, even if it doubled tomorrow, it would still be good value compared to the alternative.

Think about what you are actually getting. For £92, you get a legal document that lets someone you trust manage your finances or make health decisions on your behalf if you can no longer do it yourself. It works the moment you need it. No ongoing fees. No annual reports to file. No government supervision charges. Once registered, it sits there quietly for as long as you need it, which could be decades.

Without one, your family is looking at months of waiting, thousands in legal fees, and the real possibility that a stranger ends up managing your affairs. That is not some theoretical worry. The Court of Protection handles over 50,000 deputyship applications a year. Most of them exist because nobody got round to sorting an LPA while there was still time.

Here is the bit that matters most. You can only make an LPA while you have mental capacity. A stroke, a bad accident, dementia creeping in, these things do not send a warning letter first. Once that window closes, it is closed for good. There is no emergency workaround, no matter how much you are willing to spend.

Spending £184 today on both types of LPA is one of the smartest financial decisions you can make. It protects your family from costs that could run to tens of thousands. It protects you from having your affairs handled by someone you have never met. And it takes an afternoon.

*Keystone Estate Planning is not a law firm and does not provide legal advice. This article is for general information only and reflects the position as of the date of publication. Fee amounts and exemption rules may change. If your circumstances are complex, we recommend seeking independent legal advice from a qualified solicitor.*