Mum's diagnosis and the three-month wait we couldn't afford

Sarah called us on a Tuesday. Her mum had been diagnosed the previous Thursday — early-stage vascular dementia, the consultant said, but she was still capable, still herself, just a bit forgetful. The consultant had said something Sarah couldn't shake: "If you're going to do an LPA, do it soon. While she can still tell us she wants to."

Sarah had already started the process with another provider. They'd quoted her twelve weeks. The consultant said soon. She called us because someone in a Facebook group mentioned we were quicker.

This is what twelve weeks means, in real terms, when someone's just had a diagnosis like that.

Why twelve weeks is the wrong answer

Twelve weeks is eighty-four days. That sounds abstract until you understand what can happen in eighty-four days with early-stage vascular dementia.

This particular condition doesn't decline on a smooth curve. It can be stable for months, then worsen sharply after a further episode — another small stroke, an infection, a fall. "Early-stage" is a description of where someone is right now, not a promise about where they'll be in August. And a Lasting Power of Attorney requires the person signing it — the donor — to have mental capacity at the moment they sign. Not capacity in general, not a note from a doctor saying they were fine last week. Capacity today, for this specific decision.

Once that window closes, it's gone. The LPA can't be backdated. A diagnosis doesn't trigger a grace period. If Sarah's mum lost capacity before the document was signed, the only remaining route would be an application to the Court of Protection — eight to twelve months, hundreds of pounds in fees, ongoing annual supervision. Twelve weeks wasn't just slow. In her situation, it was a gamble with odds nobody should accept.

Sarah was calm on the phone. The kind of calm that comes from having understood the situation fully and not yet having worked out what to do about it. She'd done her research. She knew what the timelines meant. She just needed someone who could move.

Why most providers quote months, not days

The LPA industry runs on queues. It's worth understanding why, because it's not carelessness — it's a structural choice that made sense once, for a different kind of customer.

For most of the history of the Lasting Power of Attorney, the typical customer was someone in their mid-sixties, sorting out their affairs alongside a will, in no particular hurry. Providers built their processes around that person. Documents go in, join a batch, get reviewed in turn, go out when the queue clears. Efficient for the provider. Sensible for someone with time.

The Office of the Public Guardian — the OPG — is the government body that registers LPAs. Registration currently takes several weeks on their side. That's outside anyone's control. But the weeks that providers add before they even submit — drafting time, review queues, batched processing, handoffs between teams — those are entirely within a provider's control. Twelve weeks is mostly the provider's queue, not the OPG's.

We don't run a queue. We don't batch. One of our planners takes the case, does the work, and submits it as soon as it's ready. That's it. It's not complicated. It just requires treating each case as its own thing, not a unit in a pipeline.

"If you're going to do an LPA, do it soon. While she can still tell us she wants to."

What we did that same Tuesday

Sarah called us mid-morning. We talked through her mum's situation properly before we talked about anything else. We needed to understand what "early-stage" actually meant for this person — what the consultant had said about rate of progression, how her mum was presenting day-to-day, whether there were signs of difficulty with complex tasks. That shapes how we approach the work.

By early afternoon, one of our planners had taken down everything needed and begun drafting. The Certificate Provider stage — where an independent professional confirms that the donor understands what they're signing and isn't under pressure — is the point where many same-day claims stall. People discover they don't have anyone who qualifies, or their GP refuses, or a solicitor charges for the appointment and the diary is two weeks away.

We provide our own Certificate Provider service. One of our planners conducted a video call with Sarah's mum that same afternoon. Twenty minutes. Unhurried. The planner talked her through what the LPA would allow Sarah to do, confirmed that she understood it, confirmed that she wanted it. She was clear. She was warm. She was entirely herself.

We submitted the completed Lasting Power of Attorney to the OPG the same day.

The thing most families expect

Most families in Sarah's position expect a catch somewhere. "Same day" gets filed alongside "too good to be true." They assume something gets skipped, some corner gets cut, the quality suffers.

It doesn't. An LPA drafted carelessly gets rejected by the OPG, and corrections add weeks. Speed that produces errors isn't useful to anyone. Our planners check every document before it goes anywhere. That's not a feature — it's the job.

The OPG registration still takes its own time. We can't change that. What we can change is how long things take on our side, and how quickly a complete, accurate document reaches the point of submission. The gap between "Sarah calls us" and "LPA submitted to the OPG" was one day. For a family in her situation, that gap matters.

Sarah's mum's LPA came back from the OPG registered. She'd had a couple of difficult days in the interval — Sarah mentioned she'd been more confused than usual one weekend — but she was herself when it mattered, and the document was real and done.

What the industry gets wrong

The LPA industry has organised itself around the assumption that nobody is in a hurry. Standard timelines are quoted, standard processes are followed, and if a family happens to be racing a diagnosis, they're expected to fit around the schedule.

We started from the opposite assumption. Some people have time. Some people don't. Treating both the same is a choice. It's a choice we were unwilling to make.

Some families call us with months to spare. We work just as carefully for them. But we built our service with Sarah's call in mind — the Tuesday morning call, the diagnosis the previous Thursday, the consultant's voice still in someone's head saying: soon.

That's what we're here for.