Power of Attorney After Death

Every form of personal power of attorney ends at death, along with deputyship.

• Lasting power of attorney (LPA), both types. Property and financial affairs, and health and welfare. Both end.
• Enduring power of attorney (EPA), the older form that could only be made and signed before 1 October 2007 and remains usable for people who set one up before then. Also ends.
• Ordinary or general power of attorney, used for temporary arrangements. Ends.
• Deputyship, where the Court of Protection appointed someone because no LPA existed. Ends.
• Continuing and welfare powers of attorney in Scotland. End.

It does not matter whether the document was registered, how long it had been in place, or how involved the attorney was. The authority came from the living person. When they die, it goes with them.

This guide does not cover specialist commercial powers of attorney given as security, which can continue after the donor's death while the interest they secure remains. These are a business arrangement rather than a family one, and if you think one applies, take advice.

These two roles get confused constantly, partly because the same person often holds both.

An attorney acts for someone who is alive but cannot act for themselves. The authority is to help a living person manage their own affairs.

An executor acts for someone who has died. The authority is to gather in the estate, settle debts, and pass on what remains to the people entitled to it.

They are separate appointments made in separate documents. Being named as attorney gives you no claim to be executor, and being named executor gives you no authority before the death. If you were both, you do not carry on seamlessly. You stop acting as attorney and begin acting as executor, and the source of your authority changes underneath you even though nothing changes about you.

If there is no will, there is no executor. Someone applies to become an administrator instead, and the same principle holds: the authority comes from the grant, not from the old power of attorney.

Our guides to what an executor actually has to do, what happens when there is no will, and applying for letters of administration cover each of these in turn.

Here is the practical problem. The attorney's authority ends immediately at death. A named executor may have responsibilities from the date of death, but banks and other organisations will often require the grant of probate as formal evidence before allowing them to access or transfer estate assets. Some lower-value assets can be released without a grant. Where there is no will, an administrator generally obtains authority through letters of administration.

So there is usually a period of weeks or months where the accounts sit unusable. Direct debits are still going out. There may be a funeral to pay for. This is normal, and every bank deals with it constantly.

What you can do during it:

• Tell the bank. Once notified, they will normally freeze or restrict the accounts. That is the correct outcome, not an obstruction. It protects the estate and it protects you.
• Funeral costs are the usual exception. Of the 22 major UK banks we checked in May 2026, 19 will pay a funeral director's invoice directly from the deceased's sole account before probate, subject to their own requirements and there being enough money in the account. Ask the bereavement team. It is a routine request. Which bank you approach first can decide whether that money arrives before or after the funeral, which is the next section.
• Keep receipts for anything you pay personally. Reasonable expenses properly incurred on behalf of the estate can normally be reimbursed later, provided the estate has sufficient funds. Write down what you paid, when, and what for.
• Do not move money to make things simpler. Transferring funds out of the deceased's account, even into an account you hold for the family, creates a problem you will have to explain later.

Our guides to notifying banks after a death, bank probate thresholds and help with funeral costs go further on each of these.

If the funeral has not taken place yet, what matters is whether the bank will act on an estimate or wait for the final invoice. A bank that accepts an estimate can release the money before the service. A bank that requires the final invoice cannot, which means paying up front and claiming it back. If the person held more than one account, approach an estimate bank first.

Every one of these banks will want its own paperwork, and none of them will release more than the account holds. Our guide to help with funeral costs covers what to do when the account cannot cover it.

If the power of attorney or deputyship was registered in England or Wales, the Office of the Public Guardian (OPG) needs to know about the death so it can close its record. Scotland has its own Public Guardian and a different process, set out further down.

You can notify them by phone, email or letter. The process changed in January 2023: OPG now checks deaths against a central government verification system, so you do not need to send a death certificate unless they specifically ask for one.

They will ask for the registered document to be returned so the registration can be cancelled, including any certified copies that were made. Ask them what they need when you make contact, as it depends on the document.

Office of the Public Guardian (England & Wales)
Telephone: 0300 456 0300
Email: customerservices@publicguardian.gov.uk
Post: PO Box 16185, Birmingham, B2 2WH
Lines are open Monday, Tuesday, Thursday and Friday 9am to 5pm, and Wednesday 10am to 5pm.

Notify them reasonably promptly, but the immediate practical priorities are stopping any use of the power and telling the bank.

Can I use the account to pay the funeral director?

Not as attorney. Your authority has gone. Ask the bank's bereavement team to pay the invoice directly from the account instead: 19 of the 22 major UK banks we checked will do this before probate, and the table above shows which of them will act on an estimate rather than waiting for the final invoice.

How long can an attorney keep transferring money after the death?

They cannot, at all. There is no permitted period. A transfer made after the death is made without authority, regardless of intention.

What if a payment went out after the death?

Standing orders and direct debits may continue until the bank is notified. Tell the bank promptly and record any payments made after the death, so the executor can account for them and decide whether any should be reversed.

What about something I did as attorney shortly before the death?

Decisions properly made while the person was alive remain valid. You are not expected to unpick them. Keep your records in case the executor asks.

Can an attorney sell the person's house before they die?

A registered property and financial affairs LPA can allow it, but the attorney must act within the terms of the LPA and in the donor's best interests, not the attorney's or the family's. It is not a way to arrange things in advance of a death. If this is a live question, take advice before acting.

I think an attorney misused their position. What now?

While the person was alive, OPG investigates concerns about registered attorneys and deputies. Once they have died, OPG's role largely ends and it becomes a matter for the estate, which the executor is responsible for pursuing. Concerns about theft can be reported to the police. Take legal advice early.

The LPA gives the former attorney no authority over funeral arrangements, because health and welfare authority ends at death like everything else.

Where there is a will, the executor will usually have the primary legal role in making the arrangements, taking account of any wishes the person expressed. Those wishes are not generally legally binding, even when written into the will, though they should normally be taken seriously.

Our guide to arranging a funeral covers the practical steps, and recording funeral wishes is the feature families use to write them down in advance.

The substantive rule is the same. A continuing power of attorney (financial) or welfare power of attorney granted under Scottish law ends when the granter dies, and the estate then falls to the executor.

The administration differs in two ways. Powers of attorney in Scotland are registered with the Office of the Public Guardian (Scotland), a separate body from the one covering England and Wales, so the Birmingham contact details above are not the ones you need. Notify them in writing and enclose a copy of the death certificate. Do not send the original death certificate, and do not send the original power of attorney simply for this purpose.

Office of the Public Guardian (Scotland)
Telephone: 01324 678300
Email: opg@scotcourts.gov.uk
Post: Hadrian House, Callendar Business Park, Callendar Road, Falkirk, FK1 1XR
Lines are open Monday to Friday, 9am to 5pm.

The process for administering the estate is called confirmation rather than probate, which our guide to probate in Scotland walks through.

Northern Ireland has its own arrangements and they have been in transition. The enduring power of attorney remains the established form, alongside controllership. The lasting power of attorney provisions in the Mental Capacity Act (Northern Ireland) 2016 have not been fully brought into force, so the position is not the same as in England and Wales.

The rule that matters here is unchanged: whatever form the authority took, it ends at death.

Because commencement is still moving, check the current position with the Office of Care and Protection or a Northern Ireland solicitor rather than assuming England and Wales guidance applies.

There is one thing a former attorney has that nobody else does, and it is easy to overlook while you are worrying about authority you no longer hold. You know where everything is.

You know which accounts exist and which have been closed. You know which direct debits are live and which of them were for things that ended years ago. You know where the paperwork is kept, which insurer the policy is with, and which of the utility accounts is in the wrong name. An executor starting from scratch often spends weeks rebuilding exactly that picture.

So the most useful thing you can do in the handover is write it down while it is still fresh, rather than answering it in pieces over the following months. If you were also the executor, the same applies: you will be glad of it later.

AfterLoss keeps the accounts, documents and contacts in one place for exactly this, so the picture in your head becomes something the whole family can see.

Once the power of attorney has ended, the work moves to the estate:

1. Register the death and obtain certificates. How to register a death.
2. Tell the banks and other organisations. Notifying banks and Tell Us Once.
3. Work out whether probate is needed. The Probate Checker answers this for a specific bank, and do I need probate? covers the estate as a whole.
4. Apply for probate or letters of administration if it is. How to apply for probate.
5. Notify OPG and return the document.