Looking for the LP1F form to print? What gov.uk gives you now, and what the codes meant

What you are actually looking for

LP1F and LP1H were the reference codes for the two lasting power of attorney forms: F for property and financial affairs, H for health and welfare. People learned the codes because that is how the PDFs were named, and the codes travelled: into solicitors’ checklists, into forum posts, into the file names of copies hosted on sites that are not gov.uk.

The lasting power of attorney forms collection on gov.uk now lists its forms by what they do, not by code. It links the forms for making a property and financial affairs LPA or a health and welfare LPA, and it notes that you can create an LPA online using the lasting power of attorney service. That is why the code search sends you sideways: the code is not on the page any more, so the pages that still carry it are the ones that copied an old PDF.

The two types, and which one you need

Gov.uk’s guidance on making a lasting power of attorney names the two types — health and welfare, and property and financial affairs — and says you can choose to make one type or both. It also sets the entry condition for the donor: you must be 18 or over and have mental capacity when you make your LPA.

It is worth being clear about what an LPA is not. It is not the general authority a business gives someone to sign on its behalf, which is a different instrument with different formalities: a power of attorney, in general, a general power of attorney and a financial power of attorney cover that ground, and the US equivalents sit in a durable power of attorney form and a medical power of attorney form. If what you are holding is an older English instrument rather than an LPA, it has its own registration route: an enduring power of attorney form.

Why the old code still travels

Form codes outlive the pages that used them, because they are useful: a code is short, unambiguous and easy to say on the phone. A solicitor who built a client checklist in 2018 wrote «LP1F» in it, and that checklist is still in circulation. So are the PDFs, because a file named with its code is easy to find again. The result is a search term that is perfectly precise and points at nothing official, which is a different problem from a search term that is vague.

The practical consequence is worth spelling out, because it is the thing that costs money. A form that was current when it was downloaded is not current now, and an LPA is one of the few documents where being out of date is fatal rather than untidy: it gets rejected at registration, after the wait. So the rule is not «check the code», it is «start from the official page every time», even when you are sure nothing changed.

The other forms in the set, and what each is for

Half the confusion around «LPA forms» is that the set has more than two documents in it, and each one is a separate journey. The gov.uk collection links them individually:

• Making the LPA. The forms for a property and financial affairs LPA or a health and welfare LPA.
• Registering a lasting power of attorney. A separate step with its own form. Until it is registered, the LPA is not usable.
• Registering an enduring power of attorney. For an EPA, used when the donor has lost or is losing mental capacity.
• Applying for a reduced fee. For people who need help paying because of low income or certain means-tested benefits.
• Objecting to registration. For objecting to the registration of an LPA or an EPA.
• Disclaiming a lasting power of attorney. For an attorney already appointed who wants to give up the role. There is an equivalent for an EPA.

Notice what that list tells you: the document and the registration are not the same event. Filling in the form is the easy half. The half that costs time is the application, and gov.uk puts a number on it.

The two numbers to plan around: £92 and 8 to 10 weeks

Gov.uk states both on the same page. «Applying to register an LPA costs £92 unless you get a reduction or exemption.» And registration «will take 8 to 10 weeks if there are no mistakes in the application». Read the second one as the real deadline: the eight to ten weeks only start counting on an application that is right, so an error does not cost you a week, it costs you the whole wait again.

1. 1Decide which type, or both. Two LPAs are two applications and two fees.
2. 2Start from the official collection or the online service. Not from a cached PDF with a code in its file name.
3. 3Check whether you qualify for a reduced fee before you pay, because the collection has a form for exactly that.
4. 4Follow the signing instructions that come with the form. The order in which the donor, the certificate provider, the attorneys and the witnesses sign is part of the form’s own instructions, and getting it out of order is one of the mistakes that sends the application back.
5. 5Apply to register, and keep the application copy. The wait is 8 to 10 weeks with no mistakes, so keep the evidence of what you sent and when.

Where an e-signature does belong

Almost everything else in the same folder is an ordinary document, and printing it is a habit rather than a requirement. A tenancy, a lodger agreement, a services contract, a consent form: all of those are signed electronically every day, and the evidence that matters is the record around the signature rather than the ink. The general case for England is in what makes an electronic contract, and the ordinary documents are covered in a tenancy agreement template, a lodger agreement template and free lodger agreement templates: what they get wrong.

SignSolú, an e-signature platform that works over WhatsApp, is built for that second category: you send the document from your own number or by email, the other person opens the link on their phone and signs without creating an account or paying anything, and the audit receipt records time, IP address, device and a SHA-256 fingerprint of the file. Anyone can check later at the verification page that the document was not altered, without an account. The free plan is 10 documents with no expiry and no card; you can start at create an account. If what you have is a PDF and no printer, how to sign a PDF and signing a PDF on an iPhone cover the mechanics, and signing a document in Word covers the other half of the office.

One cross-border note, because it comes up with English donors who own property abroad: a power of attorney made in one country does not automatically work in another. For Mexico, what a foreign power needs in order to be recognised is set out in a power of attorney from the US for Mexico and a Mexican power of attorney, the carta poder, and which acts require a notary is in a Mexican notary: what needs one and what does not.