87,000 lasting powers of attorney to be retroactively validated after omission of statement found
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The omission of the statement in electronic LPAs was discovered in October 2023.
ST PHOTO: DESMOND WEE
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SINGAPORE - About 87,000 lasting power of attorney (LPA) documents will be retroactively validated after an omission of a required statement was found.
According to the Mental Capacity Act, LPAs are required to clearly state on the face of the document that it is intended to be a deed by the donor. An LPA is a legal document that allows one to appoint a trusted person to make decisions and act on their behalf if they lose their mental capacity. Those who make LPAs are known as donors, while the people they appoint are called donees.
About 87,000 LPAs certified electronically between Nov 14, 2022, and Jan 4, 2024, did not clearly state that it is a deed, and thus are not in compliance with the Mental Capacity Act, said the Ministry of Social and Family Development (MSF) on March 6.
The ministry apologised in a statement for the omission by the Office of the Public Guardian, one of its divisions. There were about 5,400 hard copy LPAs that were certified during this time period that were not affected.
Amendments to the Act were introduced in Parliament on March 6 by Senior Parliamentary Secretary for Social and Family Development Eric Chua, to retroactively validate the affected LPAs. MSF said it will do this as soon as possible to remove any uncertainty about their validity.
Those affected do not need to remake their LPAs, and no action is required by members of the public, it added.
In response to queries from The Straits Times, MSF said the decisions that were made by donees during the affected time period are legally valid despite the omission of the sentence. This is because the Mental Capacity Act affords legal protection to donees and third parties who rely on the registered LPA when they are unaware of the defects that may render the form invalid, it added.
The omission of the statement in electronic LPAs was discovered in October 2023. Electronic LPAs were made available on Nov 14, 2022, when the Office of Public Guardian Online system was launched.
The affected LPAs explained the significance and effect of an LPA, but did not directly state that it is a deed.
An assessment of the implications and required rectifications was completed in December 2023. MSF said that it then took immediate corrective action to include the required statement for electronic LPAs certified from Jan 5, 2024, onwards.
