This week
The records to have ready
A 4-click diagnostic that produces a personalised three-step plan for getting your records into a usable state. Free, no email gate.
Open the Records Roadmap → All continuity events
Event review · someone must act
Serious illness or hospitalisation
A continuity event even where legal capacity is fully retained. The person may be unavailable, hospitalised, or cognitively overloaded — able to decide, but unable to run the household.
§I
What changes
Because incapacity is not established, the machinery of substitute decision-making is not engaged. Bills still need paying, advisers instructing, employers and insurers contacting — through authority routes that work while capacity remains.
Records to locate
- Accounts, advisers, insurance and emergency contacts in one place
- Short-term authority routes already in place (not improvised under pressure)
- A current medical summary — conditions, medication, allergies, key contacts
Authority to prove
- A property & financial affairs LPA, if its terms let the attorney act while the donor retains capacity and the donor authorises it
- An ordinary power of attorney (Powers of Attorney Act 1971) for a defined purpose or period
- Joint bank accounts or mandates, subject to the institution's terms
Formal requirements
- Incapacity has not been established — do not invoke health & welfare LPA powers that have not activated
- An ordinary PoA covers a defined task or period while the donor has capacity
Immediate actions
- Confirm which short-term authority route actually applies
- Keep shared household payments running
- Assemble a medical summary for the treating team
§II
What to do, in order
One thing to do this week, one tool to use now, one conversation to have. Each routes into a free Valoren tool — no card, no sign-up to start.
The tool
The Capacity Action Brief
The first practical decisions and the people to inform — useful even where capacity is fully retained.
Open the brief →The conversation
With whoever would step in
What you'd want covered if you were unavailable for a fortnight. The Capacity Tomorrow composition frames it.
Open the sample →Forms you may need — each a plain-English walkthrough
Rather have it done for you?
Signum can build the household dossier — accounts, advisers, insurance, emergency contacts — so it is ready before it is needed.