FAQ
Can I Sell My Parent's Flat Under a Power of Attorney?
Yes, if you hold a registered lasting power of attorney for property and financial affairs, or an enduring power made before October 2007 that has been registered once your parent lost capacity. Without one, you need the Court of Protection to appoint you as a deputy first. The sale itself runs like any other, but you are selling someone else's home on their behalf, so the price has to be the right price, the money has to go to them and the decision has to be one that is genuinely in their interests. This page explains what you need, what you can and cannot do and where the sale of a parent's flat usually goes wrong.
The Short Answer
Most attorneys come to this page for one reason: a parent has moved into care, or is about to, and the flat has to pay for it. The law allows exactly that, and thousands of such sales go through every year. The sale is not harder than any other; the difference is accountability. You are making a decision about someone else's home and money, your parent may not be able to tell you what they want, and your siblings, the council and the Public Guardian can all ask afterwards why you did what you did. Keep that in mind at each step and the process is straightforward.
This page covers a leasehold flat in England and Wales. Gov.uk's power of attorney guide and its guide to an attorney's duties are the official sources, and HM Land Registry's practice guide on powers of attorney sets out what it needs to register a sale. This is general information, not legal advice; your parent's solicitor, or one you instruct for the sale, will confirm what applies.
Which Power You Need, and When It Works
There are two kinds of power of attorney that can be used to sell a home, and a third that cannot be relied on.
- A lasting power of attorney for property and financial affairs. Made since October 2007, it has to be registered with the Office of the Public Guardian before it can be used at all. Registration costs £92 and takes 8 to 10 weeks if the forms are right. Once registered, you can act while your parent still has capacity if they agree, and on your own authority once they cannot make the decision themselves, unless they wrote a restriction into the document. A separate health and welfare LPA does not give any power over money or property.
- An enduring power of attorney. Made before 1 October 2007, and still valid. It can be used unregistered while your parent has capacity, but once they are losing capacity you must register it with the Public Guardian before acting, and a buyer's solicitor will want to see the registered version. Gov.uk's guide to enduring powers covers the process.
- A general power of attorney. A simple document your parent can sign to let you handle a specific sale while they are abroad or unwell. It stops working the moment they lose capacity, so it is no use for the situation most families are in. If your parent has capacity now and the worry is the future, make a lasting power instead.
Check the document before you do anything else. Some LPAs name two attorneys who must act jointly, in which case both of you sign everything; others let attorneys act jointly and severally, so either can sign. Some include instructions, such as a requirement to consult a named person or a bar on selling the home while the donor is alive, and those bind you. The Public Guardian's online service lets you give a solicitor or estate agent an access code to view a summary of a registered LPA, which saves posting certified copies.
If There Is No Power of Attorney
If your parent has already lost the capacity to make a lasting power, nobody can make one for them, and the only route is an application to the Court of Protection to be appointed as their property and affairs deputy. The application fee is £432, a new deputy pays a £100 assessment fee and then an annual supervision fee of £320 (£35 where the estate is small), and the court will usually require a security bond, which is an insurance policy against misuse, costed on the value you will control. Expect the process to take months, not weeks, and longer if a family member objects.
A deputyship order sets out what you may do. Many orders include authority to sell the person's home; some do not, and a further application is needed before a sale. Read the order, and if the authority is not there, apply before you market the flat rather than after a buyer is found. The council's social services team and the care home will both deal with you once the order is made, and a buyer's solicitor will want a sealed copy of it in the same way they would want a registered LPA.
If your parent has capacity but is frail, do not go down this road. A lasting power can be made and registered in under three months for £92 and leaves them in control; a deputyship takes longer, costs more every year and hands the decisions to the court.
Deciding to Sell: The Best Interests Test
Holding the power does not make the sale automatically right. The Mental Capacity Act requires you to act in your parent's best interests, to involve them as far as they are able and to take the decision they would have taken if they could. Selling the home is the largest decision an attorney makes, so apply the test deliberately and write down the answer.
In practice the questions are these. Is there any realistic prospect of your parent returning home, and if so, would selling now remove that option? Are the care fees payable without selling, through a deferred payment agreement with the council or from other savings, and if they are, does the flat need to go at all? What would your parent have wanted, from anything they said or wrote before? Does the health and welfare attorney, if there is one, agree about where your parent will live? A short note answering those, dated and kept with the valuation, is the best protection you can have if anyone questions the sale later.
If your parent still has capacity for this decision, it is their decision, not yours. You may handle the sale under the power with their permission, but the choice to sell has to be theirs, and the solicitor will want to speak to them to confirm it. Capacity is decision-specific: a person who can no longer manage a bank account may still be perfectly able to say whether they want their flat sold.
What You Cannot Do Without the Court
The sale has to be at a proper price to a proper buyer. An attorney cannot give the flat away, sell it for less than it is worth or sell it to themselves, and the same applies to a sale to a brother, a child or anyone else connected to you, even at a price you believe is fair. Gov.uk's advice to attorneys is to get legal advice before any below-value sale, any purchase by the attorney or any gift of the property, and in practice that means an application to the Court of Protection for an order approving the transaction. HM Land Registry will not register a transfer at an undervalue by an attorney for a donor who lacks capacity without such an order.
Gifts generally are tightly limited. You may make the kind of present your parent would have made on birthdays and at Christmas, and donations to charities they supported, provided they can afford it. Anything larger, including help with a grandchild's deposit or letting a relative live in the flat rent-free, needs the court's permission even if your parent used to do it. The Public Guardian investigates attorneys who stray, can have the power revoked and can order the money repaid.
Two more limits matter in a flat sale. You cannot use your parent's money to benefit yourself, so your own time is unpaid unless you are a professional attorney, though reasonable out-of-pocket expenses can be reclaimed. And you cannot change their will. If the will leaves the flat to a named person, selling it can mean that gift fails; where a court-appointed deputy sells, the law preserves the beneficiary's interest in the proceeds, but the position after an attorney's sale is less certain and may need a statutory will from the court. Tell the solicitor if the will leaves the flat to someone specifically.
The Conveyancing: What Changes When an Attorney Sells
You instruct the solicitor in your parent's name and sign everything as their attorney. The solicitor will verify your identity and your parent's, take a certified copy of the registered power or an online access code and check that the power has not been revoked and covers the sale. On completion the transfer is signed by you "as attorney for" your parent, and HM Land Registry registers it with a copy of the power. None of this adds much time if the documents are in order; it adds weeks if the power turns out to be unregistered or restricted, so sort that out before the flat goes on the market.
The leasehold formalities are the same as for any flat sale, and you handle them. The management pack is ordered in your parent's name and you answer the property information forms as best you can, saying where you do not know. If the lease requires the freeholder's consent, the licence to assign is applied for by you; the freeholder's permission FAQ explains what is involved. Service charge and ground rent are apportioned on completion. An EPC is still required; the EPC FAQ covers it.
One leasehold decision sits with you alone. If the lease is short, extending it before the sale may add more to the price than it costs, or may not be worth the delay given the care fees running; our guide to whether to extend before selling sets out the sums. Either answer can be in your parent's best interests. What matters is that you looked at it and kept a note of why you chose as you did.
The Proceeds and the Records
The sale money goes into an account in your parent's name, never into yours, and never into a joint account you opened for convenience. The solicitor will insist on this. From that account you pay the care fees and your parent's other outgoings, keep the balance invested sensibly and keep records: bank statements, the valuation, the agent's and solicitor's invoices and your note of why the flat was sold. The Public Guardian can ask for accounts at any time, and if your parent dies, the executor and the other beneficiaries will see every transaction.
Do not lend yourself money from the proceeds, pay yourself for your time or use the flat's sale to settle family scores. Those are the three things that bring attorneys in front of the court, and each is easy to avoid by treating the money as what it is: your parent's, held by you on trust.
Care Fees and the Alternatives to Selling
Selling is not the only way to pay for care, and an attorney who sells without considering the alternatives has not applied the best interests test. The council disregards the value of the home for the first 12 weeks of permanent residential care, and where the home is still counted it must offer a deferred payment agreement, under which the fees are secured against the flat and repaid from the eventual sale, with interest and an administration charge. That lets the flat be kept, or let to produce income, while your parent is alive. It suits some families and not others: the debt grows, the flat still has to be managed and insured, and a leasehold flat left empty carries its own problems with the lease and the service charge.
A sale at a discount to family, or a transfer to avoid the fees, is deprivation of assets as well as a breach of your duties as attorney, and the council can treat the value as still your parent's. Our guide to selling a flat to fund care home fees goes through the means test, the disregard, deferred payments and the deprivation rules in detail.
Selling to a Cash Buying Company as an Attorney
We buy flats from attorneys and deputies regularly, and we understand the position they are in. We will deal with you as the seller, our solicitor will ask for the registered power and your identification in the usual way, and the price is paid to your parent's account on completion. Where there is a deputyship order we will ask to see it before we make an offer, so that time is not wasted on a sale the order does not allow.
We will also be plain about the test you have to meet. Our price is 15 to 30 percent below market value, and an attorney has to be able to show that accepting it was in the parent's best interests rather than simply the quickest option. That case exists where the fees are running at a rate the estate cannot carry, where the flat has a short lease, cladding problems or a condition that has already put off mortgage buyers, or where an agency sale has fallen through and the care home is pressing. It does not exist for a saleable flat with no deadline. Get an independent valuation first, compare the net figures by route, keep the comparison with your records, and if the agency route can finish in time, take it. The below-market-value FAQ shows how to do the comparison.
Related Reading
For the means test, the 12-week disregard and deferred payments, see the care fees guide. For a sale to family at a discount and why it needs the court, see the family member FAQ. For a flat left empty while decisions are made, see the empty flat page.
Further FAQs
Yes, with their agreement. A registered property and financial affairs LPA can be used while the donor still has capacity if they give permission, and many parents are glad to hand the legwork of a sale to a son or daughter while staying in charge of the decision. The decision to sell remains theirs, and the solicitor will want to confirm it with them directly. If your parent can make the decision but does not want to sell, you cannot override them, whatever the power says. An enduring power can also be used unregistered while the donor has capacity, but must be registered once they begin to lose it.
Yes. A lasting power of attorney has no effect until the Office of the Public Guardian has registered it, and a buyer's solicitor and HM Land Registry will both want to see the registered version, or an online access code for it. Registration costs £92 and takes 8 to 10 weeks if the forms are correct, longer if they are not. If your parent is losing capacity and the LPA has not been registered, apply now rather than when a buyer is found. An enduring power is different: it can be used while the donor has capacity, but must be registered as soon as they begin to lose it.
Not without an order from the Court of Protection, and not even at full market value. An attorney cannot buy the donor's property or sell it to a close relative or anyone connected to them, because the conflict of interest is built in: you would be on both sides of the price. The court can authorise such a sale where it is shown to be in your parent's interests, usually with an independent valuation and the agreement of the family. Selling to a stranger at market value needs no permission. The family member FAQ explains the tax side of a family sale once the court has approved it.
Only if you can show it was in your parent's best interests. An attorney must get a proper price, and a discounted cash sale has to be justified by something the discount buys: speed where care fees are running faster than the estate can bear, certainty where mortgage buyers have already fallen through or a flat that a lender will not touch because of its lease or its building. Get an independent valuation, compare what each route would leave after costs and time and keep the comparison. If an estate agency sale can finish in time, take it. If anyone later asks why you sold for less, a written comparison is the answer; a feeling that it was simpler is not.
It is paid into an account in your parent's sole name, and it stays their money. From there you pay the care fees and their other costs and look after the balance, keeping statements and receipts. You cannot pay yourself for your time unless you are a professional attorney, cannot lend yourself money and cannot make gifts beyond ordinary presents without the court's permission. The Public Guardian can ask to see your accounts, and after your parent's death the executor will. Keep every record, including the valuation and your note of why the sale was in your parent's interests.
No, and the best interests test requires you to consider the alternatives. The council must offer a deferred payment agreement where the flat is counted in the means test, so the fees can be secured against it and repaid from a later sale, and the first 12 weeks of permanent residential care disregard the home's value altogether. Keeping the flat, letting it or deferring the fees can each be right, depending on how long the care is likely to last, what the flat costs to hold and what your parent would have wanted. Our guide to selling a flat to fund care home fees works through the choice.
If you hold the power, the decision is yours, but a family dispute is the commonest reason attorneys end up explaining themselves to the Public Guardian, so handle it carefully. Share the valuation, the fee figures and your written reasons, invite the objector to suggest an alternative that pays the fees and consider mediation before anyone goes near a court. If the objection is that your parent would not have wanted to sell, take it seriously; that is part of the best interests test. Where attorneys are appointed jointly, both must agree and both must sign, and a deadlock can only be broken by the Court of Protection.
A power made in England and Wales covers a flat in England and Wales wherever your parent now lives, so an LPA registered here works for a parent who has moved to a care home elsewhere in the UK or overseas. Scotland and Northern Ireland have their own systems: a Scottish continuing power of attorney or a Northern Irish enduring power is not automatically recognised by HM Land Registry for a flat in England, and the solicitor may need a legal opinion on its validity or a court order first, so raise it early. If your parent lives abroad and still has capacity, a general power of attorney for the one sale is often the simplest route.