Enduring Powers of Attorney for Farmers

Farm succession planning has a quiet dependency: every option in it assumes the owner can sign. A stroke or dementia diagnosis without an Enduring Power of Attorney in place freezes the folio, the accounts, the schemes and the plan itself — at exactly the moment decisions (care, Fair Deal, the transfer) come due. The EPA is the cheapest insurance in the succession toolkit.

The Current Regime

Since 2023, EPAs are made under the Assisted Decision-Making (Capacity) Act 2015 through the Decision Support Service: the instrument is executed with the required statements and notifications, registered with the DSS, and activated only if and when capacity is lost, under the Act’s supervision framework. The donor chooses attorneys, defines the scope (property and affairs, and optionally personal welfare), and can include instructions and restrictions — including farm-specific ones about lettings, schemes and the treatment of the holding.

Why Farms Need EPAs More Than Most

• The assets are active: stock must be bought and sold, land let, schemes applied for, insurance renewed — a frozen farm loses money monthly;
• The decisions are time-bound: BISS deadlines, Fair Deal applications and the five-year look-back, leases expiring — none of them waits for a court process;
• The plan is live: families mid-way through a succession plan lose their options if the transferor loses capacity before the deed — the EPA is what keeps affairs manageable while the family regroups;
• The alternative is worse: without an EPA, a court-appointed decision-making representative process governs — slower, more expensive and outside the family’s choosing.