Court of Protection Solicitors.

To find out more please download our brochure.

Mental Capacity: A Person‘s Ability to Make Their Own Decisions 

Listen here to Neil Davies and Lucy Speed give an insight into the Court of Protection. You’ll hear a segment about the history of the court, and the use of archaic terms that lasted centuries. They also talk about the Britney Spears case and how this would have been dealt with differently in the UK.

Why it Pays to take Proper Legal Advice

In this episode, you’ll hear solicitors Edward Rees and Neil Davies discuss the importance of good legal advice in relation to The Court of Protection, lasting powers of attorney, wills, and estate administration.

The Court of Protection Team is recognised in Tier Four of the 2025 edition of the Legal 500, the edition states: ‘Lanyon Bowdler are client focused and highly responsive. They work in a collaborative way with other professionals to gain the best outcome for their clients.’

A past edition of Chambers UK High Net Worth Directory describes Lanyon Bowdler as a “very well-established, well-known Shropshire firm,” says a market insider, adding that this “full-service firm is recognised in Shrewsbury in many practice areas. “The private client team advises clients on wills, trusts and the administration of estates, and is considered to be “very strong on Court of Protection work.”

The first thing the Court of Protection does is decide whether a person is mentally capable or not of making a certain decision. If the person does not have the capacity, the court will either make a one-off order or, if there are likely to be continuing decisions that need to be made not, it will appoint deputies to make decisions for the person in question.

Other decisions that the court makes include:

• The execution of a will on behalf of someone without the mental capacity to make one themselves
• The validity of a lasting power of attorney (LPA) or enduring power of attorney (EPA), and objections to proposed EPAs or LPAs.
• Whether attorneys or deputies should be able to make financial gifts on behalf of the person lacking capacity
• Removal of the legal rights for deputies or attorneys to make decisions entirely if it believes they have failed to carry out their duties properly.

The team of specialist Court of Protection Solicitors, here at Lanyon Bowdler have a great deal of experience in the process, and understand that the issues can be highly sensitive. Our team is qualified to undertake professional deputyship in respect of Court of Protection representation and administration.

Our supportive and personal approach has been highlighted by clients as a valuable part of our work, helping you to make the important decisions and getting the case to a satisfactory conclusion as quickly as possible.

Having legal authority means that you are allowed to make either welfare decisions or financial decisions on another person’s behalf. If legal authority is given to you by the court of protection, your legal responsibility will continue after the person who has been made a deputy dies.

A local council or NHS trust may be able to apply for legal authority over an individual if there is evidence that this would help them protect their interests or meet their needs better than anybody else could do so.

Lacking mental capacity means that a person doesn’t have the legal capacity to make decisions for themselves. This could be because they are unwell, or it may mean that their condition is permanent and long-term, such as people with severe learning disabilities or mental health conditions.

There are a number of ways in which people can lose their mental capacity. These include mental illness, if they have suffered brain damage due to personal injury or through medical negligence for example. Sometimes, people are able to make decisions for themselves about certain things, but not others. This is called ‘partial capacity’.