Pension Drawdown and Power of Attorney: Who Steps In?

Pension drawdown puts you in control of your retirement income — but that control assumes you can keep making decisions. Around 982,000 people in the UK are living with dementia, a figure the Alzheimer's Society projects will reach 1.4 million by 2040, and capacity can also be lost suddenly through a stroke, accident or serious illness. Yet few drawdown investors have thought about who would manage their income if they could no longer do it themselves. This guide explains what happens to a drawdown plan when capacity is lost, and how a lasting power of attorney (LPA) keeps your retirement income moving.

Why drawdown is uniquely exposed to loss of capacity

An annuity, a defined benefit pension and the State Pension all share one reassuring feature: once set up, the income arrives automatically, month after month, with no decisions required. Drawdown is different. It relies on somebody actively managing it — choosing investments, setting and adjusting withdrawal levels, rebalancing, topping up cash reserves and reacting when markets fall.

If you lose the ability to make those decisions and nobody has legal authority to act for you, the plan can drift. Income instructions cannot be changed, cash buffers quietly run down, and withdrawals may carry on being funded by selling investments into falling markets. It is worth knowing that your spouse or partner has no automatic right to step in: pensions are individually owned, and providers cannot take instructions from family members, however well intentioned.

What happens if there is no power of attorney

If you lose mental capacity in England or Wales without an LPA in place, someone — usually a family member — must apply to the Court of Protection to be appointed as your deputy before they can manage your finances.

Deputyship works, but it is slower, costlier and more intrusive than an LPA:

• The application fee is £371, with a further £494 if the court decides a hearing is needed.
• New deputies pay a £100 assessment fee, and an annual supervision fee of up to £320 applies for as long as the deputyship lasts.
• Applications routinely take several months, and many families pay solicitors to prepare them.
• Deputies act under ongoing court supervision, including annual reporting on the decisions they have made.

While all of that is being resolved, a drawdown plan sits in limbo. Existing regular payments may continue, but nobody can change the income level, switch investments or respond to events.

Lasting powers of attorney: the basics

An LPA is a legal document in which you (the "donor") appoint one or more people you trust (your "attorneys") to make decisions on your behalf. There are two types in England and Wales:

• Property and financial affairs — covering money, property, bank accounts, investments and pensions. This is the one that matters for drawdown.
• Health and welfare — covering care and medical decisions.

Two features catch people out. First, an LPA can only be made while you still have mental capacity — once capacity is lost, the option disappears and deputyship becomes the only route. Second, an LPA must be registered with the Office of the Public Guardian before it can be used. Registration costs £92 per LPA (the fee rose from £82 in November 2025), a 50% reduction applies if your income is below £12,000, and GOV.UK guidance is that registration takes around 8 to 10 weeks when forms are completed correctly — longer in busy periods or if there are errors.

A property and financial affairs LPA can also be used with your permission while you still have capacity, which some people find useful if they simply want help dealing with providers. Scotland and Northern Ireland have their own systems — a continuing power of attorney in Scotland and an enduring power of attorney in Northern Ireland — with different processes and fees.

What an attorney can — and cannot — do with your drawdown plan

With a registered property and financial affairs LPA, your attorney can usually:

• Deal with your drawdown provider and receive information about the plan.
• Request income payments or adjust the level of withdrawals within the plan's rules.
• Give investment instructions, subject to the provider's own processes.
• Use the income to pay your bills and meet care costs.

There are limits. Attorneys must always act in your best interests under the Mental Capacity Act 2005, gifts are tightly restricted without court approval, and some decisions may be outside what a provider will accept from an attorney — many, for example, will not allow an attorney to change your death-benefit nomination. That makes it doubly important to keep your own expression of wish up to date while you can; our guide to what happens to your pension when you die explains why that form matters so much.

Be aware that providers differ in the paperwork they require — most ask to see a certified copy of the registered LPA before they will speak to an attorney, and some have their own registration forms.

Practical steps drawdown investors often take

• Put LPAs in place early. The document costs nothing to sit unused, and it cannot be created once it is actually needed.
• Lodge it with your provider in advance. Registering the LPA with your pension and investment providers before it is needed avoids delays at a stressful time.
• Write your strategy down. A short note of your withdrawal approach, target cash buffer and investment intentions gives an attorney something concrete to follow.
• Keep nominations current. Death-benefit nominations are one of the few things an attorney may not be able to fix later.
• Simplify as you age. Some retirees consolidate plans or secure more guaranteed income in later life so there is simply less to manage — an idea explored in our guides to drawdown by decade and combining an annuity with drawdown.
• Think about care costs together with capacity. The two issues often arrive together; our guide to drawdown and long-term care planning covers how pension income interacts with care fees.

£92 now, or £371 plus supervision later

Planning ahead is rarely expensive. Registering a property and financial affairs LPA costs £92; an unplanned deputyship starts at £371, adds up to £320 in supervision fees every year, and hands decisions about your retirement income to a court-supervised process rather than a person you chose. For a retirement income built on flexibility, making sure someone can operate that flexibility on your behalf is a natural part of the plan.

If you are reviewing how your retirement income is set up, use our retirement planner to map out your income, compare drawdown providers on fees and features, or get in touch if you would like to talk it through.