Misuse of legal documents

Legal documents such as a will, a Lasting Power of Attorney (LPA), or a deed trust can become tools of coercive control when someone is pressured or manipulated into signing them.

An LPA gives the person named as attorney significant authority over finances or welfare of the person who has written the LPA. The law has had to develop specific safeguards around how these are executed, witnessed, and later challenged or revoked where undue influence is suspected.

You can report a concern about an attorney (the person who acts under an LPA) or a Court of Protection appointed deputy with the Office of the Public Guardian.

Courts take these cases especially seriously because, unlike many forms of coercive control, the document itself creates a formal, lasting legal structure of control, one that can outlast the relationship that produced it.