Mental Capacity Certificate - how long is it valid for?

[mickeysears]

Currently in the process of contesting a will and have numerous pieces of evidence which go in our favour. Having waited 3 months for the Lark V Nugus statement and then to find out all of their files were sent to a different solicitor is frustrating because I haven’t actually got access to the certificate however I do know it was made in excess of a year previous to the will being completed (it could be even older) my question is does a certificate really stay valid for this length of time when the client has complex mental health issues? The little notes I do have from the solicitor mention the clients appearance and shows confusion also.

[Peridot]

Hi Mickeysears,

The capacity certificate is basically only valid for the time it was created. We probably need a little more information regarding what was asked as far as the certificate was concerned. Was this certificate to confirm that an individual just because they had a particular diagnosis was still able to make decisions? Was this more to do with the issues surrounding a degenerative disease such as Alzheimer's?

Mental capacity from a legal view can change during a day and assessments should be carried out both on taking instructions and when signing wills to ensure the person knows what they are instructing and understands the consequence of their signing. Lawyers are of course able to make their own assessment and often do but where dealing with an individual that may have a capacity issue it is often advisable to obtain a capacity certificate to evidence the person did understand what they were doing when they instructed and signed.

I would suggest that if there was a certificate then someone was concerned enough to check the issue. I would therefore expect a substantial attendance note confirming the state of the individual when it came to signing the Will. It wouldn't always be necessary to obtain a further certificate but it does flag an issue that should be covered by the lawyer dealing with the will instructions.