A Lasting Power of Attorney in Singapore has two separate costs, and people usually only hear about one of them. The first is the registration fee paid to the Office of the Public Guardian (OPG). The second is the fee charged by the certificate issuer: the doctor, psychiatrist or lawyer who must witness and certify that you understood what you were signing. The registration fee has, at various points, been waived by the government for Singapore citizens making the standard Form 1. The certificate issuer’s fee has never been waived, and it is set by the professional, not the state.
So “free LPA” is a half-truth that circulates widely. It is worth understanding exactly which half is true before you budget, and before you assume a waiver you read about is still running.
The two costs, separated
An LPA lets you appoint someone to make decisions for you if you later lose mental capacity. It only takes effect on that loss of capacity; it is not a document that hands anyone control while you are well. To make one you must be at least 21 and have mental capacity at the time of signing.
The costs break down like this:
- OPG registration fee: paid to the Office of the Public Guardian when your LPA is submitted for registration. This is the fee subject to any government waiver.
- Certificate issuer fee: paid directly to the accredited professional who certifies the LPA. Set privately. Varies a great deal.
- Legal drafting fee: only applies if you are making Form 2, which must be drafted by a lawyer.
Only the first of these has ever been the subject of a waiver. If a clinic advertises a “free LPA”, read carefully: they may mean the registration fee is waived, or they may be running a subsidised or sponsored clinic session where their own fee is covered by a third party. Those are different things.
The registration fee waiver, explained honestly
For a long stretch, the government waived the OPG registration fee for Singapore citizens making an LPA using Form 1. That waiver has been extended more than once rather than allowed to lapse on its original end date, which is why so much online writing about it is out of date: articles written during one extension keep circulating after the dates in them have passed.
Because of that history, the only responsible thing to say is this: do not assume the waiver is running, and do not assume it has ended. Check the current position on the Office of the Public Guardian’s own pages before you plan around it. The OPG publishes its current fees and any prevailing waiver there, and that page is the only version of the answer that is reliably current.
What the waiver does not cover
Even at its most generous, the waiver has applied to the registration fee for Form 1 and to Singapore citizens. It does not touch the certificate issuer’s fee. It does not apply to Form 2 drafting. And it has not extended to non-citizens. If you are a permanent resident or a foreigner living here, budget for the standard registration fee.
What certificate issuers charge
Every LPA must be certified by an accredited certificate issuer: an accredited medical practitioner, a practising lawyer, or a psychiatrist. Their job is to meet you, satisfy themselves that you understand the powers you are granting and are not being pressured into it, and then certify the form.
Fees vary widely and are set by each professional. As a rough guide only, GPs running LPA sessions tend to sit at the lower end, lawyers in the middle, and psychiatrists at the higher end, since psychiatrists are usually engaged where capacity is genuinely in question and a fuller assessment is needed. Some community clinics and roadshows run at reduced or sponsored rates. Do not treat any figure you read online as a fixed price; ask for the fee in writing when you book.
A few things push the cost up:
- A home visit rather than a clinic appointment, common for a frail parent.
- A donor whose capacity is borderline, requiring a longer assessment.
- Needing an interpreter, or certification in a dialect.
- Making Form 2 instead of Form 1, which brings drafting into the picture.
Our guide to finding a certificate issuer or LPA clinic covers how to choose one and what to ask before booking.
Form 1 versus Form 2 on cost
| Form 1 | Form 2 | |
|---|---|---|
| What it is | Standard template with pre-set powers | Customised powers, tailored to you |
| Lawyer needed to draft? | No | Yes, mandatory |
| Registration fee | Subject to any prevailing citizen waiver | Standard fee applies |
| Certificate issuer fee | Payable | Payable |
| Typical total | Lowest cost route | Substantially higher |
Most people need Form 1. Form 2 exists for donors with complicated affairs: a business to hand over, assets across jurisdictions, or restrictions they want written into the donee’s powers. The difference between the two forms is worth reading before you decide the cheaper option is automatically the right one.
Why an LPA is the cheap option regardless
The cost that matters is not the LPA fee; it is the cost of not having one. If you lose mental capacity without an LPA in place, nobody can simply step in. Your family has to apply to court for a deputyship order under the Mental Capacity Act, which means a court application, medical evidence, and usually a lawyer. It takes months. Bank accounts and property sit frozen in the meantime.
Set against that, even the full unwaived cost of an LPA is small. This is one of the few areas of Singapore law where acting early is dramatically cheaper than acting late, and the gap is not close.
Budgeting for a parent
If you are arranging LPAs for elderly parents, plan for one certificate issuer fee per parent, since each of them is a separate donor making a separate document, even if you book them into the same appointment. Some issuers offer a reduced rate for a second family member seen at the same visit; it is worth asking, but do not count on it.
Where a parent’s capacity is already uncertain, the sensible spend is on a proper assessment first. A psychiatrist who concludes your parent cannot make the LPA has still done you a service: it tells you to redirect towards deputyship rather than spend money on a document that will later be challenged. Our guide to making an LPA for elderly parents covers how to raise the subject and what to expect.
One cost people forget after divorce
An LPA is not automatically cancelled when a marriage ends. If you made one naming your spouse as donee and you are now going through a divorce, that appointment stands unless you actively revoke it. Revoking and remaking an LPA means paying the certification and registration costs again, an expense worth planning into the tail end of a divorce rather than discovering years later.
It is a small item on a long list, but it is one of the few that costs almost nothing to fix now and a great deal to leave alone.
