Office of the Public Guardian Deputyship fee refund scheme

The Ministry of Justice has today launched a refund scheme for overcharging assessments and annual supervisions for Deputyships between 1 April 2008 and 31 March 2015.

The Office of the Public Guardian (OPG) had difficulty predicting costs during this period due to the number of Deputyships applications being far higher than expected. As a consequence, the fees charged did not match the cost to the OPG to supervise Deputies. The OPG has confirmed that since 1 April 2015, clients have not been overcharged.

Current Deputies acting for a person subject to the Court of Protection do not need to apply. The OPG will be in touch with all current Deputies within the coming 12 weeks to arrange any refunds due.

However, if the Deputyship has since come to an end you will need to complete and submit an application to the OPG to claim any refund due. The Deputyship may have come to an end for a number of reasons but usually, this is because the person needing the deputy can now make their own decisions or sadly they may have died.

If you have been discharged from the Deputyship, then you (or your property and affairs Attorney, if you have one) need to make the claim. If the person who used to have a Deputy has died then the Executor(s) of the Will or the Administrator(s) of their estate must claim and divide any refund between the beneficiaries.

There are a lot of factors that can affect the amount of any refund due and the OPG will have to look at each claim on a case-by-case basis. The refund amount will vary depending on the level of supervision (type 1 – 3) and the application of any remissions or exemptions, in any given year, in addition to whether the Deputyship started or ended partway through a year. In general, the OPG have stated they believe that most refunds will be less than £200 (with 0.5% interest added).

The deadline for refund claims is 4 October 2022.

Application forms and further details on how to claim can be obtained from https://www.gov.uk/deputyship-refund/how-to-claim. You can also contact the OPG refunds team on 0300 456 0300 (choose option 6).