Power of Attorney

[Woz]

Call Age Concern and get some advice.

Website info here:
Putting your affairs in order | Age Concern England

[Jill]

Originally Posted by chas49

What you can now do (or rather the OP's FIL can ) is set up a Lasting Power of Attorney (LPA). The process for giving an LPA is a bit more complicated than it was for doing an EPA. You now need someone to certify that the donor (the OP's FIL) is competent and understands the LPA, and is not being pressurised to make the LPA. This person must either know the donor personally and have done so for at least two years, or have the relevant professional skills and expertise to certify the LPA Examples of such people are a registered healthcare professional, a barrister, solicitor or advocate,a registered social worker, or an Independent Mental Capacity Advocate (IMCA).


Organisations like Help The Aged are good sources of advice on how to deal with this.

There's lots of good guidance here as well.

Contact the Department of Constitutional Affairs (phone or web) and ask for info about Lasting Power of Attorney. If the person who the LPA is for no longer has the capacity to understand the ramifications of an LPA, then you need to get advice from the Court of Protection and possibly apply to them to be able to take on the responsibility of being a "deputy." Your local Social Services will have the contact details of your local IMCA office if you want info about their role - they have very specific criteria and specific remit in relation to acting on behalf of people who lack the ability to make decisions. If you're going to get solicitors advice, make sure that the solicitor specialises in mental health law and capacity law (many of my clients try to get their conveyancing solicitor to sort this sort of stuff and it's a nightmare). I'm not an IMCA but work very closely with them (I'm a mental health advocate for people who have capacity) - if you want specific advice, PM me and I'll see if I can help.

J

[chas49]

Originally Posted by Jill

Contact the Department of Constitutional Affairs (phone or web) and ask for info about Lasting Power of Attorney.

Good advice from Jill. Minor correction - it's the The Office of the Public Guardian that you need to contact - not the DCA.

[Foggy]

I HAVE THE POWER


-Paul

No, seriously, following problems with my gran, my parents decided to let my sister and I have it

[Jill]

Originally Posted by chas49

Good advice from Jill. Minor correction - it's the The Office of the Public Guardian that you need to contact - not the DCA.

Oh yeah - that'll learn me for trying to answer posts and do my actual work at the same time! .

J

[colinpjenkins2]

Thanks for all the replies Greens all round. I have spoken to The Office of the Public Guardian and it appears I may need to take out Deputyship but this is more complicated and longer. I will be talking to Age concern on Monday to see if they can advise if somehow I can go the lasting Power of Attorney route. It appears the FIL must sign the form and understand what he is signing,but the signing bit is difficult due to the stroke damage.

[videogirl]

Originally Posted by colinpjenkins2

Thanks for all the replies Greens all round. I have spoken to The Office of the Public Guardian and it appears I may need to take out Deputyship but this is more complicated and longer. I will be talking to Age concern on Monday to see if they can advise if somehow I can go the lasting Power of Attorney route. It appears the FIL must sign the form and understand what he is signing,but the signing bit is difficult due to the stroke damage.

I'm not 100% sure the position is the same in England but I guess it's similar. Anyone up here who cannot sign a document (due to not being able to write or hold a pen etc. not through lack of capacity) can have the document notarially executed (solicitor signs it for them after reading it through).

[Allan Carr]

I'm afraid that it is too late to go for a PoA - the person has to be fully Compus Mentis to sign that. You have to go down the Court of Protection route and I'm afraid that it is both complex and expensive - in my view yet another bloody stealth tax. Unfortunately, we have personal experience of this having had to do it twice in the last 15 months,both for my Mum and my Mother-in-Law who are now both in care homes.

You will have to apply to the Court of Protection to become a Deputy which will give you some power over financial affairs but not as much as you would have under a PoA. There are fees to be paid for registration which come from the person's estate. There are also all sorts of other fees such as for letters from the Court which you have to supply to bank's etc to get access to the person's money.

You can download all the required forms from the website

Court of Protection - Office of the Public Guardian

There is a lot of work involved because you have supply complete details of all assets (including furniture!), bank accounts, insurance policies etc.

The real decision making will rest with the Court of Protection and every decision that you have to ask them to take will cost money - a minimum of £55. We had to sell my Mum's house to pay for her care home fees but we needed the Court's permission to do this and the price which we could accept. My sister is the Deputy for my Mum and the Court has just told her that they are allowing her 'light-touch' supervision so that she has a bit more freedom. However, they want another £175 for allowing this. A Deputy also has to submit annual accounts to the Court. On top of all this, the local Social Services are monitoring my sister as well to make sure that she does not spend too much and use up my Mum's assets too quickly so that they would have to pay for her care. They even balked at my sister getting M&S underwear for my Mum, saying she could have bought cheaper stuff at other places.

One thing that we could have done better with my mum would have been to rent her house out rather than sell it. We have done this with my mother-in-law and the local Social Services make up the difference between the rent and the care home fees, taking a charge over the house so that they will recover their money when the house is finally sold. However, this means that the payments to the care home are made through Social Services at their rate (assuming the home is on their list) rather than the private rate which we are having to pay for my mum. The difference in her case is £105 per week!

What these experiences have taught us is to make sure that you have PoAs set up and up-to-date wills otherwise the government will grab even more of your hard earned money.

[divingdancer]

hate to tell you but........I work in this field . UNFORTUNATELY, since October when the whole system changed the court is in a bit of a pickle (to put it politely).

Previously, staff had delegated powers but no longer have these and all matters are referred to judges who unfortunately, are few in number and have to deal with the whole country. We were quoted for a new application at least a 6 to 9 month time factor to get an application dealt with. We are trying to deal with the sale of a property too and the buyer is just having to hang on until the court grant the application and then approve the sale price.

Good luck. I would suggest if you can sweet talk someone at the Court then they may be able to smooth the application along for you but can't make any promises.

It is a particularly difficult time for relatives and I would suggest making a Lasting Power of Attorney in advance if you can. Maybe it will help your family when the time comes.