Hi all, I have to acquire Power of Attorney for my mum’s business affairs. Does anyone have experience of this and have any useful guidance or tips please?
It is an emotional and legal minefield.
With many thanks as always
:o)

good luck
http://www.guardian.co.uk/money/2008/dec/14/powers-of-attorney-problems

Thanks Stoner. Useful.

Golly this looks to be a nightmare! and where do they expect £1000 to come from? :o(

I need to sell mum’s house and estate afterwards to pay for her care (she has had a brain haemorrhage which has left her diabled). Trouble is with the credit crunch the care home wants paying immediately and the fees are exhorbitant :o(

Sigh.

Pandora – what sort of power of attorney? I hate to be too insensitive, but do you mean a specific court approved lasting power of attorney I.e. used in the case of illness of other capacity issues) or just a regular power of attorney to handle affairs while someone is on holiday?

The former needs specific legal advice. The latter also does, but is dead easy for any lawyer to put together.

If you need more info, feel free to email me at ourmaninthenorth AT googlemail.com.

Tom

Did this last year for both my Mum and my Dad.

Firstly, ignore all the crap that solicitors spout about it being difficult. If you’re capable of filling in a form then you can manage this easily, they just want to protect their business. Same goes for probate I’m learning. There are good online instructions (Office of Public Guardian website).

It does require a good understanding of what your parents need from you i.e. ability to do their banking? There must be absolute trust and no suspicion of manipulation at all. It has to be done while the parent is in a good state of mind and requires witnesses.

Good idea to get a sibling/other family member/friend signed up too because it takes no longer and protects the parent in the event of you becoming incapacitated.

The nightmare bit is the wait for the Lasting Power of Attorney to be processed, took about 6 weeks I think. Sadly, my Mum died 2 days after it was issued so it was a bit of a waste of time in the end. It’s true that the Office of the Public Guardian is in a right state.

Good luck!

Oh and the wait comes after submission of the forms to the Court so using a solicitor has no bearing on that at all.

Care home fees are not assessed with the value of any property owned. If your mother has insufficient assets (and I can’t remember the level) aside from the property then the council has to pay for her care. You do not have to sell the property to fund care home fees, although you will be browbeaten into doing so by our wonderful social services departments.

Pandora, you posted whilst I did.

There are 2 types of Lasting Power of Attorney:

1. Property and Affairs (selling houses, banking etc).

2. Welfare (decisions on where they live and treatment they receive).

You might need a combination of both. The website explains very clearly.

The charges are much lower to do it yourself, I think 150 quid for each application.

OK – post edit window – I now see that you mean a lasting power of attorney.

EDIT: sorry, can’t access the docs i thought I could send you..!

Tom

Jenga, I think you’re wrong.

If someone has solely owned assets i.e. savings and/or a house they own solely (no partner remaining living there and not owned as tenants in common with a dead partners trust) they do an assessment which ends up in the care-user paying care fees up to a max of about 400 quid a week.

Herts County Council certainly applied this for my parents.

Nursing homes (referred by the NHS) are different as that is medically assessed and funded differently.

Pandora, read Help the Aged website too, I found it useful.

Sorry, keep remembering things.

The assets threshold above which you pay your own fees was £22k last year.

Thanks guys. Mum has mobility problems including her writing hand not working and dysphasia which means she sometimes talks gobbledegook – businesses shy away from both. The banks can’t cope with her not being able to sign a recognisable signature and can’t understand her when they ask security questions (so much for the DDA). Although she has been psychologically assessed as good she does need long term care.

The hospital and social services were not helpful in the non care aspects of her life and I do feel as if I don’t know what to do or where to turn.

She has a house and so it seems she has to pay for her own care. I have siblings but they rarely visit and have got a thing about mum’s money i.e. thought she would die tidily and leave assets worth splitting between them all.

I have no money and yet all these things like financial and legal advice cost loads of money and are very confusing.

All your help, support and experiences are very welcome.

With many thanks

Pandora

When my father was ill we simply agreed that one of my brothers would become a signatory to the account. The bank (Barclays) were OK with this. It helped that we were able to go in to see someone. If she’s still capable of understanding issues and making decisions a power of attorney might be more than you need. It could be worth talking to Help the Aged or a stroke charity.

She has a house and so it seems she has to pay for her own care. I have siblings but they rarely visit and have got a thing about mum’s money i.e. thought she would die tidily and leave assets worth splitting between them all.

I’ve been there, I feel for you. If you can, make sure that there’s a witness to major decisions.

As csb says, there are two types of Power of Attorney. I consider that I’m reasonably OK when it comes to completing forms and decided not to use a solicitor. I spent a huge amount of time reading and printing, took papers to GP marked where he needed to sign. He took 7 weeks to do this and then charged £100!!

Forms were returned twice by the Public Guardian Office as dates were wrong due to GP’s slowness. It was one big PITA and, to be completely honest, I wish I had taken it to a solicitor to deal with. These forms are simply too numerous and complex.

On the positive side, do it ASAP. I now have P of A for my father and am having to make a lot of decisions, it’s all very distressing. If this had not have been done, it would be a nightmare.

£22K is still the correct figure for assets excluding property. Have today been quoted £415 per week for a care home.

I wish you well, it’s not an easy job and I feel I have become a parent to my parents.

One thing you can do straight away is open a joint bank account with your mum then at least you can make payments on her behalf. Also when she dies the money in it will revert to you without having to go through probate. I got POA for my dad. Ok it was about 5 years ago but I can’t remember it taking as long as some posters here have said. Just one visit to solicitors no doctors involved. Its not pleasant having the guardian/dependant roles switched but in my experience it will as cinnamon girl says save a lot of hassle later on.

Pandora,really very sorry for you and your mum, what a turmoil your in, firstly make face to face contact with , social services and the bank, demand that everything they tell you , they put in writeing, get contact numbers for the relevant people, as your mum owns her home she is said to have assets of more than 15k, so the house must be sold say social services, ignore them, and the care home, get onto Help the Aged, and DHSS, they will be able to help for free,the care home will probably ask for some guarantee of payment , until funds are available to pay, BE VERY CAREFUL WHAT YOU SIGN,but most importantly take care of your own health, and secondly look after mum, keep a record of all calls and who and where you spoke to them, etc.
Oh and best of luck.
ive also been through a similar experience.

I got POA for my dad. Ok it was about 5 years ago but I can’t remember it taking as long as some posters here have said

The law changed with the Mental Capacity Act 2005. My impression is that the old POA’s used to be quite easy to get – but more open to abuse, and the government has tried to restrict the new-style ones to people who don’t have the ability to make decisions for themselves and consequently have made them harder to get and more strictly controlled.

As a matter of interest, I have today heard from a very reliable source that a PoA sent and registered by the Public Guardian Office (in other words a legally binding document) has been returned some weeks later due to “several discrepancies coming to light”.

This person was advised that the certificate holder (GP in this case) had completed something incorrectly, as had a nominated person with PoA. These had to be corrected within a certain timescale otherwise it would be invalid. The whole process would have to start again including the outrageous fees.

So … although the PGO had approved it and registered it, they changed their mind. You have been warned.

Sorry, just re-read my latest post and it’s a bit confusing. So … to summarise:

PoA was registered with OPG and therefore legally binding. A month later OPG changed their mind and said it wasn’t. Changes had to be made.

Good luck to those who need to deal with this paperwork.

Pandora – how you getting on with this? Hope it’s working out OK.

What a nightmare that sounds. I work in Scotland with older people with dementia and a Power Of Attorney is much easier to obtain.

I’d heard that people in England get very little support from their Social Services departments, but didn’t realise quite how little. We guide clients and their familes through all sorts of processes like applying for legal proxy and funding care home fees. I can’t imagine how many families would manage the system if we didn’t, it’s hard enough to follow when you deal with it every day.

jojo – to be fair, our experience in England has been very good. Social Services are helpful and are guiding. In fact we couldn’t get any sense out of the hospital with a diagnosis so Social Services intervened – result.

What really rubbed salt into the wound was receiving a questionnaire from an opinion poll company employed by the Public Guardian Office to ask what people thought of the Power of Attorney forms!!

It makes me furious that tax-payers money is being wasted on “consultants” when anyone with or without common sense could see that the forms are a nightmare to complete.