And hurt the parents, who are in their 80s. Think about it.
My parents are supported by me and my sister - we’re all they’ve got for solid support. My brother would come in and screw it all up.
It’s been emotional tonight but I had to make it very clear how the land lies. It needed to be said.
My dad has sent the ‘we can’t help’ message so we’ll see what joys tomorrow brings.
And hurt the parents, who are in their 80s. Think about it.
NO - their actions have consequences and this needs to be made clear - yes it might hurt them but its their decision to allow the scrounger in that is the cause
Not having LPAs in place is not a concern - until 'something' happens and then it's too late.
Well I’m 40 so it’s not a huge concern right now.
It should be. If you are married its not such a concern as your wife / husband would be able to take decisions for you but its for the worst case scenario ie you get squished by a car and are no longer able to make decisions for yourself does anyone know your wishes?
I have POA for my family and I am getting one done for me
My parents are supported by me and my sister – we’re all they’ve got for solid support. My brother would come in and screw it all up.
It’s been emotional tonight but I had to make it very clear how the land lies. It needed to be said.
My dad has sent the ‘we can’t help’ message so we’ll see what joys tomorrow brings.
I'm glad.
NO – their actions have consequences and this needs to be made clear – yes it might hurt them but its their decision to allow the scrounger in that is the cause
I think that is an incredibly immature attitude.
Yes I'm married, we've had that discussion.
It's the parents I'm more concerned about 🙄
No ransos - its about sending a signal that you are not accepting the enabling of an abuser. Doing what you suggest allows the parents to rationalise that its all OK and perpetuates the enabling.
Its also to protect the OPs mental health.
No ransos – its about sending a signal that you are not accepting the enabling of an abuser. Doing what you suggest allows the parents to rationalise that its all OK and perpetuates the enabling.
No, it's about you always having to be right.
Anyway, I'm not going to trash this thread anymore. You do what you like.
If you are married its not such a concern as your wife / husband would be able to take decisions for you
I’m pretty sure they can’t.
Id have to check that. Next of kin is usually the person they go to for discussions?
Edit :
Does my next of kin have legal rights?
No. A medical next of kin is not defined in UK law.This means your next of kin cannot give consent to providing or withholding care.
Choosing a next of kin is not the same as appointing a Lasting Power of Attorney. A Lasting Power of Attorney can make health and care decisions for you if you lose mental capacity. For more information, see our advice booklet
What does a next of kin do?
They act on your behalf if you are unable to communicate due to illness or being unconscious. They will be asked for advice and guidance on your wishes.
So you are right Kramer. apologies
tj - the same also applies to property and financial affairs but there is one very important difference.
A donor can request/instruct their attorney(s) for property and financial affairs to act on their behalf even if the donor hasn't lost mental capacity.
This is why a solicitor will ask a donor to consider including specific additional instructions; it's also referred to in the guidance notes.
I think there are difference in Scots and English laws on this. here we have IIRC Welfare POA and Financial POA separated tho they can be combined.
Again apologies for any confusion I caused
Everyone should have a Welfare POA for sure particularly if like me your wishes would not always align with the medical consensus. Its also very important to have the discussions around what your wishes are and to have advance directives in place as well and to check your local laws
In Scotland the laws around this place great emphasis on the patients wishes and i was used to getting guidance from the NOK as to what those wishes are which is the source of my confusion
My post re property and financial affairs also applies in Scotland to continuing power of attorney arrangements.
Perhaps you and your brother should have a little camping holiday away together,just to mull over some things.
Beachy head is nice in summer.
Something not dissimilar happened to my gran with my uncle. Grand parents had a nice wee house up a lane in rural Tipperary. Grandad had a severe stroke, state help build a ground floor extension. Drunken uncle Jimmy moved in to help, having been thrown out of his own house.
Queue abusive calls to my mum when she tried to speak to her mother and him trying to stop her from entering the house when she went across, same for my 4 other uncles.
In the end there was nothing in the estate and not a single item left the house to any of the family and the house was sold. It was some funeral and wake but Jimmy didn't turn up
LOL squirrelking.
Like I said, "I'll do it when it's too late".
If he does like to sail close to the wind there is the risk of credit fraud.
New house , new address potentially provides a route to credit he may exploit if he gets in the door. Apply for loans or credit cards in your father's name for example. If his credit rating is ok and your brother's is poor.
Once in he will be impossible to remove.
Is there any chance of your parents moving to a retirement place or smaller flat to remove the potential going forward?
Is there any chance of your parents moving to a retirement place or smaller flat to remove the potential going forward?
Zero - I've been on at them to do that for over ten years. They're too old to move now, the stress would kill them off.
They've been in the same house since 1982. It's far too big for them but them have a cleaner and a handy-man who does the heavy work.
I have got them to agree to getting POA sorted though. So that's a step in the right direction.
Well done on the PoA. I suggest you fill in the forms and post off asap before anyone has the chance to change their minds or drag their feet. There is no benefit in seeking legal advice so long as you are vaguely competent at form filling, it will just add cost and waste time.
It will still take many weeks before they are officially registered and ready for use.
As there's been a small amount of confusion, just to clarify there are two powers, one relating to health and welfare that only operates if and when the donor loses capacity to make decisions - that's relevant for care homes, health care, end of life stuff, especially in the case of dementia etc. The other relates to property and financial affairs and can come into effect immediately it is set up, enabling the attorney to do stuff on the donor's behalf (with permission!) to take some of the pressure off them. The financial one can also be arranged to only come into effect if and when the donor loses capacity, but this is choice not a requirement as it is for welfare.
In Scotland the two documents can be (and frequently are) combined, in England they are fully separate though in practice often set up at the same time with the same attorneys.
My wife and I have been using PoAs for our parents under both systems in recent years.
One very important warning: do not set up the attorneys to act "jointly", unless you are very certain that this is appropriate for you. "Jointly and severally" is what you want. The forms do warn against this mistake but people still make it. "Jointly" means all attorneys have to agree on every detail of every action, no-one can do anything by themselves, which cripples their ability to act effectively. "Jointly and severally" means any one attorney can do stuff by themselves.
It sounds to me like the best arrangement would probably be for each parent to list their spouse, and you and your sister, as joint attorneys, but that's obviously their/your business.
Just to add to the sage advice from thecaptain above; I did the financial LPA for my wife and I last night. I have been putting it off for ages as I thought it would be complex. It took me less than 5 minutes to do both!
I guess the Health/Welfare one may be more onerous as the questions are going to be 'heavier', but each application has to be completed separately, so I recommend doing the two Financial ones first.
Power of Attorney
Does not confer a veto to the attorney over decisions made by the 'ward' (best term I could think of). If they still want to do daft stuff like give the house to a stranger then so be it. LPA simply gives official status to the attorney to represent the ward in dealings with businesses or institutions as if they were the ward.
The equity release company won't like it, the terms of any equity release are that the loan is repayable in two circumstances. When the second (surviving) spouse enters long term care or when the surviving spouse dies. The equity release company can then enforce their charge over the property ensure it is sold and get their money back.
If your brother were in the property, especially if he has been there for any period of time, they wouldn't get vacant possession of the property and would then have to take enforcement action to evict him and his family, which could be difficult if he has accrued and rights of residence and especially if he gets any sort of beneficial ownership of the property in your parents wills.
I am not an equity release lawyer or broker, but work in an adjacent sector - Wills and LPAs and my experience would indicate that the equity release company would have terms and conditions in place that prevent him and his family moving in, notwithstanding the fact that they are family, for the reasons outlined above.
They couldn't stop them moving in, but what they could do is require an immediate repayment of the loan in full because of the change of circumstances. Read the Ts & Cs carefully and make sure that your parents are aware of the consequences.
Does not confer a veto to the attorney
Certainly but it does allow them to do things like check bank accounts for unexplained outgoings and provide a framework for as and when the donor (I think that is the correct term) cannot manage things themselves. It's not a complete solution for the OP but may be a useful part of the puzzle.
This means your next of kin cannot give consent to providing or withholding care.
That is interesting. In the summer of 2022 when I had a brain haemorrhage and was unconscious and expected to die during surgery, my wife was asked to sign a consent form prior to my surgery. As I was unconscious, I was unable to do so.
My impression is that this sort of stuff isn't always done by the book but is quite frequently handled on the basis of trust and common sense, which has advantages but also drawbacks. FiL (with dementia) is currently in hospital and my wife had quite a struggle getting anyone in authority to tell her what is going on let alone actually ask her opinion/consent for his treatment which he isn't really capable of understanding himself. They didn't even know what to do with the on-line PoA authority thingy (which has been in operation for a few years now).
jamj
~she should not have been signing a consent form. What should have happened is that her views as to what your views are should have been ascertained and this used to inform the medical teams decision
In those circumstances consent is not needed under doctrine of necessity ( I think its called).
Thanks for that PoA info about - point noted about 'Jointly and severally'.
I will have sole PoA as my sister lives too far away to be of any use in day to day matters. She is fine with this.
I said I could help with forms but they want to do it through a solicitor as they 'want it done right', so solicitor who did their wills is coming to visit them next Thursday.
For those who are curious this was the message I got my dad to send last night...
[i]XX and XX...
After your visit yesterday we have thought of nothing else today and we’re sorry to say we are not in a position to help.
The terms of our equity release do not allow it and we have taken advice from Citizens Advice and they have said it would seriously jeapordize our benefits and put us in difficult financial position. Which is not something we are prepared to do.
We also have to think of our health - neither of us is mentally or physically strong enough to deal with this at our time of life.
This has been a very hard decision to make and we’re sorry this is not the news you wanted to hear.
All the best
M&D[/i]
really good message that
~she should not have been signing a consent form. What should have happened is that her views as to what your views are should have been ascertained and this used to inform the medical teams decision
In those circumstances consent is not needed under doctrine of necessity ( I think its called).
She didn’t sign it. She was asked to. She’s more informed about consent than the consultant and surgeon involved. Something to do with her role as an RMN and multiple senior roles in the NHS.
I’m actually not surprised to be honest, I knew more about information governance and GDPR than the nurses on my ward following cardiac surgery. I was initially told that I had could not see my care plan and that I had no right to see my medical information. Probably best not to tell that to a patient who managed GDPR compliance for 80,000 people and understood capacity…
Certainly but it does allow them to do things like check bank accounts for unexplained outgoings and provide a framework for as and when the donor (I think that is the correct term) cannot manage things themselves. It’s not a complete solution for the OP but may be a useful part of the puzzle.
Still not quite right - as long as the donor is of sound mind, they can make any financial decisions they want like donating money to Nigerian princes and you won't get any sight of that.
It does allow you to deal with the bank in the aftermath but even then, there's a process to go through and if the donor is still considered compos mentis and doesn't want your help, you don't have the authority to wade in regardless.
My sister and I have PoA in place for our Mum (who is still considered to have all her faculties) so while she can ask us for help outside of the PoA, neither of us has any right to see any financial affairs at the moment.
Zero – I’ve been on at them to do that for over ten years. They’re too old to move now, the stress would kill them off.They’ve been in the same house since 1982. It’s far too big for them but them have a cleaner and a handy-man who does the heavy work.
I have got them to agree to getting POA sorted though. So that’s a step in the right direction.
Good work on the message to the brother and the PoA.
As he lives in the same village, is there any risk he could simply turn up and let himself in or knock on the door, barge in and begin helping himself?
Be worth notifying the police or council if you feel there's a safety risk there - or if he has keys, change the locks.
My Mum is in the same situation re the house. Lived there 40 years, too old and frail to move now, place is cluttered to **** but she's still coping so... 🤷
Thankfully just me and my sister though, no-one else to screw things up or appear out of the woodwork and start demanding stuff so she's reasonably well looked after in that respect.
Best of luck.
My sister and I have PoA in place for our Mum (who is still considered to have all her faculties) so while she can ask us for help outside of the PoA, neither of us has any right to see any financial affairs at the moment.
Of course you don't have the *right* to demand sight of finances if the donor doesn't consent (you can't legally do anything at all if the donor has capacity and withholds consent), but with their consent (and assuming the PoA was set up to allow for this - see previous comments about financial PoAs) you do have the power to ask the bank for details of transactions for checking. I agree you can't block a transaction that the donor has performed.
Without the PoA in place and verified the bank may well flatly refuse to cooperate regardless of whether your parent asks for help "outside of the PoA". The PoA is the specific structure established to enable people to ask for help in these situations and authorise the attorney to act on their behalf. The bank will have a process for handling it. I'm not saying rules don't get bent a bit in practice.
Jamj - that does not surprise me - I have had similar issues with senior nurses 🙂 its fun to quote policy at them when they try to breach it
Well - I'll go to the foot of our stairs!! 😱 😱 😱
My dad has just texted to say he's had a very understanding message back from my brother and it seems all is good!
My parents seem very relieved.
As he lives in the same village, is there any risk he could simply turn up and let himself in or knock on the door, barge in and begin helping himself?
It's like bloody Fort Knox! Locks on every internal door, alarms, buzzers the lot. It's only missing a watch-tower and some razor wire! 🙂
That *seems* like good news but my inbuilt cycnicism says...wait and see.
that's good to hear.
hopefully some of the other stuff re PoA is a prompt to thread's readers. My uncle impressed upon me the benefits of getting PoA in place over my folks when it was all plain sailing, before it was harder to show capabilities. A good thing to do, which we took upon ourselves to wrote for ourselves too - as well as wills, which get updated every 10 (read 15) years.
I said I could help with forms but they want to do it through a solicitor as they ‘want it done right’, so solicitor who did their wills is coming to visit them next Thursday.
Genuinely, they do not need to do this. It was the battle we were having with my mum for the last few years after we kept suggesting it was something that they should definitely consider (both parents are in the their 80s). Going via the solicitor was going to take the cost over £1000 and she felt that was too much. Finally, this year, due to Dad's worsening dementia and her having a few unexplained falls and us showing that the only costs you need to pay are for registering the POA applications (no need for solicitors as they are so straightforward) she finally relented. Brilliant news and it came in handy a lot quicker than she expected when dealing with a situation for Dad a few weeks ago when he was incapacitated for a bit and a medical decision was needed. Much relief all round.
Also, no harm in making the application for "jointly and severally" as it means it's already in place in case something happens with your parents and you suddenly become incapacitated. Adjusting them after the POA has been set up will cost extra at that point. Costs nothing to add more than one person when going through the initial POA.
Genuinely, they do not need to do this.
I know that - but I've been trying to get them to do it the DIY way for a couple of years with no joy.
If this gets it done, then that's all that matters - and makes them feel secure too.
muffin man - take heed that your brother may still change his mind. I'm a bit cynical.
You've taken all the correct steps. I commend you.
yeah it looks like the situation has been deftly steered away from rocky grounds....for now at least.
I know that – but I’ve been trying to get them to do it the DIY way for a couple of years with no joy.
This is the way. Given all they have on their plates if it’s one less thing they need to think about and puts their minds at ease then it’s worth the money and gets it done.
Power of Attorney
Does not confer a veto to the attorney over decisions made by the ‘ward’ (best term I could think of). If they still want to do daft stuff like give the house to a stranger then so be it. LPA simply gives official status to the attorney to represent the ward in dealings with businesses or institutions as if they were the ward.
Is there some way you could be set up to require consent, or at least be notified, if a will was changed?
Is there some way you could be set up to require consent, or at least be notified, if a will was changed?
I don't think there is, as it's essentially a private matter to the individual making the will - assuming they are of sound mind...if they are vulnerable and coerced in some way into changing thier will, and it's not correctly witnessed then that would be open to contest.
That's why it's important to have a will drawn up correctly and signed by two independent witnesses, typically these winesses might be the solicitor who drafted the will, and thier PA or receptionist... i.e. not a beneficiary or anyone with a vested interest in the estate.
Then it's pretty much water tight... something scrawled in crayon on a napkin after that fact would struggle to hold up in contest.
