Power of attorney.

There was a phone in about this on R4 a few weeks ago and I seem to remember them saying to just draw them up and register when you need them.

If you want to change anything once they are registered is there a charge? It could be very expensive if you set one up then got married, then divorced then your attorney died etc.........................

If it takes ten weeks for the registration to be completed, then it couild be ten weeks before you could access someone's money, or take vital decisions about their health.

Why does it take that long? Is it just because of who is doing it? Nothing else in life takes so long!

When one elderly parent has dementia, it is certainly time for the other one to nominate someone for POA.

I don't remember how long it took for ours to be finalised. There was no rush so it didn't matter.

Can you invest poa in an institution/office such as your firm of solicitors, or does it have to be an individual?

We had a solicitor draw ours up. She explained about how many attorneys we could have, the difference between them acting together or individually, what happens if you wish to change attorney, why it ought to be registered and most importantly why we should/should not give power to our attorneys regarding things like being out into care or DNR notices.

It was only £100 each, plus the registration fee which is fixed anyway. I felt it was money well spent.

Also at least one person other than the attorneys have to be notified in writing about your LPA.

We applied to the COP in February 2013 and got our Deputy papers in July 2013. They were wrong and not sorted till the October. Fortunately the bank honoured the care home fees for Aunite.

I believe you could have anybody as your attorney, but would you want to trust someone you don't know very well with decisions about your health and long term care if the need arose? You can also have more than one attorneys.

And it is not only the 10 weeks to register it. If you decide to invoke it with the bank you need to make an appointment with the bank,take along two means of identification and you are given forms to complete with the numbers of all accounts held there. You will then be asked what you need as to bank cards, cheque books ,paying in books etc. whether you need these in both names or just one. You then return these with the POA docs which has every page photocopied. This is then sent to Head Office and you wait for cards etc to be delivered. One mistake was made in our case by RBS so they all had to be sent back. So it can take many weeks before you can access funds.

Couple of points.

LPA's don't have to be registered straight away, but for the reasons given, it is very advisable to register them promptly. I suspect a solicitor would want to do it immediately so that he can charge more.

When filling in the forms, all the signatures have to be obtained within a 12 month period (I think they say "without significant delay"). As our children live far away I checked with the help line what his meant, they said 12 months. However they suggested that once I had completed the forms online, our children could print off the relevant sections and sign them.

Regarding the various witnesses etc, they do not have to be professional people (like a passport) just friends etc that have known you for a while.

It does take up to 10 weeks to register. After they have checked the documents, they then have to write to every party concerned giving them 4 weeks to object etc. Given leeway for postal delays this probably takes up 7 weeks of the 10.

I believe you can change addresses etc with no problem, but I suspect adding a new attorney would need a new application. You are able to name several attorneys and replacement attorneys.

Regarding cost, if your income is below £12k/yr or you are receiving certain benefits, the costs are reduced.

Katek If you have reached legal adulthood, it is never too early to make a will and set up a POA. We made our first wills when DS was born. We were in our late 20s, DH's work involved some risk and we wanted to sort out who would care for our DC if neither of us was around to do so. We set up POAs when we were in our 40s and first heard of them.

Our wills have been revised several times since, I think we are on version 4. When our children were old enough to be given our POAs we cancelled our previous ones, where other members of our family were given that responsibility and our children will now exercise the POA for us, if and when it is needed.

Thanks FlicketyB. Was also wondering what happens if your appointee becomes incapable themselves after you have invoked poa? Wouid their responsibilities rest with their appointee? How would I prevent my affairs being handled by someone I didn't appoint??

Please do not forget any animals that you may have! I have that sorted with a couple who are not my attorneys- they have said that they will look after Tara if anything happens to me. I have to get my LPOW sorted soon because I do not want the expense of food and vet fees to fall on their kind shoulders. Like me they are animal lovers.

£1000? I've told my daughters to shoot me if I go ga-ga.

apricot to save your daughters the trauma, a single ticket to Switzerland would solve your problems and be a lot cheaper.

A single ticket along Southend pier would be even cheaper.

The complex questions being raised can be refereed to the help line, I'm sure they will advise you.

Charleygirl.....don't the RSPCA offer a home for life service for pets left behind? Think I've seen it advertised on TV.

Wouldn't trust the RSPCA with a live animal [runs and hides]. Think it's another dogs trust that offers that.

My husband sent his off to be registered as soon as we had all the signatures. If we had waited until he "needed" it, it would have been too late if there had been any problems.

You don't seem impressed with the RSPCA Tegan.....have you had problems with them?

If they become incapable while you are capable of changing your POA then there is not a problem, you just revoke the POA and choose a new attorney.

Most people appoint more than one attorney. I have named both my children in my POA and given them authority to act together or separately so if one of them became incapacitated the other would operate on their own. There is a possibility that both could be incapacitated, but the probability of that is so low I can live with the risk of my care passing out of their hands in those circumstances. However it is important to give your attorneys the power to work together or separately.

The parents of a friend appointed her and her DH as there attorneys and didn't add that word separately. Her father died, her mother developed Azheimers and then her husband died suddenly and the POA became invalid and she had to go through all the problems of having to organise a POA for someone who is mentally incapacitated, it took over six months. It was halfway through the sale of her DM's flat, so the sale fell through, as well as dealing with all this she was also having to deal with her grief at the loss of her DH plus administering his will.

Katek; years ago I was chatting to someone who said he despised the RSPCA because they made huge profits but put down healthy animals. I was quite shocked by what he said but, over the years other people have said the same. So I wouldn't trust them without looking into any agreement with them very carefully.

That sounds dreadful! I donate monthly to them-I must try and find out more. T

I'm sure they do lots of good things as well; it's just that I don't have the blind faith in them that I used to have.