Power of attorney woes

Our daughters are named for POA

eddiecat78

OP's query is nothing to do with her attorneys. I do wish people would read properly before jumping in with unnecessary and confusing advice!

Seems to happen all the time on this site.

Polremy

It doesn’t have to be expensive. You can do it yourself. It looks scary but it really isn’t.
I sent ours off but had made a couple or errors.
A very nice man from HMRC ( ?)helped me sort it.
I think it cost us around £80 each.
We have friends who paid over £1000 to a solicitor.

We did our own too. We found it perfectly straightforward, but you do need to read the instructions very carefully, particularly as regards signing and dating. Any mistake means that it will be rejected, and you’ll have to start (and pay!) again.

It’s worth mentioning that in the Health and Welfare P of A you can add a paragraph to state your wishes in e.g. the case of your losing mental capacity, or because of e,g, a stroke, being unable to make your own wishes known.

Ours made our wishes very clear as regards any ‘striving to keep alive’ in the case of dementia or any other condition where we might be unable both to care for ourselves, and speak, with full mental capacity, for ourselves.

It doesn’t have to be expensive. You can do it yourself. It looks scary but it really isn’t.
I sent ours off but had made a couple or errors.
A very nice man from HMRC ( ?)helped me sort it.
I think it cost us around £80 each.
We have friends who paid over £1000 to a solicitor.

Its a shame you hadn't already sent it off, we had just before the first lockdown so everything was on hold. When ny husband died early 2021 I rang them and they changed mine for me and refunded the payment for my husbands. I had to change my husbands POA for me, to my third daughter instead

Myself and my 2 siblings have P o A for our mum . The solicitor suggested notifying my uncle , who’s my mums brother . It’s a safeguarding thing .

Thank you all for the advice

I don’t think you need to name anyone to be ‘informed’. You can leave that blank

eddiecat78

OP's query is nothing to do with her attorneys. I do wish people would read properly before jumping in with unnecessary and confusing advice!

Soz

Ooops, I’ve just re-read OP, sorry!! My advice is to call up as others have said, or to be honest just leave it as it is.

I think this is why it’s suggested to have a back up named in the LPOA, I didn’t with my mothers, however DH’s mum is still alive and in the event of DH death it passes directly to his sister. (Lots of reasons why they were not named as joint attorneys)

Ring customer services at Office for Public Gaurdian. They are very helpful.

OP's query is nothing to do with her attorneys. I do wish people would read properly before jumping in with unnecessary and confusing advice!

Pleasebenice

I have both POAs completed and registered but the person I nominated as someone to be informed has died. I understand I need to start again. Not cheap. But most, if not all, of my friends are my age, 70s, so I guess this could happen again. Any suggestions?

If your POA appointed only one person as your Attorney, and they have died, then yes you will need to formally appoint another and inform the Office of the Public Guardian who holds your POA.

But, if you had nominated several attorneys ( as backstops) then their appointment is still safely in place. No rush.

Or do you mean, that on your POA you listed a number of people the Attorney needs to inform that he is now the person in charge of your health welfare and finance.

POA backups;

Our POAs ( health and welfare) nominate first, each other.
Should that spouse themselves be too incapacitated by then, both our sons are also appointed as Attorneys. We had expected only to appoint one back-up, the son who conveniently lives very near by. It was our solicitor who recommended appointing two sons. She pointed out that peoples circumstances can change in a twinkling . Years down the line either son might be unavailable , uncontactable etc ( they both travel remotely, do extreme sports, and have jobs where they are not instantly available).

Just to add, in this family the holders of financial P of A have certainly just ‘taken over’ the person’s finances, since they were no longer at all capable of managing their own affairs.

In my mother’s case (she had dementia) a cheque for £4000 after sale of some shares had gone missing - and we never found out how, or who had taken or managed to cash it - but that was when my brother, who had P of A, said, ‘Right, that’s it!’ - and activated the (old style) Power of Attorney PDQ.

Greyduster

As I understand it, when you are dealing with the finances of someone for whom you have power of attorney, any money that is spent on the persons behalf has to be accounted for to office of the public guardian. This is what happened when my sister in law was looking after the financial affairs of her sister. DH who was her other attorney until he died, but was not directly responsible for expenditure, had to be kept in the loop. SiL had to submit a record of outgoings. Attorneys cannot just “take over your finances”.

Several in this family inc. dh, have held Ps of A, both financial and for health and welfare, for other family members, usually because of dementia.
I am certainly not aware than any of them has been obliged to submit records to the office of the Public Guardian, though I know they could have accounted for all expenditure if required to do so.

Of course abuses do occur - I have read of cases where other family members strongly suspect that the financial P of A holder is helping themselves, but AFAIK they have to involve the Public Guardian office if they want to pursue the matter.

Having a person to notify is an additional safeguard not a requirement. That person is notified that a PoA has been created and has 3 weeks to object to its registration eg if they think undue influence has been used to get the donor to create a PoA. As your PoA has already been registered the death of the person to. Notify has no impact on your PoA which remains valid

Pleasebenice

It’s not the attorneys that is the question. It is the person to notify. Can that be a relative or can you just not have one?

As I said above, the "person to notify" part of the poa is completely optional. If someone has been named they must be notified when the poa is registered, but you do not have to name anyone. I think you said your POAs have already been registered in which case I don't think it should matter that the person you named has since died

SiL had to submit a record of outgoings. Let me correct that statement. What I meant to say is that a detailed record of expenditure has to be kept and the OPG can ask to see it at any time.

Both our daughters are named on our POAs, all done by our Solicitor.

It’s not the attorneys that is the question. It is the person to notify. Can that be a relative or can you just not have one?

As I understand it, when you are dealing with the finances of someone for whom you have power of attorney, any money that is spent on the persons behalf has to be accounted for to office of the public guardian. This is what happened when my sister in law was looking after the financial affairs of her sister. DH who was her other attorney until he died, but was not directly responsible for expenditure, had to be kept in the loop. SiL had to submit a record of outgoings. Attorneys cannot just “take over your finances”.

Both my children have H & F Powers of Attorney for me. They know can use the money only for my benefit while I am alive. When I die they are my beneficiaries.

Yes, it is very usual for children to have POA. I have it for my mother, and our children have it for us.

Pleasebenice

Not sure you can use a family member as they would stand to gain financially.

You certainly can for P of A. Our DDs have both Ps of A for us. Attorneys re not supposed to benefit financially.

Maybe you are thinking of wills, where beneficiaries are not allowed to be witnesses.