Power of Attorney

inholms

Both of my parents are in their late eighties and are now finding difficult to handle their finacial affairs.They both have a number of bank accounts and investments. They recently asked me to take over the running of their affairs. I decided the first thing to do was to have a Power of Attorney document, so I contacted a local Solicitor, expecting to pay about £100, they told me that due to a recent change in the law this is no longer possible. The Government have (it seems secretly) introduced a new system. There are now two types of attorney, one for finance and another for health etc. You have to have a document for each person and the cost of preparing each one is £750! Plus £120 registration fee for each document! This has been confirmed by another Solicitor. They say there is no alternative the old Power of Attorney arrangement is no longer legal, Can this be true? This is going to cost me £3480.
Sorry if this has already been covered but I'm new to this. These activites are normally somthing you do once in a lifetime. I have transfred this thread from another site in the hope of warning as may people as I can.
I've just found out about the 'Office of the Public Guardian' where you have to register the new Power of Attorneys. I am pretty well up to date on most things, but I've never heard of this government department, and niether have any of my friends. I feel like I've woken up in 1984!

sagalout1954

An Enduring Power of Attorney is still valid and legal if it was drawn up before the changes, the it wasn't really 'secret'. I don't usually have my finger on the pulse but certainly knew about it before it happened. We were arranging new wills and slid in the EPA's just before the 'change' (1977).

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/1554685/Concern-over-new-power-of-attorney-laws.html

Article

Biggles

Solicitors, of course, would tell you that.

In fact, the cost of a Lasting Power of Attorney is just the £120. If you choose to use a solicitor, then you will have to pay the rest.

You can download the forms and guidance notes from the Public Guardian's website, free of charge, and read through them yourself. You can then complete them, free of charge. The £120 is just for registering the LPA.

The forms are more complex than the old Enduring Power of Attorney but, on the other hand, they do come with a vast amount of explanatory notes.

Take a look on http://www.publicguardian.gov.uk/ and see what you think.

sagalout1954

......I'm not suggesting you 'DiY' but this site does mention the Office of Public Guardian.

http://www.lawpack.co.uk/Knowledge/WillsAndPowerOfAttorney/PowerOfAttorney/article881.asp

Biggles

Just a couple of further points:-

If it's just their financial affairs that you are concerned about, you only need one LPA each (Property & Affairs).

You need to get the forms completed while they are of sound mind - if either of them loses 'mental capacity' (which is the legal phrase), they are no longer able to sign an LPA. But you don't have to register the form until you need to actually use it, thus getting the forms downloaded and completed doesn't cost you a penny.

monkeyspanner

If you do a search of these forums for lasting power of attorney you will find a number of people who have applied for LPAs and done the paperwork themselves. Most claim this is straightforward and has been completed more quickly than solicitors have quoted. Things only get difficult if your parents become mentally incapacitated. In the meantime it should be possible for you to suggest things that need to be done as long as your parents can sign forms and in some cases visit banks with you. If you need to deal with pensions normally they will talk to a third party if you ring and get your parent to breifly come on the phone and say that they should deal with you.

Are either of your parents claiming attendance allowance which is not means tested?

There was quite a bit of publicity as the old enduring power of attorney system for new applications was phased out in 2007, but you probably would only have noticed if you were in the loop already.

When you do get in a position to deal with your parents financial affairs you might like to consider.
- Separating joint accounts and investments where possible to avoid any confusion if either of your parents should require care home provision and funding assistance from the council. Only relevant if individual assets other than the home are less than around £23000.
- Changing ownership status of any jointly owned property from joint tenants to tenants in common. This can avoid the property being used for care home fees if one of a couple die and the other needs a care home. But I'm no expert on this and don't understand the full technicalities.

Elsewhere

We have set up and registered a financial power of attorney for each of my inlaws - downloaded the forms and did it ourselves. The forms are tedious to fill out, but simple enough if the financial affairs aren't going to be handled in different ways, eg; the attorney can pay bills but not deal with shares, or the attorney gets paid fees for their time... You'd probably need a solicitor if anything complicated like that was required. My inlaws needs were very straightforward.

My inlaws didn't have to pay fees, because they get pension credits - there's a seperate form to complete for fee exemptions or reductions.

HOWEVER - the Office of the Public Guardian took ages to deal with registering the forms. We sent them off in November and they finally arrived yesterday!!!!! (After quite a few phone calls to nag them about it.) So don't leave it until it gets urgent!!!

inholms

Many thanks to everyone for your comments. I will follow what you suggest. I think the best route would be to consolidate my parents money (they don't have much) into one account and become a signatory.
Although there may have been cases where there was a need to tighten the regulations, this is yet another example of how this government over reacts and makes draconian legislation to the detriment of everyone. A classic case of fixing something which wasn’t broken.

dontknowwhatimdoing

inholms wrote: »

Many thanks to everyone for your comments. I will follow what you suggest. I think the best route would be to consolidate my parents money (they don't have much) into one account and become a signatory.
Although there may have been cases where there was a need to tighten the regulations, this is yet another example of how this government over reacts and makes draconian legislation to the detriment of everyone. A classic case of fixing something which wasn’t broken.

I quite agree with you - I was lucky (if that is the word) in that when my mother made her Will in 1995 she decided to have an Enduring Power of Attorney drawn up as well (just in case...).
She suddenly became physically ill in Feb this year and insisted I activate the EPA. All I had to do was take it to her Bank and Building Society, have an interview and then wait a couple of weeks for acceptance.
The bank chappie said how fortunate it was that mum had had the foresight to do the EPA when she did - he said it was a nightmare now.
She died in March but I did not even have to close her Bank account - I stopped all DDs etc but the Bank said keep the account unfrozen (there is apparently no legal need to freeze an account after a death - I had not realised this) and all dividends etc.. would still be paid into her account until Probate was sorted.
It also meant I was able to access money for the considerable amounts that had to be repaid - although I told the pension people etc immediately of her death, I still had requests for the return of overpaid pension, attendance allowance, etc and I also had to pay up all the utilities. Together with the funeral, this amounted to a fair bit. I would have had to raid my ISA if I had not had access to her account.
I just made sure I wrote in all correct amounts on the day of her death on the Probate form - so no underhand cheating has gone on.
The government really should keep their hands off the things that work and sort out everything else!
Good luck.

margaretclare

http://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/showthread.html?t=1799663

You will see that on this thread I suggested reducing the number of different accounts, but then there was a comment suggesting that they might have a lot of money, in which case £50K in each different account was a safeguard against banks going bust. From what you write now, this is not the case.

DH and I certainly have not got £50K, still less enough to put £50K in separate accounts, but we think we run our financial affairs in a fairly trouble-free way. One current account each to receive pensions income, one joint account for paying bills by direct debit - the most foolproof and stress-free method we've come across so far. We don't bother much with savings accounts any more since interest rates have gone so low. Our investments are in S&S ISAs and we don't do anything much with them apart from keeping an occasional eye on them.

We each have a POA for one another which will become active if either of us becomes mentally incapable. Until that happens, it's all just there 'in case'.

HTH

monkeyspanner

margaretclare wrote: »

http://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/showthread.html?t=1799663

You will see that on this thread I suggested reducing the number of different accounts, but then there was a comment suggesting that they might have a lot of money, in which case £50K in each different account was a safeguard against banks going bust. From what you write now, this is not the case.

DH and I certainly have not got £50K, still less enough to put £50K in separate accounts, but we think we run our financial affairs in a fairly trouble-free way. One current account each to receive pensions income, one joint account for paying bills by direct debit - the most foolproof and stress-free method we've come across so far. We don't bother much with savings accounts any more since interest rates have gone so low. Our investments are in S&S ISAs and we don't do anything much with them apart from keeping an occasional eye on them.

We each have a POA for one another which will become active if either of us becomes mentally incapable. Until that happens, it's all just there 'in case'.

HTH

If you are setting multiple accounts of up to £50k please check that the accounts are held by separate banking institutions with different licenses.
See this list which shows where different banking companys are covered by the same license.
http://www.moneysavingexpert.com/savings/safe-savings#whatcounts