please for advise on my mothers lasting power of attorney

peanutnboo

I haven't read all of this thread but I have applied for a LPA for my Father last year.
We made the application ourselves without using a Solicitor and saved ourselves over £1000.
There are two types of LPA now there is one for your Parent's financial matters and a seperate one for their Personal welfare .

You need to obtain both.

Once the Office of the Guardian (OOG) has issues the LPA's you do not need to use them immediately . In order to be able to act as your parent's attourney you will need to send a certified copy of the LPA to every single financial institution to register it with them in order for them to register you as the attouney.

You do not need to do this until you are ready to. Whilst your parent can still make their own decisions (possibly with your guidance ) they can still do so and most banks will allow you to deal with them directly provided your parent authorizes it on the telephone or in a branch.

This way you are not directly responsible for their financial or personal welfare or liable for any problems that may occur.!

The moment you send the certificates out to the various bodies you need to communicate with as your parent's attourney then you become personally responsible.

You need to think about getting the personal welfare LPA . If you do not have one then the medical institutions and their Dr etc can make decisions on their behalf that might not necessarily be in your and your parents best interests.

Its easy to do online directly with the OOG yourself and their website explains how.

peanutnboo

in short if you haven't given your Mum's Bank a certified copy of the LPA which the Office of the Guardian sent you then you are not responsible for your Mum's financial affairs . You need do nothing at all if you so choose. The LPA only comes into effect when a certified copy of it is registered with your Mum's bank. You can keep the LPA and do nothing with it until you need to. That is the advantage of them once registered they are there to use when the time is right.

Your Mum's bank will not allow you to instruct them directly or withdraw money or transfer money etc without either a copy of the LPA or your Mum's authority.

Naturally if your Mum trusts you to go to the cashpoint with her debit card and withdraw money then that is your business . You can withdraw whatever she wishes or whatever she owes you but I would recommend that you get your Mum to sign a letter stating that she gives you permission in case anyone asks questions later.



If you want to keep a record then there are lots of cheap bookkeeping pads in Smiths or your local newsagent and you can keep a simple record of the date , amount and purpose of any money you withdraw on your Mum's behalf together with a receipt. Always insist on a receipt if you use your cash to buy for your Mum or caring for your Mum.

John_Pierpoint

peanutnboo wrote: »

I haven't read all of this thread but I have applied for a LPA for my Father last year.
We made the application ourselves without using a Solicitor and saved ourselves over £1000.
There are two types of LPA now there is one for your Parent's financial matters and a separate one for their Personal welfare .

You need to obtain both.

Once the Office of the Guardian (OOG) has issues the LPA's you do not need to use them immediately . In order to be able to act as your parent's attourney you will need to send a certified copy of the LPA to every single financial institution to register it with them in order for them to register you as the attorney.

You do not need to do this until you are ready to. Whilst your parent can still make their own decisions (possibly with your guidance ) they can still do so and most banks will allow you to deal with them directly provided your parent authorizes it on the telephone or in a branch.

This way you are not directly responsible for their financial or personal welfare or liable for any problems that may occur.!

The moment you send the certificates out to the various bodies you need to communicate with as your parent's attorney then you become personally responsible.

You need to think about getting the personal welfare LPA . If you do not have one then the medical institutions and their Dr etc can make decisions on their behalf that might not necessarily be in your and your parents best interests.

Its easy to do online directly with the OOG yourself and their website explains how.

How long did it take, how much did it cost you, did you encounter any snags.

[I needed to apply for LPA, when it was a new concept three and a half years ago.
First problem was understanding what was wanted - certificate that the elderly person understood what they were signing - family representative to be responsible for advising family members what was going on (about 10 of them with a relationship equivalent to mine) etc. etc.

The upshot was that the elderly person had died 3 months later while the clerks involved were still trying to query obscure points about what we had entered on the forms.

Officially typical delays and muddle like this that could well take 6 months to resolve are now in the past - and it is all so much more do-able]

cavework

John .. try COP and POA for both parents after one has a stroke and they have one joint bank account!
12 months for POA and 18 months for COP with another 'registration fee ' at the end of £100 to be entered on the COP register for yet another dept of the courts.
Bank? another 2 weeks while it is all processed .. all joint cheques and my Fathers debit card cancelled.
So the cheque my Mum issued to my fathers Nursing home might now bounce before I can get on line access to set up BACS payment from now on