Banks and Power of Attorney

Linton

If there is only one of you handling the day-to-day expenses could you all agree to pay in £4000 as and when needed to a separate account owned by that one person?

In that way you would all share the high level responsibility with the details managed more easily.

dzug1

Do you have a Post Office nearer than that 5 miles? Natwest debit cards have recently been added to the list of those that can be used to withdraw cash over the counter - and I assume that incldes a balance request facility.

I'd beware of anything that involves muddling your personal finances with Mum's

Floydsdad

Linton wrote: »

If there is only one of you handling the day-to-day expenses could you all agree to pay in £4000 as and when needed to a separate account owned by that one person?

In that way you would all share the high level responsibility with the details managed more easily.

dzug1 wrote: »

I'd beware of anything that involves muddling your personal finances with Mum's

Yep, we've thought of this, but being realistic, this could cause all sorts of problems if/when it comes to sorting out Inheritance Tax liabilities. Everything would need to be comprehensively documented and even then I can forsee battles with HMRC.

agrinnall

Any solution to this is only going to work if each of the attorneys is able to trust that the other two will always be acting on your mum's behalf and not against the general wishes of all three of you. If that is the case then you could:

• Set up a joint account for the three of you, perhaps named in such a way that it's obviously for your mum's benefit
• Arrange for any of you to be able to use internet or telephone banking with no limits
• Write cheques from your mum's account to pay into the joint account whenever more funds are needed
• Keep immaculate records of every withdrawal, transfer and payment, including what the money was for, in case HMRC need to see evidence that the money wasn't for your own use.

Presumably there is still money coming in to both of your mum's accounts, are you able to get that changed so it only comes into the NatWest account (with the debit card you can at least check the balance if you need to, even if it's not very convenient) and close the HSBC one?

Edit: I see you're not keen on this idea, in which case I'm not sure there is anything you can do to improve the situation other than the Court of Protection route.

Biggles

le_loup wrote: »

Not with a value limit!

The bank account didn't have a value limit, we didn't see that as any of the bank's business (and nor would they have done).

I operated our 'value limit', a swift phone call or exchange of emails for larger amounts was all that was needed to confirm agreement, and the regular provision of statements etc to my brother ensured that we both knew what was going on.

It worked smoothly for three or four years.

Biggles

A joint account in the names of the three of you (or any of you) is a huge can of worms. The ownership of funds held in it on your mother's death would be open to question unless the account was in your mother's name (when we are back to Square One).

le_loup

Biggles wrote: »

The bank account didn't have a value limit,

Exactly my point.
Here the OP was asking the bank to operate with a value limit.
Impractical.

Floydsdad

le_loup wrote: »

Exactly my point.
Here the OP was asking the bank to operate with a value limit.
Impractical.

Natwest are able to operate the cheque clearing and (presumably) the debit card with a value limit, so I feel it's not such a big stretch from there to operating 'phone banking the same way. I expect it's an issue that the systems aren't set up and the "computer says no".

le_loup

Yes, I'm sure that's right.
However, current accounts are a marginal business at the best of times, therefor, I can understand why they haven't built complicated computer systems to deal with what must be a very small requirement.

jonesMUFCforever

If the Power of Attorney has a £4k limit for one signature then the bank has to abide by that, or the court of protection could come down on it, and hold it liable for any estate losses.
It cannot simply ignore it!