Lump sum advice

Savvy_Sue

As above: however, if he sometimes has capacity and would know what he is doing and understand the implications of 'giving it all to you', then he can, I believe, do this, but because he has dementia and you have PofA I'd want to take advice about how you establish that he did in fact have 'capacity' when he gave the money away.

And it may be seen as Deliberate Deprivation of Assets if he does go into a care home.

patanne

As you have power of attorney, whilst you might hope that he will have some input on what is done with the money, you are the one who needs to actually make all the decisions. You are the one who should deal with his tax affairs & so actually he need never know how much tax he is paying, as the power of attorney should I believe be registered with HMRC (someone correct me if I'm wrong) & letters should come for your attention. As said above, you need to act in his best interests, even though he might not wish that. That is why you have power of attorney. I have to say that since I've been an attorney, I've found I have to think harder about what I do than I do with my own affairs. I have to say that someone who always insists on putting a large sum of money where it will not gain interest just to avoid tax cannot be seen as acting in their OWN best interests and is why you have power of attorney.

patanne

I assume that you are not keeping him (as in paying for his food & clothing) as taking a reasonable amount for his living expenses would be acceptable.

treecol

We now live in his house, but although all the bills are paid from his main bank account by DD, he keeps hold of this account as his private pension is paid into there. I draw his state pension out & use this to pay for food & extras for him. We only get a carers allowance & his attendance allowance to live on as we had to give up our business to care for him. So we struggle to run our car (which is needed for him as well as us) There is often a shortfall in weekly expenses for him too, depending on what he needs. I think I need to see the solicitor as I'm unclear what we can actually do. To me it just wouldn't feel right drawing out money, but perhaps I just need to get on with it!!!

patanne

I would suggest that you take a look at the website for the Office of the Public Guardian. This gives some very clear ideas of what can & cannot be done. There was even a section on gifts which I believe boils down to something like - If the person concerned has given grandchildren 1 & 2 a gift of £500 on reaching 18 then it is alright to give grandchild 3 the same amount but not £1000. We did the power of attorney without involving a solicitor just using the office of the Public Guardians notes and it was quite straight forward.