Court of Protection and Bank Accounts

nad1611

Hi All. Am just about to be made Deputy for my father jointly and severally with my brother. Have been doing a little research and there seems to be a general opinion that Banks don't like providing online access for COP Accounts.

It seems a little odd if this is the case, if the Court has deemed it okay to make the Order why would banks be worried about allowing access online. They aren't going to be held liable if funds went missing we would be.

Anyway I'd really appreciate some advice about the best banks if anyone knows as we'd probably be looking at moving his accounts, given that Nat West's interests are so low, we'd like to do the best for him money wise, considering the care home he's in is very expensive. Well any advice about it really would be great.

Mr_Toad

As you say, a general opinion. I find banks are reluctant with anything that isn't 'normal', yet you'd think Court of Protection is fairly normal, and staff will often try and refuse rather than spend time finding out what's really possible. They like an easy life.

Given that in the banking system the left hand rarely knows what the right hand is doing why not just go on-line try and set it up. Normally this will be an automated system so should go through OK.

One of my close friends lives on a boat and the bank got very twitchy about him not having a permanent address. It isn't really a problem, thousands of people live on boats but the staff seemed to have no idea.

In the end he gave his parents address got it all set up then went home and changed his address on-line to the rented PO Box where all his mail goes to without any problem at all.

RAS

We had nightmares trying to get HSBC to set up on-line banking. The donor died before it was sorted.

Thankfully her old branch were very good and did stuff by telephone if urgent.

mrschaucer

In case it might help anyone in future faced with dim bank staff - here's a link to the Banking Industry's own guide to Deputyship/LPAs etc.
https://www.bba.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2014/01/BBA_Guidance_for_Consumers_booklet.pdf

Goldiegirl

I applied to the COP to act as Receiver for my mum, back in 2004

I opened an account with the Halifax, and had online access.

I was working for them at the time, so it was easier for me to find the right person to talk too ( and to find someone who knew what they were talking about), but I operated the account online for 4 years with no problems.

cavework

Had COP for Dad and POA for Mum set up at the same time. They both banked with Lloyds.
When Dad died they were easy to deal with and now POA for Mum alone, no problem.

nad1611

Thanks for all this. I think it looks like each bank has it's own ideas of what they want or will allow. You'd think given the level of security and checks surrounding the COP application and the fact that the Deputies are accountable and the Bond gives the person protection from mishandling, should be enough.
I think the online banking would be a lot easier to keep an eye on the Account and make amendments easily, anyway I think the best thing will be to go in and speak to someone at the bank of choice and see if we can persuade them to allow online banking.
I suppose as suggested we could just sign up for online banking but if anything happened they probably wouldn't be accommodating after that.

Ettenna

I'm just about to go through this. I have just got Deputyship for my daughter. She is with NatWest but I want to move accounts and have her benefits paid in somewhere that will pay a bit of interest. They were not accommodating when I first approached them about sorting out her account - let's hope they are better now!