Pensioner hoarding cash

overload99

My husband's grandmother, who is 99, has just moved from her home of 70 years into sheltered housing. During the move, her son has discovered a large amount of cash (approx. £16k) that she has hidden in various places around the house. Can anyone recommend what she should now do with this money? Are you allowed to just turn up at a bank with that sort of money?
Any advice would be greatly appreciated.
Thanks!



[purplesignup][/purplesignup]

Comms69

Well it needs to be put in her name, but yes it’s legal. Worth pre warning the bank as it will trigger money laundering checks

Keep_pedalling

I would make an appointment with a local branch of her bank to find out whether you can simply deposit this money in her account. It is not something a cashier is likely to be able to handle.

Do you have power of attorney for her?

Mojisola

If she has been getting means tested benefits, there could be overpayments from the DWP which will have to be returned.

trailingspouse

Does anyone have a lasting power of attorney for financial matters? If so, then they should be the ones dealing with it.

If she has a bank account, the best bet might be to go to that bank and explain the situation (go into branch - the call centre people can really only deal with standard queries - and ask for a private appointment). Is it all in notes? I know that with coins there is a maximum amount that can be used as legal tender. You need to act quickly as this is a security risk and if your father-in-law is keeping it in his own home his insurance is unlikely to cover it should he be broken in to. Ditto if there is a fire.

There may also be an issue if the cash includes very old notes. High street banks will accept them for a certain length of time, but after that it's only the Bank of England that will do it.

overload99

I'm not sure about Power of Attorney but we will try to find out. Thank you!

alex_163163

You shouldn’t have too much trouble depositing the cash at a branch. One of my family members is a ‘cash hoarder’ and I once accompanied her with a beach bag full of £20 notes (£20k’s worth!) and paid them in over the cashiers desk. In this particular branch it had to be over the desk and not in a private appt room as there are no security systems in the private rooms so not insured to take such large sums in there.
So we didn’t need a prior appt, but about 3 cashiers got involved in counting it!
Obvs there might be a complication in paying it in to the relatives account if you are not power of attorney/ she is not with you, but the actually paying in of that much cash was fine in my experience.

Pollycat

Mojisola wrote: »

If she has been getting means tested benefits, there could be overpayments from the DWP which will have to be returned.

^^^^ my first thought too.

barbarawright

Is there a cut off date for exchanging old banknotes at a high street bank? I'm guessing these will mostly be pre-polymer style

onomatopoeia99

trailingspouse wrote: »

Is it all in notes? I know that with coins there is a maximum amount that can be used as legal tender.

"Legal tender" has a precise (but apprently not widely understood) legal definition which is not relevant when depositing money at a bank.

trailingspouse

Banks can refuse to accept large quantities of coin.