Alcoholic brother

tracyk

We discovered my brother was an alcoholic 3 years ago & he has been in & out of rehab since. He lives with my Dad who has Parkinson's. He registered a Power of Attorney over my Dad's finances previous to us realising about the alcohol and has since invested my Dad's savings with a financial adviser who he uses for his own money. My question is; can i get the PoA revoked as I'm concerned about him spending Dad's money? TIA

Pollycat

You need to contact OPG:

https://www.gov.uk/report-concern-about-attorney-deputy


Do it without delay.

Primrose

If your dad has Parkinson,s does he still have mental capacity and would he be capable of having a rational conversation with you about your concerns. You say the P of A is registered but it,s unclear whether your fsaher is now actually incapable of looking after his own affairs

If he is still capable maybe you need to have a conversation with him about any concerns you have about the safety of his financial assets in the light of your brother recentmedical history. . If he is rational, he should ask for a meeting with the financial advisor with you being present and also ask for an up to date statement of his financial assets if the brother is actually handling his affairs.

If you are unhappy with the outcome then contact the Office of Public Guardian. The brother may be handling your faher's finances in an honest way despite his alcoholism, although where is he getting the money from to fund his habit? Does he have a job and some income? . in which case, he will obviously resent any allegations of possible mishandling. However in view of his past history he needs to be capable of understanding your concern. If he,s not prepared to understand, then you have a right to notify the OPG.

You obviously need to be prepared for a massive family fallout in tackling this issue.

Malthusian

tracyk wrote: »

He registered a Power of Attorney over my Dad's finances previous to us realising about the alcohol and has since invested my Dad's savings with a financial adviser who he uses for his own money.

Check that the adviser is on the FCA register and authorised to give advice. Then give the adviser a call and outline your concerns. They will not be able to tell you anything about your Dad's finances but if the adviser is aware of any odd withdrawals or anything that might constitute financial abuse they will be able to look into it.

Nothing of what you have told us indicates that your brother has done anything wrong. Registering a power of attorney is perfectly sensible. Every adult who has capacity should have one, including you. Not appointing you as an Attorney (or at least asking you) is potentially suspicious, but as he lives with your Dad and you don't, it's defensible. (Though not ideal as there should be a backup attorney.)

Appointing his financial adviser to look after your dad's money is the exact opposite of what someone planning on stealing their dad's money would do. It would make far more sense to look after their dad's money themselves and not involve a third party who could dob them in.

A high-functioning alcoholic could easily arrange a power of attorney for their dad for legitimate reasons.

As things stand there's very little to tell the Court of Protection. "My brother who is my dad's attorney is an alcoholic." And? You're allowed to drink too much and be someone's attorney. If he habitually steals to fund his habit that's another matter, but if he does you'd have said. "He appointed his own adviser to look after my dad's affairs." Good. Appointing a professional adviser is exactly what you should do as an attorney in most cases, and your own adviser would be the obvious choice.

I'm not defending your brother, I'm pointing out how this is going to sound to the Court of Protection unless you have more evidence than you're revealing here.

TBagpuss

Does your dad still have capacity? If so, he could revoke or change the PoA, either to remove your brother or to add you or another person as a second attorney.

If you dad has lost capacity then as Primrose says, you can contact the office of the Public Guardian.

However, being an alcoholic doesn't in itself mean that your brother is not able to act as attorney. Do you have any reason to think that he *i* spending your Dad's money on himself, or in ways which are not in your Dad's best interests?

If so, then it is that issue, not his illness, which is the problem and which you need to raise with the OPG.

Exodi

tracyk wrote: »

We discovered my brother was an alcoholic 3 years ago & he has been in & out of rehab since. He lives with my Dad who has Parkinson's. He registered a Power of Attorney over my Dad's finances previous to us realising about the alcohol and has since invested my Dad's savings with a financial adviser who he uses for his own money. My question is; can i get the PoA revoked as I'm concerned about him spending Dad's money? TIA

I have some doubts about your motives, so to be fair to both sides, there's a few discrepancies I'd like to clear up:

a) Could you clarify the time frames?
i) Your discovery that your brother was an alcoholic was three years ago
OR
ii) your brother was an alcoholic three years ago and you've just found out?

If I take it as it reads (ii), with the following comments about rehab - is he no longer an alcoholic or is he still relapsing? More importantly, do you actually know?

b) The son lives with the Dad and presumably cares for him - could you clarify the Dad's mental state?

c) You start your post with 'we' - who is 'we' and, from reading the above, why do these people not seem to be close to the Dad? Again I'd appreciate clarification of time frames as it's unclear of whether he's had PoA for 3 months or 3 years.

d) He has invested your dads savings with an IFA (sensible and the same one as he uses is entirely normal). In fact Malthausian verbalises my thoughts on your last sentence better than I can:

Malthusian wrote: »

Nothing of what you have told us indicates that your brother has done anything wrong. Registering a power of attorney is perfectly sensible. Every adult who has capacity should have one, including you. Not appointing you as an Attorney (or at least asking you) is potentially suspicious, but as he lives with your Dad and you don't, it's defensible. (Though not ideal as there should be a backup attorney.)

Appointing his financial adviser to look after your dad's money is the exact opposite of what someone planning on stealing their dad's money would do. It would make far more sense to look after their dad's money themselves and not involve a third party who could dob them in.

Being frank, I'm not entirely sure what he's done wrong or why posters are referring you to the OPG?

As it stands now, the only person that looks to be financially motivated is you?

JulianSpringer

We had a similar situation with my brother, he was an alcoholic since he was a teenager. It happened when he lost his girlfriend by a horrible accident, he started drinking, stole money from his father 's pocket, and sold things from the house to buy drinks. It was really horrible days, we tried to talk to him and tell him to help yourself to stop drinking and forget about her and move on your life but it didn’t work and we finally asked help from a specialist who can help an addict after struggling for months with him, he finally quit and now he has a better life.

MovingForwards

***THIS THREAD IS OVER A YEAR OLD***