POA...register with parents bank

Ian1961

My parents have given myself,Sister & Stepbrother power of attorney should their health get much worse. They only have 1 bank account with Santander, and we are concerned that Mum who has Dementia might lose / misplace her bank card. Dad is ok but very deaf and struggles to converse with people. We suggested that they start a new joint account in which some monies go into every week from their account for spending etc.So we contacted Santander who said we need to register with them the documents regards poa otherwise in future they may not work with us after our parents need us. Does this sound correct? I would've thought all our paperwork would've been sufficient to carry out any duties as required?

Just for clarification the only hitch regards starting an account was we would need to start a joint account by doing it online, as parents don't have computer access one of us 3 need to complete that task.

jonesMUFCforever

Yes the bank is correct - the PoA needs to be registered with them before you can (with your family) start to help your parents.

EssexExile

And the registering process varies from organisation to organisation.

Ian1961

Thank you for your replies.

mr_accountant

With Santander you can register the power of attorney online, no need to visit the branch, they will send out the cards and internet details for the attorney's, though with multiple power of attorneys they may not give you internet access  

However I can't understand why you need to set up another joint account, if you sister and s/b are set up as poa on parents acount you can have access to your parents account, that's the whole idea of PoA

jonesMUFCforever

Looking at their website it would seem that they only allow 2 attorneys - so Ian in this case would have to choose which two to register.
Legally I don't know how this would pan out if the registered attorneys went bad and the remaining ones wanted to hold Santander responsible.
I don't know of any other bank which has limits to the number that can be registered.

Ian1961

Sorry if i didn't write it out correctly, it isn't another joint account, just a new one for Mam & Dad only to ensure if they lose a card there isn't a lot of money in the joint account should it fall into the wrong hands.The other account with most money in would be separate and safe. Regards the POA side of it, we (myself,sis &sb) are registered but as yet are not required to use the power of attorney as both Mam & Dad are ok making decisions, it's the side of talking to others via phone,computer etc that they have problems with. Obviously we'll have to make an appointment to register the POA with Santander either personally or via internet.

Great feedback guys.

BooJewels

An LPA can be utilised at any time, as long as there aren't stipulations/conditions within the document that it can only be used when they lose capacity, or some other criteria.  I registered my father's - which was open and could be used as and when required - with Santander when he was still living at home and at the time in decent health - he just lost interest of keeping on top of things.

It turned out to be a blessing, as things went south shortly afterwards and I was glad that I already had it up and running and could pay bills etc. straight away.    In our case, although my sister and I were both attorneys, we decided between us that I'd manage his finances and she'd do other things.  You don't all need to be registered - but that perhaps depends on how much you trust each other, your father trusts you and the terms of the LPA.  We all trusted each other, so it was easy for us.

[Edited for clarity]

jbuchanangb

The "registration" with the bank or other institution is a process to enable the bank to verify the identity of the Attorney(s). It can take a week or so and usually involves providing a certified copy of the LPA (or the original) as well as proof of identity and address of the Attorney(s) who wish to operate the account. If there are several banks etc. then the overall process doing them one by one could take a while. I hope that the parent specified "joint & several" for the Attorneys. My father appointed myself and my sister (who lived abroad) as "joint" Attorneys, which meant that every transaction required both signatures, and no banks would provide any form of online banking. We had to use his cheque book, and both sign each cheque, for example. The Donor does not lose the right to operate their account(s), and the Attorney can operate on the Donor's instructions, or when the Donor loses capacity as defined by the relevant legislation.

BooJewels

Those are all good points @jbuchanangb - thankfully, Dad's was 'Joint and several', so only I registered with his bank.  Because I already had an account with Santander, once approved and past security checks etc. (which took a while as I didn't have their preferred documents and we had to negotiate a bit about which documents I had that were acceptable to them), I logged in to my bank one day and his accounts just showed up in my own on-line banking, I didn't need to do it separately, which worked really well for me.

Your comment about the Donor not losing access to their account is a good one to point out - I hadn't grasped this myself until I started doing it - depending on any terms specifically written in to the LPA - the Attorneys are supplementary to the donor themselves, in order to assist, they don't replace them entirely.

Another point popped to mind too - which the bank [Santander] don't necessarily know about themselves, as it tripped me up once - Attorneys can't do same day bank transfers/FPOs - any payment you set up has to be done on a subsequent day - it'll fail if you set up any payment for the same day.  Just to bear in mind - as you get a rather alarming security message to ring them if you try.