Deputyship questions and advice.

CitizenX

We are currently considering starting the process of applying for deputyship for an elderly relative who is 87. She has been in hospital for 10weeks after falling and breaking her hip. She was discharged twice but fell within hours of returning home and was readmitted. She was on the floor for 12 hours after the last fall and waited 7 hrs for an ambulance. On readmittance to hospital she developed delirium which is not improving after 3 weeks. She is remaining in hospital for the time being and they have stated she doesn’t have capacity.Prior to breaking her hip she lived independently and had no ill health other than increasing frailty due to her advanced years. 

We are only just starting to look in to deputyship as we are aware she could recover from the delirium and regain capacity, but we feel we need to be ready in case of care home fees etc.

Looking through the forms for the deputyship they require quite specific details about the persons finances but, and I may be being thick here, how can we get access to these before acquiring the authority of the deputyship? 

Does anyone have any advice about this or the process of deputyships in general. It feels like a minefield and my sons, who will be the deputies, are feeling overwhelmed by the whole thing as well as by a relative who is frighteningly unstable.

Thanks

tacpot12

I have no direct experience to offer, but I would imagine that if you can't find out about the person's finances until you have the Deputyship, you have to explain this on the form. You or your sons might be able to find out something if there are bank account statements at your relative's home. Her income is likely to be a State Pension plus one or more occupational or private pensions, and these will appear on her bank statements. Most of her regular outgoings will also be found on her bank statement, as will an indication of the typical amounts of cash she was withdrawing.  But if you can't find any bank statements, you won't have any insight into her finances.  


It might make sense to get the forms for Powers of Attorney and line up a Certificate Provider in case she does recover her capacity. The Certificate Provider needs to be someone who knows her well enough to know whether she is "with it" or not, and can understand how they might talk to her about whether she understand the decision she is making if she does make Powers of Attorney. A neighbour or friend could be a good Certificate Provider. 

Keep_pedalling

In the notes of appendix A it says

If you do not have full details of bank/building society accounts and investments you may need to apply to the court for an interim order to obtain these details.

elsien

Deputyship can take months and you can’t access the person’s bank account without it. 

What you could do in the interim is apply to the DWP to be her appointee for her state pension. That can take 8-12 weeks depending on the backlog but you could potentially then have her pension paid into another account so as least you can access some of her money to buy anything she needs and pay some bills if you have to. The downside of that is if it would normally go towards paying direct debits etc.
Do you have any idea about whether she has any other pensions or savings? 

CitizenX

Thank you all for replying. Much appreciated

It might make sense to get the forms for Powers of Attorney and line up a Certificate Provider in case she does recover her capacity. The Certificate Provider needs to be someone who knows her well enough to know whether she is "with it" or not, and can understand how they might talk to her about whether she understand the decision she is making if she does make Powers of Attorney. A neighbour or friend could be a good Certificate Provider. 

Just for clarity, many years ago, she had a LPA set up but the attorney died and there were no reserve attorneys. The hospital have said she doesn’t have decision making capacity - she is extremely paranoid and believes she is being help captive and being tortured and has started to become aggressive. My son mentioned power of attorney before the delirium became very bad but her attention is so poor she didn’t respond.

Do you have any idea about whether she has any other pensions or savings? 

She has always been very secretive about money and pleaded poverty over the years but she owns her home and possibly 2 occupational pensions, 100k (possibly more) in savings, and maybe some shares ? My guess is she has sufficient to cover the care she will need in the coming years and possibly enough to maintain the bungalow should she recover enough to go home. But we need funds to do this obviously.

Keep_pedalling said:

In the notes of appendix A it says

If you do not have full details of bank/building society accounts and investments you may need to apply to the court for an interim order to obtain these details.

Thank you for this, I have literally gone word blind looking for guidance.

CitizenX

I also think she has a private health care policy.