Morals question with regard to own expenditure on someone under my LPA

whiteguineapig

I am wondering if the travelling to and fro time would count towards the 35 hours carer's allowance.
I have received carers allowance in the past and it's not difficult to apply for.
You could also check mum's attendance allowance to see if she's getting the correct level, there are lower and higher levels I think and she would still be able to claim if she went into a nursing home. 

elsien

Floss said:

You're not "working for her" but you are caring for her as any paid carer would do. 
Applying for carer's allowance would mitigate some of those expenses and allow you to not worry about the cost of getting to your mum if she needs you. It's  just the Government paying your mileage 😉

The concern may be mum’s perception of this, and an increased but unrealistic expectation for OP to drop everything and be there on call whenever requested. 

Flugelhorn

elsien said:

Floss said:

You're not "working for her" but you are caring for her as any paid carer would do. 
Applying for carer's allowance would mitigate some of those expenses and allow you to not worry about the cost of getting to your mum if she needs you. It's  just the Government paying your mileage 😉

The concern may be mum’s perception of this, and an increased but unrealistic expectation for OP to drop everything and be there on call whenever requested. 

This ^ totally
@Topher - you have to do what feels right, family members can get very demanding sometimes and you need to have clear boundaries that help you 

Topher

elsien said:

Floss said:

You're not "working for her" but you are caring for her as any paid carer would do. 
Applying for carer's allowance would mitigate some of those expenses and allow you to not worry about the cost of getting to your mum if she needs you. It's  just the Government paying your mileage 😉

The concern may be mum’s perception of this, and an increased but unrealistic expectation for OP to drop everything and be there on call whenever requested. 

That hits the nail on the head. In the past I’ve been called out three nights in a row at ridiculous o’clock, because that was how British Gas was timetabling engineers to attend her broken heating system in a snowy period of time, (bookings I’d had to chase up for literally hours on the phone). She’s also picked the phone up to ask me to come over to call up at her local shop for milk, (a four to five minute walk from her house) because it was raining. I choose not to get fully embroiled in her care, if she’d taken me up on several abandoned plans to move near to me (two bungalows at the back of my house that I can see into from two of our bedroom windows by way of an example) I could offer more regular involvement. Thanks for the info on Carer’s allowance, I did look it up for details, but as I say, just because I’m unemployed/retired doesn’t mean that’s where I’m going to focus my energies and time. 

theoretica

I agree with making sure your sister feels happy with the solution too - but also your mum is being given those benefits because the state thinks she has a need to spend them - not because the state thinks they would look nice building up in her bank account.  If you didn't or couldn't go round so often then all alternative solutions would probably cost a whole lot more. 

thriftwizard

I'm currently Essential Caregiver for my almost-96 y.o. mother, who is in a care home 45 miles away from me but close to my two older brothers, and in that capacity I've had to go down there every week for PCR testing alongside the staff - which is also an opportunity to visit Mum, which I'm delighted to do - however that's twice as often as I would normally go. And I drive an elderly van, which is also my work vehicle; my Other Half's car would have been more fuel-efficient, but alas, he's needed it to go into work for the last month anyway! But luckily all three of my brothers (none of whom could do the EC role, for one absolutely valid reason or another) agreed at the outset that a fuel allowance was totally in order. I've claimed it at the Inland Revenue's 45p per mile, although it probably costs a bit more than that, but at least it's been do-able; if I hadn't been able to take the role on, one of us would have been barred from seeing Mum during the last set of restrictions (3 Named Visitors & 1 EC) so yes, I'd say that it's totally in order for you to reclaim your costs. And keep your independence too.

Topher

theoretica said:

I agree with making sure your sister feels happy with the solution too - but also your mum is being given those benefits because the state thinks she has a need to spend them - not because the state thinks they would look nice building up in her bank account.  If you didn't or couldn't go round so often then all alternative solutions would probably cost a whole lot more. 

Thank you. I can’t go round so often so the money is spent on her daily care. Initially that was paid caregivers to go in every day and oversee her medication which she was messing up horribly with really bad consequences, I’d tried phoning each morning to talk her through taking it (from dosette boxes which I’d also arranged), but that was going very badly. Now she has carers going in each day. Not only do they check her medication, but also continence, confused management of a gas fire, her pet dog’s welfare & feeding etc. She is forging relationships with them so now trusts them more than she did initially this means we can gradually add  extras (and extra time) they now do as we step up the care. I was under no illusion that the state required me to build up her bank account, I was accruing it so she had security of stepped up care, some of the things I wanted to spend it on to enhance her life were suddenly curtailed by the pandemic unfortunately. 

RAS

Hi

Having been involved in this sort of situation, I was able to fund visits but they were less frequent and I was in a full-time+ decently paid job.
 
However, once the LPA was in place, we did start re-imbursing ourselves for additional costs.  So anything you buy for mum, keep the receipt, log it and ask your sister to pay you back, preferably rather than yourself.  And pay yourself for the IR mileage allowance if you make any journey in response to her request, or other then your planned shopping trip is certainly reasonable.

And a lot cheaper than upping her care package to cover extra needs, or getting extra one-off visits.  Maybe put together one bill a month.

Regardless of your husband's income, your mum is actually better off then you are. I was shocked when I realised that once I'd sorted out the extortionate bills she was paying, mum was better off than me, if you took into account my mortgage and the car, which I retained largely so I could visit her at short notice.

Talk to your sister and document everything.

Topher

RAS said:

Hi

Having been involved in this sort of situation, I was able to fund visits but they were less frequent and I was in a full-time+ decently paid job.
 
However, once the LPA was in place, we did start re-imbursing ourselves for additional costs.  So anything you buy for mum, keep the receipt, log it and ask your sister to pay you back, preferably rather than yourself.  And pay yourself for the IR mileage allowance if you make any journey in response to her request, or other then your planned shopping trip is certainly reasonable.

And a lot cheaper than upping her care package to cover extra needs, or getting extra one-off visits.  Maybe put together one bill a month.

Regardless of your husband's income, your mum is actually better off then you are. I was shocked when I realised that once I'd sorted out the extortionate bills she was paying, mum was better off than me, if you took into account my mortgage and the car, which I retained largely so I could visit her at short notice.

Talk to your sister and document everything.

Thanks RAS, this is a really helpful perspective. You’re quite right, my Mum is better off than me. I hold her bank card, so make her own payments directly for her from her own bank account, I’ve kept all receipts. (When I initially took over her account, I was put through a fairly in depth checking process because of her bank’s safeguarding. I had phone conversations with two of their lawyers who specialised in all of this, wanted me to take over her account, and were helpful but rigorous about how I was going to be monitored so that they were acting on my Mum’s behalf as the holder of the account.). Even if I’m doing my own shopping alongside hers, I keep separate the paying and the receipts. I’m sure what I’m dealing with is small potatoes compared to fraud that the bank were guarding against. (Some of which we think had been happening re: someone she knows). On your advice I’ve looked up the Inland revenue mileage calculator which was really helpful, thank you. https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/rates-and-allowances-travel-mileage-and-fuel-allowances/travel-mileage-and-fuel-rates-and-allowances    I too am ploughing through the extortionate bills she’s been paying, including four combined gas and electricity bills recipients for the one house. Sorted now, before anyone asks, over-payments refunded. 
THINGS TO LOOK OUT FOR IF ANYONE IS READING THIS ‘COS THEY’RE IN THE SAME SITUATION: I regularly refill my mum’s purse so she has ready cash for her local shop, taxis and her hairdresser, and pays her way on coffee shop dates with friends (and feels independent). She was getting through £200 per fortnight. I now give her a £30 “float” (I haven’t had to top that up for months) but as she no longer recognises the values, try to make sure notes are no greater than £5 each. Her habit was to hand a £20 to someone and hope they’d give her the change, she managed to give a doorstep seller of crappy household items (all useless or dangerous) and amount we can’t know for sure about, but could have been the £200 (absolute peanuts compared to the 21 x £1,000 cheques she’d given as gifts at the start of all this).
I could have an account with her local taxi firm so I oversee payments, I monitor her hair dressing, opticians, and other businesses she uses, so they can give her what she wants, but contact me for payments - they are all local people who know her and so far I haven’t had to question any of their charges, but would if necessary. 
It is hard but important to do all of this with respect, but ultimately I’ve had to be prepared to show disrespect by overriding some of her expressed choices when they seemed to come from a place that wasn’t practical or acknowledging her own diminished capacity. 

Rosa_Damascena

Topher said:

THINGS TO LOOK OUT FOR IF ANYONE IS READING THIS ‘COS THEY’RE IN THE SAME SITUATION: I regularly refill my mum’s purse so she has ready cash for her local shop, taxis and her hairdresser, and pays her way on coffee shop dates with friends (and feels independent). She was getting through £200 per fortnight. I now give her a £30 “float” (I haven’t had to top that up for months) but as she no longer recognises the values, try to make sure notes are no greater than £5 each. Her habit was to hand a £20 to someone and hope they’d give her the change, she managed to give a doorstep seller of crappy household items (all useless or dangerous) and amount we can’t know for sure about, but could have been the £200 (absolute peanuts compared to the 21 x £1,000 cheques she’d given as gifts at the start of all this).
I could have an account with her local taxi firm so I oversee payments, I monitor her hair dressing, opticians, and other businesses she uses, so they can give her what she wants, but contact me for payments - they are all local people who know her and so far I haven’t had to question any of their charges, but would if necessary. 
It is hard but important to do all of this with respect, but ultimately I’ve had to be prepared to show disrespect by overriding some of her expressed choices when they seemed to come from a place that wasn’t practical or acknowledging her own diminished capacity. 

This is really helpful, your experience hasn't been an easy one! I gulped at the £200 a fortnight on treats.