Court of Protection - A Salutory Lesson in What Happens When You DON'T Assign Power of Attorney

elsien

@fallen121, your husband doesn't need to justify himself to anyone. Not here and not in real life. 

If he is still concerned about finances and financial abuse, he could request that the local authority keep a check on the OPG register to see if SIL tries to apply for deputyship herself although if there have been safeguarding concerns they should be on to that anyway.
Which brings up back to square one, and the LA ensuring that his finances are safeguarded by whoever they use when there is no-one else. All other advice is as previously - there is no legislation in place to force your husband to act or take any responsibility. 

As an aside, if FIL does lack capacity to agree to stay in the care home and the care home have requested a Deprivation of Liberty Safeguards authorisation (which they should) and there is no family member willing or suitable to take on the representative role then the local authority will request a paid representative. It would be their job to help him challenge if he was genuinely objecting to being there. So your husband can be reassured that there will still be someone looking out for him in those circumstances. 

BrassicWoman

fallen121 said:

I foresee a long stalemate situation not helped by my SIL's current disappearance.

Only if you choose to insert yourself in the situation.

As everyone has said: just walk away. Any problem here is being caused by yourselves.

Savvy_Sue

BrassicWoman said:

fallen121 said:

I foresee a long stalemate situation not helped by my SIL's current disappearance.

Only if you choose to insert yourself in the situation.

As everyone has said: just walk away. Any problem here is being caused by yourselves.

Tad harsh... You should be able to rely on the local authority to tell the truth. Clearly in this case the OP can't.

The LA should be saying "If you don't apply to CofP, we will." And the response to that should be "be my guest". 

Spendless

Curiosity question but how do you know about this new will and what is in it? 

I'm just thinking of my Nan's will that my Mum has somehow caught a glimpse of and says the wording is to 'leave her jewellery to her family' but it sounds such a vague request I'm not convinced it's been drawn up by a solicitor and then my train of thought goes and I wonder if not if it's been done correctly  or something has been missed and it ends up not being valid   so just wondering if what I suspect about my Nan's will could apply to your FIL's. 

BrassicWoman

Savvy_Sue said:

Tad harsh... You should be able to rely on the local authority to tell the truth. Clearly in this case the OP can't.

The LA should be saying "If you don't apply to CofP, we will." And the response to that should be "be my guest". 

Fair play, I agree.

Torry_Quine

I have to agree that this is not for you and your husband to sort and make easier for the council. Write once and make it clear that in future you won't be responding. The priority has to be your husband's health 

fallen121

Spendless said:

Curiosity question but how do you know about this new will and what is in it? 

I'm just thinking of my Nan's will that my Mum has somehow caught a glimpse of and says the wording is to 'leave her jewellery to her family' but it sounds such a vague request I'm not convinced it's been drawn up by a solicitor and then my train of thought goes and I wonder if not if it's been done correctly  or something has been missed and it ends up not being valid   so just wondering if what I suspect about my Nan's will could apply to your FIL's. 

As I've already explained, DH is estranged from his family and we live far away and due to my DH's sight problems he hasn't been able to travel. We have been out of contact for so long (and this is at his family's request) that we were unaware until some years ago that my DH's Mum had died as we weren't contacted or told. Our daughter was actually told of her Grandmother's death by her Grandfather by letter (which he sent on her birthday, in a card). Which action she has found very hard to forgive. We certainly didn't know about the dementia, which seems to date to around the time of my MIL's death. Perhaps triggered by distress. He spent a lot of time with a male neighbour and his wife after being widowed.

The same neighbour referred to above, with another female neighbour, have pretty much taken care of my FIL since his wife died. SIL made brief appearance and stayed at the house for a while. Then disappeared. After FIL's dementia became bad they got involved in trying to help him pay bills etc. but they themselves are elderly and not in the best of health so in SIL's absence and needing someone to give authority went in search of other relatives and found my DH's address and phone number in an old address book. At this time all the financial information was still in the office in the house. It has since vanished and SIL confirmed in a video call with the Council that she now has this. During the period of searching they came across the will which they perused, mainly because a will is a good guide sometimes to other family member names via bequests, etc. so not unreasonable. Also one of the 3 neighbours (male neighbour, wife, other female neighbour) we think was actually a witness to the will, although they may not have known what was in it at the time.

Male neighbour has spent many hours on the telephone to my DH filling him in on the missing years of his Dad's life and has counselled him not to become too involved as his perusal of he will leads him to believe that my SIL is the sole beneficiary. Which would not have raised any questions at the time as none of the neighbours knew he even had a son.

But the plot actually thickens because when my DH first tried to contact Social Services about his Dad they refused to talk to him because he couldn't prove who he was and he actually had to fax them a birth certificate and driving licence before they would engage with him. One of the social workers then had a meeting with my FIL, the aforementioned female neighbour/carer and my SIL during which time my FIL was asked if he had any other children other than his daughter standing beside him (this was before the capacity assessment) and he stated that he couldn't remember. Now, most reasonable people might have expected my SIL to mention at this point that she had a brother. But she didn't. She stayed completely silent. Which leads me to wonder sometimes about her motives. 

Getting back to this will. The neighbours say my husband isn't mentioned in it. At all. He was previously joint beneficiary and executor under the old will. Changes not unreasonable bearing in mind estrangement. But still oddly done.  I've said before that most reasonable people wanting to exclude a family member would be advised by a solicitor to leave them £1. This shuts the door on any potential contesting of the will's validity by making the intention clear as to how much they are allowed. But people hastily drafting replacement supermarket wills don't always consider that.

The fact is, my FIL is perfectly entitled to change his will and leave his money to whomever he sees fit. If he lives a decent amount of time most of this money will be eaten up in care home fees and equity release repayments and solicitors fees anyway. But a recent Council meeting featured a statement from his Doctor who claimed that my FIL was in fact identified as being in early stages of dementia many years ago. So depending on when this new will was made (and we've not seen it so can't comment on the date) and whether a solicitor was involved (who would have assessed if my FIL was of sound mind when he made it) it's quite possible the validity of it is also rather suspect. But until he dies I suspect nobody will really care. And the will has now been appropriated by my SIL along with all of the other financial info. Which I suspect she won't be sharing with anyone anytime soon.

Malthusian

I've said before that most reasonable people wanting to exclude a family member would be advised by a solicitor to leave them £1. This shuts the door on any potential contesting of the will's validity by making the intention clear as to how much they are allowed.

Not really how it works. Under English / Welsh law, if someone is not given "reasonable provision" in the Will, a judge can change it. If you disinherit someone who is "reasonably" due a significant sum it makes no difference whether you leave them £0 or £1, it can be challenged and the courts will decide they deserved more.

Leaving a token bequest to a disinherited family member is still not a bad idea, as it does shut the door on the argument that the exclusion was a mistake. 

There is apparently a large (and unnecessary) equity released loan entailed on the property. No idea why that was taken out but as it appears that FIL might have been showing signs of dementia as early as 2014 quite possible he was talked into it by person or persons unknown and doesn't even remember this.

If it was unnecessary then presumably he has a large wodge of cash sitting around somewhere that he borrowed and didn't spend.

Financial advice is mandatory when taking out equity release and it would be a fairly easy task for FIL's legal representative to find out why it was taken out. They would enquire with the lender as to who the adviser was, then from there go to the adviser and ask for a copy of their advice letter and if needed the rest of their file.

But that's academic as there's no reason for you to get involved.

It is extremely unlikely that your SIL managed to find a dodgy adviser who would agree to arranging for your father to take out equity release when he had no idea what he was doing, in order to release money for her to steal from herself. (She is sole beneficiary and is going to get his money anyway, remember.)