Enduring Power of Attorney query.

Fabtasia

My understanding is the will sorts out what happens when you die. I can see no reason why if you are dead and your husband is alive, he should have to talk to your son about what he does with his money. If you choose to structure your will in a way  that some how gives your son an interest in your house etc then this is a will question.

The LPAs deal with when you are alive but not capable. So in my LPAs, I have named my husband as the first attorney - this means that if he alive and of sound money, he makes the decisions for me and only him (there is the option to have joint ones but that's not what you want)

If he is not alive/not OK, then I have named a back up, which in your case would be your son.

You have two types, one for finances and one for health. The health one in particular I felt needed more thinking about as you'll need to state what you want your attorney to do if you are at end of life e.g. do not resuscitate or not.

You'll need to do both (finance and health) and you'll need your husband to do both.

The process is very simple online, it prefills the forms for you. I would not use a solicitor for this.

Once completed, you print off. You'll need to sign, get your signature witnessed (not husband or son as they will have an interest).  The attorneys (attornerys = people who are going to look after your interests) have to sign, then you sign again.

The office check the form, have a cooling off period and then send you and your attorney copies.

immy1

Very helpful Fabtasia thank you.  The solicitor was referring to our existing old EPA and said twice when we queried it that this EPA as it stands means that my husband even if he is of sound mind needs to consult jointly with my son if I died on finance.This applies vice versa ie if he dies then I would have to consult my son regarding finance.  We can only assume that the old EPA was set up incorrectly when it was done years ago and it has just been brought to our attention now that is not want we wanted. We will complete the forms online and set up the new LPA's.  I would like to thank yourself and everyone else on this thread for their very useful help.

stig

immy1 said:

Very helpful Fabtasia thank you.  The solicitor was referring to our existing old EPA and said twice when we queried it that this EPA as it stands means that my husband even if he is of sound mind needs to consult jointly with my son if I died on finance.This applies vice versa ie if he dies then I would have to consult my son regarding finance.  We can only assume that the old EPA was set up incorrectly when it was done years ago and it has just been brought to our attention now that is not want we wanted. We will complete the forms online and set up the new LPA's.  I would like to thank yourself and everyone else on this thread for their very useful help.

If you stop to think about it, this doesn’t make any sense and is in fact impossible. If you are dead, who exactly would your husband your husband and son jointly acting as attorneys for? You can’t be an attorney for someone who has died, as they don’t need any decisions made on their behalf - the will is their last opportunity to leave instructions about their possessions etc. Joint attorneys must be joint attorneys for someone - there’s definitely still some misunderstanding here.

elsien

You can set up the finance LPA either so they only kick in when you lose capacity, or where you have capacity but want someone to deal with certain aspects. 

That does not mean that if you were of sound mind you would have to ask your son’s permission to do any spending. 

The idea is that while you have capacity your LPA can, with your consent, carry out certain functions on your behalf. So if you were physically incapacitated and in hospital, for example, and it was just easier for someone else to manage things in the short term.

Or in my grandmother’s case, where she had all her marbles but decided she wanted her LPA to manage her bills for her because she’d just had enough of doing for herself. 

You still control the situation and who does what until you lose capacity.

pollypenny

Am I right in thinking that one can complete LPAs, but they don't need to be registered until needed?  

We have an EPA, but I'm increasingly thinking we should replace it with LPAs, to cover health, too. 

elsien

pollypenny said:

Am I right in thinking that one can complete LPAs, but they don't need to be registered until needed?  

We have an EPA, but I'm increasingly thinking we should replace it with LPAs, to cover health, too. 

You are best off registering it straight away then it can just sit there till needed although you can leave registering it if you want to. 
The point of registering it is that they can let you know if there are any mistakes that need to be addressed - you don't want to find that out at the point your relative loses capacity and can't make a new one so you are left with an invalid LPA and no way of doing a new one. 
There is also a long backlog for registering and it can take months for it to come back - again, not a situation you want to be in if someone can't access their finances but has bills that still need paying.
The health one can only be used when someone loses capacity anyway - again, in an urgent medical situation you don't want to be saying to doctors that your LPA is with the OPG and can they get back to you then?