Using Lasting Power of Attorney

BooJewels

My experience mirrors @lr1277 to some extent.  Santander were fabulous and accepted a scanned and uploaded pdf of a certified copy and it was sorted in about 3 days, but Barclays with another family donor were painful - it took about 8 weeks.  I don't think it helped that the woman we made an appointment with was just horrible, she'd got out of bed the wrong side that day and just made it into something unpleasant that it didn't need to be.  Not having a passport, I had about 20 pieces of documentation from their recommended list - but she didn't 'like' any of them, for a number of preposterous reasons.  So the Attorneys will need to present ID - Santander were easier as I was already a customer.

We were only invoking the LPA because my elderly aunt had been done in a phone/courier scam and yet the woman in the bank rang the donor to say two women are in the bank trying to access your bank account - scaring her half to death and she hung up on her - as we'd instructed her to do if anyone else rang claiming to be from the bank.  We'd also asked the clerk not to ring her for that reason.

Surely the LPA represents the donor, so they shouldn't expect the donor to either answer security questions on the phone or appear in person - isn't that what the LPA is for?

Just because an LPA makes things possible, doesn't mean that it makes it easy.

Kat78MFW

I am really surprised that banks are insisting on the doner attending with the attorneys to register the POA. My father is attorney for my mum and has had no trouble registering the POA at various places without mum present. Mum is housebound so no way she could attend an appointment in branch. 

Marmaduke123

This thread has alarmed me somewhat. I clearly need to prepare certified copies of my LPA without delay.

Surely it can't be right for banks to insist on the donor appearing in person! There will be many circumstances where this is impossible, such as hospitalisation, incapacitating illness,  accident etc. I realise banks will need to verify the identity of the attorneys, in effect they are new customers.

Do I need to register my LPA now with at the very least my current account banks? I am fully competent both mentally and physically, and had thought this would only be necessary if and when I couldn't do my banking myself and needed my attorneys to take over.

lr1277

Marmaduke123 said:

This thread has alarmed me somewhat. I clearly need to prepare certified copies of my LPA without delay.

Surely it can't be right for banks to insist on the donor appearing in person! There will be many circumstances where this is impossible, such as hospitalisation, incapacitating illness,  accident etc. I realise banks will need to verify the identity of the attorneys, in effect they are new customers.

Do I need to register my LPA now with at the very least my current account banks? I am fully competent both mentally and physically, and had thought this would only be necessary if and when I couldn't do my banking myself and needed my attorneys to take over.

Agree on the reasons why you might be able to get the donor to the branch.
You could register the POA now. 

The attorney could wait until you are incapacitated or you could agree to them taking actions before you are incapacitated.

elsien

BooJewels said:

My experience mirrors @lr1277 to some extent.  Santander were fabulous and accepted a scanned and uploaded pdf of a certified copy and it was sorted in about 3 days, but Barclays with another family donor were painful - it took about 8 weeks.  I don't think it helped that the woman we made an appointment with was just horrible, she'd got out of bed the wrong side that day and just made it into something unpleasant that it didn't need to be.  Not having a passport, I had about 20 pieces of documentation from their recommended list - but she didn't 'like' any of them, for a number of preposterous reasons.  So the Attorneys will need to present ID - Santander were easier as I was already a customer.

We were only invoking the LPA because my elderly aunt had been done in a phone/courier scam and yet the woman in the bank rang the donor to say two women are in the bank trying to access your bank account - scaring her half to death and she hung up on her - as we'd instructed her to do if anyone else rang claiming to be from the bank.  We'd also asked the clerk not to ring her for that reason.

Surely the LPA represents the donor, so they shouldn't expect the donor to either answer security questions on the phone or appear in person - isn't that what the LPA is for?

Just because an LPA makes things possible, doesn't mean that it makes it easy.

Because the LPA only kicks in when the person has capacity with their consent. What the bank doesn’t want is the LPA muscling in without the person knowing anything about it when they are still well enough to say whether that’s what they want or not. 

It is a safeguard for the person.
Obviously it’s a different mechanism at the point they lose capacity.

Keep_pedalling

I did attend a Barclays branch with my mother when we first registered the LPA with the bank, but this was when she still had capacity and was also still actively using the account herself. I went in on my own to switch it to my sole authority when she went into care.

BooJewels

elsien said:

BooJewels said:

My experience mirrors @lr1277 to some extent.  Santander were fabulous and accepted a scanned and uploaded pdf of a certified copy and it was sorted in about 3 days, but Barclays with another family donor were painful - it took about 8 weeks.  I don't think it helped that the woman we made an appointment with was just horrible, she'd got out of bed the wrong side that day and just made it into something unpleasant that it didn't need to be.  Not having a passport, I had about 20 pieces of documentation from their recommended list - but she didn't 'like' any of them, for a number of preposterous reasons.  So the Attorneys will need to present ID - Santander were easier as I was already a customer.

We were only invoking the LPA because my elderly aunt had been done in a phone/courier scam and yet the woman in the bank rang the donor to say two women are in the bank trying to access your bank account - scaring her half to death and she hung up on her - as we'd instructed her to do if anyone else rang claiming to be from the bank.  We'd also asked the clerk not to ring her for that reason.

Surely the LPA represents the donor, so they shouldn't expect the donor to either answer security questions on the phone or appear in person - isn't that what the LPA is for?

Just because an LPA makes things possible, doesn't mean that it makes it easy.

Because the LPA only kicks in when the person has capacity with their consent. What the bank doesn’t want is the LPA muscling in without the person knowing anything about it when they are still well enough to say whether that’s what they want or not. 

It is a safeguard for the person.
Obviously it’s a different mechanism at the point they lose capacity.

I can fully understand that, it certainly makes sense.  But it's not my personal experience that it works that way in practice - at least not consistently.   I've used an LPA for 2 family members - in my father's case, not one party asked to speak to him or attempt to ring him - despite me starting using it when he was still at home and living independently, he just couldn't be bothered to take care of administrative matters any more and asked me to step in - even re-directed his post to me - as he wasn't opening it anyway and things like insurance hadn't been renewed. 

In my aunt's case, as described above, it was the fraud department of the bank, in conversation with the Police that asked me to register the LPA to speed up the process if anything happened again - after discussing it with my aunt and her agreeing it was a good idea.  So in that instance, it was their idea, not ours and they were the ones that then made it particularly difficult to implement.  I think a lot of it in that case was down to the one individual we saw who seemingly had personal reasons for not being as helpful that day as she should have been.

So whilst there is a strict code of conduct in respect of LPAs - implementation of it isn't followed consistently - perhaps due to poor sanctions available for wayward parties.   My own experience of 3 different LPAs now suggests that the system is in serious need of improvement. 

bjbyorkshire

Thanks to all for the replies and for sharing your experiences of using the LPA's.  

It does indeed give me much food for thought.  I would be very reluctant to speak to anyone from a bank who called me on the phone to ask about LPA's re the use by an attorney.  The advice is always to put down the phone on any such call and ring the bank back.  If you do this you are likely to get a call centre who would have no idea who had called you and from where.  I do still very much have my faculties mentally but would find it hard to get into the one bank branch which is in our town centre, either with or without my attorney because of mobility issues and the abundance of yellow lines and bus gates stopping cars from getting anywhere close to any shops or banks in our town.  My only attorney who would be dealing with my financial affairs lives and works in London and when he is at home the financial institutions would be closed hence the use in my/our case of using internet banks.

My feelings are that the long winded and cumbersome paperwork in the first instance is enough to put most people off filling in the forms, then having to do the self certifying procedure on every page of a long document several times for a couple doing LPA's, and finally hearing about the different banking institutions ways of dealing with these documents makes me think that it it well overdue that a simpler but of course well regulated system across the board needs to be implemented.  

I will begin the task of scanning said documents into my computer and will endeavour to make the print take less room per page in order for the stamp or hand written certification to fit onto each page.

Anyone else who has experience to share on their use of an LPA with a financial institution would be much appreciated.

Malthusian

My feelings are that the long winded and cumbersome paperwork in the first instance is enough to put most people off filling in the forms, then having to do the self certifying procedure on every page of a long document several times for a couple doing LPA's, and finally hearing about the different banking institutions ways of dealing with these documents makes me think that it it well overdue that a simpler but of course well regulated system across the board needs to be implemented. 

I'm not sure there is a way of making the procedure simpler given how powerful the document is. LPOAs are much simpler and more comprehensible to a layperson than a Will or the deed of a house or a life insurance policy. If I was in charge I might chop a page or two off the document, but some elements such as the "certificate provider" are there due to the inherent need for safeguards.

Compared to how much hassle they can save, LPOAs are really not that cumbersome. It is mostly a case of filling in people's names and addresses and signing in the right order. If it is complicated you are probably doing it wrong (e.g. by putting in silly instructions). Renewing your car insurance can easily be more complicated.

The old system where your bank manager would "take a common sense approach" and let you manage your old ma's account because he knew she was gaga was much simpler than Lasting Powers of Attorney, but much less well regulated. That system became untenable as the cost of abuse went up and the cost of a regulated system went down.

LPOAs are much simpler and cheaper than going to the Court of Protection, so if the limited complication of an LPOA is offputting, that is all the more reason to do one.

The problem of banks being obstructive / incompetent cannot be solved by changing the system.

bjbyorkshire

I wasn't wanting to change the system as such.  

I was very daunted when first filling in the online forms, nowhere was I wanting to add complicated instructions, but once into the swing of it I was able to input the names and addresses etc with ease. It is only now that I am thinking ahead to the time when the LPA for me might be needed that I think my attorneys may well wonder what the heck I have let them in for.  One of mine is not in the slightest bit computer literate and the other one is very computer literate but lacks both time and the will to deal with all my utility companies, 6 or more banks, the council, pensions services etc.  He has a stressful day job which takes up all his working hours and some, plus he often works and lives away so not close enough to bundle a mum with dementia into a car and into a town centre to say to a bank "here is mum, this is me, I am her attorney, what do you need from me now?".   If they have to send off by post 15 certified pages of my LPA and keep a track on who has them, how long they have had them, at the same time they are unable to access any of my money to pay the said companies as they can't use my accounts until they are given permission to do so.  I couldn't ask anyone outside my immediate family to take on a task such as this so the two nearest and dearest will have to fuddle it out for themselves.  

I don't think the system needs changing as such, but I do feel that the companies/institutions who need sight of the LPA's should all be singing from the same song sheet.  That would be a good step.

I would be interested to hear of others who have had experience of using LPA's as to how the companies dealt with things.  Maybe I am overthinking things here.