Using Lasting Power of Attorney

BooJewels

bjbyorkshire said:

I will be able to do what is necessary if husband pre deceases me or loses competence, he can't get to grips with a computer no matter how often I show him, but if it's me who goes first then between the two of them I hope my filing system is of some use to them. 

I lost my husband last year, so I've already got that t-shirt.  Luckily, we knew it was coming and had put measures in place to ease the process, such as moving many bills into my name, or pre-warning them etc.  My son has joked several times since that if I've found it difficult, it would have been far worse (largely for him) if I'd gone first, as my husband would have been stumped by most of it.  

@Marmaduke123 said: 
I do wonder if the negative experiences some people have had when trying to register an LPA with banks are atypical, and possibly due to poor staff training.

I said as much earlier - I'm pretty sure that's part of it.  Even within the same organisation, different people approach it differently.  The biggest single issue I had was not having a passport or driving licence for ID - even though banks, solicitors etc. publish lists of documents they'll accept, in reality, when it comes to it, it must make extra work, so they then dig their heels in and won't accept the very things they actually publish that they will.  

It has wasted so much of my time in the last couple of years, trying to prove my ID, that I've since applied for a passport just for this purpose, yet at 12 weeks since I did so, it's still not appeared.  I'm in danger of holding up my son's house sale, as they won't proceed until I can prove my ID, as I gifted him some deposit.

bjbyorkshire

I let my passport lapse last January as we are not going abroad again.  I did wonder whether to renew it just for the ID benefit.  So far I do have a driving licence but that could all change.  Hubby had his licence revoked due to eye problems and a defibrillator being fitted and It took me, note the me here…. 12 months longer than it should to get his licence returned.  I would phone up but they would only talk to me after they had ok’d it with himself that I could deal with his affairs, much like we have to do now with banking.  It gets harder the older we get.  He does do lots of other things re the house and garden so we feel it is a good working partnership but I would advise those who can to share the household budgeting as it isn’t easy when only one of you knows what the banking situation or bill paying arrangements are.  We’ve gone off topic slightly here but It is all relevant.  

I have looked at the stamps and they are all in the region of £21 so not a cheap option after the 2 x £84 to get the LPA’s.  Money just goes out these days.  Blinking Talk Talk have just message me saying that their charges for PAYG have gone up by a huge amount.  Another thread to follow on MSE now.

Thanks to all who have contributed to this thread.  I have gained much insight into what needs to be done and in which order. 

GhibliFan

BooJewels said:

My experience mirrors @lr1277 to some extent.  ...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.

That's disgraceful behaviour from her.  I hope you made a complaint. I feel sorry for your Aunt, being frightened by that silly and completely unnecessary phone call.

BooJewels

@GhibliFan - yes we did.  By chance, my sister needed to return to the branch the following day with something else they needed from us and saw the manager that had been involved in part of the process - she seemed a bit perplexed as to why it had taken so long and not gone smoothy. So my sister explained and expressed her dissatisfaction at the clerk ringing my aunt in the circumstances - which we only found about after the appointment of course and she was most unnerved by it.  I use the word 'appointment' loosely - it was 50 minutes after our appointment time before she even saw us - so it wasn't going well, from the outset and was a catalogue of issues from then on.  The manager said that she'd deal with it in branch.

By fluke, at about the same time I'd also emailed the contact in the fraud department that set up the appointment and she was very unhappy about it and would also follow it up.  She rang my aunt to apologise, so I think she would have taken it further if she felt it necessitated that call. We left it at that, hoping that a quiet word would improve how she treated people in future.  

Malthusian

If it was me I would renew my passport and view it as what our European cousins call an "ID card".

For someone who doesn't intend to ever leave the country or drive again, a passport still serves the very useful function of collating their more disparate proofs of existence (utility bills, bank statement, birth / marriage certificates etc) into a single form that lasts ten years rather than three months, can be carried in a pocket and is on a central database accessible by virtually every legal and financial services company. At £7.50 a year it is pretty cheap.

A person in later life who rarely transacts financially can usually get away with their State Pension letters and council tax bills. For someone who manages someone else's affairs as their Attorney it seems far too much hassle to go ID-card-less.

Gers

My experience of implementing my DM's POA was entirely smooth in comparison to what others are recounting here.

I took the original into RBS and soon had my own debit card for her account as well as online access (I had an RBS account so DM's showed up with mine when I logged in).

Nationwide wanted more info although as I had an account with them to it wasn't too onerous.

BT asked me to send a hard copy of a certified copy which (I think) they kept.

Scottish Gas also wanted a hard copy of a certified document which they sent back.

We bought a stamp (the wording was slightly different to the one linked to) and DM did a marathon signing session which kept us going for years. She was very deaf so could no longer do the phone calls, then became increasingly home - bed bound. 

I've just recently set up my own POA which has been submitted by my solicitor electronically.  She explained that hard copies aren't sent out any more so no red seal on an original, seems there's a watermark system now.  It's taking a long time to get it registered, the OPG are working on those submitted last November which is shocking.

PoAs to be processed this week

May 31, 2022

This week we will process the following PoAs:

• Electronic (EPOAR) submissions received on 15 November 2021
• Postal submissions received around 17 November 2021

An expedited registration service is available for PoAs that are to be processed urgently. If your request is granted the expedited PoA will usually be processed within five working days. There is no need to contact us to ask for the status of the PoA, as this may inadvertently delay the PoA from being processed on time.

https://www.publicguardian-scotland.gov.uk/general/news/2022/05/31/poas-to-be-processed-this-week

bjbyorkshire

Thanks for the above details of your experiences.  

I will buy a stamp for sure.  If I try making the 1st copy slightly smaller so that I can stamp at the bottom of each page, do the signatures and dates have to be done on every copy made? I.e. I can’t do one copy, get all the pages signed and dated then make photocopies of this copy already signed?  Hope that makes sense.

Gers, I submitted our two POA’s by post on 20 January and they came pack saying they were registered and with the perforated official stamp at the very bottom.  That was just short of 5 months from submission.  This was in England though not Scotland.

I have been speaking with a friend this morning who has POA for both her parents.  She applied and got a debit card for her to use on their behalf through their bank and she mentioned something that I didn’t know would happen.  She said she was questioned by an official body, not sure who as I didn’t ask, re some money that had been spent on her parents debit card.  This person bought some trousers for her dad from a charity shop and whoever the official body was wanted to know what had been purchased from a charity shop, somewhere in the region of £25.  Now I know if you go through the Court of Protection that you have to keep receipts and produce them at the year end to the Court of Protection so that they know that you are spending the donors money on them but I hadn’t realised that anyone would be keeping a watchful eye on LPA’s and the expenditure.  I’m not saying this is a bad thing but I hadn’t realised that this would happen.  Anyone shed any light on this practice please.

Gers

bjbyorkshire said:

I have been speaking with a friend this morning who has POA for both her parents.  She applied and got a debit card for her to use on their behalf through their bank and she mentioned something that I didn’t know would happen.  She said she was questioned by an official body, not sure who as I didn’t ask, re some money that had been spent on her parents debit card.  This person bought some trousers for her dad from a charity shop and whoever the official body was wanted to know what had been purchased from a charity shop, somewhere in the region of £25.  Now I know if you go through the Court of Protection that you have to keep receipts and produce them at the year end to the Court of Protection so that they know that you are spending the donors money on them but I hadn’t realised that anyone would be keeping a watchful eye on LPA’s and the expenditure.  I’m not saying this is a bad thing but I hadn’t realised that this would happen.  Anyone shed any light on this practice please.

I was never questioned about anything and, even though I was the only child and beneficiary of my DM's estate I kept meticulous records of every penny I spent for her and on her behalf, on a simple Excel spreadsheet.  It's easier to do as you go along.

Perhaps someone else in the family complained???

bjbyorkshire

Thanks Gers... No this lady is an only child so I don't think anyone else complained and if they did who would they complain to?  Court of Protection charge a fee for their protection of a vulnerable person but Im not sure who would monitor LPA spending.  I think she made a mistake somewhere in telling me.  I can't see the bank who issued her with her parents debit cart would monitor any spending on it.  I can see how easy it would be to defraud someones account if no one is monitoring the spending pattern but that is why hopefully the attorneys you chose need to be trustworthy.  

This whole scenario has opened up more questions than I ever thought about when starting the application.  Here's hoping it isn't needed.  I have only as yet applied for POA for finance, have yet to do the health and welfare ones.  

BooJewels

I never had any questions asked by anyone about my spending under an LPA - I doubt anyone even knew. 

As Gers mentioned, I just kept good records as I went along in a spreadsheet - I handled all my Dad's spending for about 2 years.  I sent my sister the bank statement each month and reported to her everything I did for him.  She visited and did shopping as she was local, I looked after admin, as I wasn't.

Shame no one took an interest - I saved him a blasted fortune - he'd been wasting money hand over fist, got defrauded for small amounts several times, signed up to autorenewals for things he didn't want or need and had over 30 DDs making payments to charities - his account went from about 40+ DDs to around a dozen, then I whittled those down too.  I saved him the LPA and solicitors fee the first day I logged in to his account.  I just wish I'd intervened sooner.

How would anyone even know you'd used a debit card in a charity shop?  Surely monitoring a bank account would require a court order or similar?  I wonder if she submitted bank statements for care funding or some such and a question was asked then?

I did however make a snaffoo with my aunt's debit card.  She wanted a tilting kettle and some other mobility aids, so my sister and I sat down with her with an on-line shop on my sisters tablet and she chose what she wanted and I ordered using my account, paid with my card on the aunt's bank.  Then a few days later ordered something else for myself and didn't recognise the card number charged.  I must have ticked a box to use this card for all payments from now on.  Luckily she thought it was hilarious - and I managed to FPO the amount to her before the card payment even cleared.  So that might have raised eyebrows somewhere.  

ETA:  You'll need to sign every sheet of any copy you want to consider a 'certified copy' - that's just what it means - you're certifying that particular print as a true copy of the original document. If you print the sigs out too - it's just a photocopy.