POA nightmare

Tauntonman

I've had a POA in place for my mum who now has advanced dementia. She had to move into a care home about 18 months ago and her house went on the market.  Once it sold she had quite a lot of money in her bank, well over the £85k protection threshold.  So, I set about trying, and failing, to open new accounts for her.  Banks seem to have a very poor understanding that the ID and proof of address documents they seek often don't exist when a person has advanced dementia and lives in a care home.  No current passport, never had a driving licence, all correspondence is addressed to the attorney's, no recent utility bills.  My advice to anyone who is likely to be selling a house as attorney, set up savings accounts asap, before your loved one goes into care.  Six months on and four banks later, plus many wasted hours, I am no further on!

tacpot12

Sorry to hear of your troubles. Perhaps you could post again when you sort out savings accounts, so we can know who are the banks who make this possible. I may well be in this situation in a few years, and having worked in Banking, I expect to find that not much will have changed when I need to do it.

Keep_pedalling

You should not need to provide ID documents for her to set up authority with the bank. Have a look at NS&I

https://www.nsandi.com/help/manage-money-for-others/manage-saving-for-adult

tooldle

Would the banks entertain an account in your name as POA for Mrs A N Other. Have these banks a POA team who could suggest a solution? A quick gold throws up this https://www.westbrom.co.uk/faqs/general-faqs/power-of-attorney/how-do-i-open-a-new-savings-account-under-a-power-of-attorney and this useful thread https://forum.alzheimers.org.uk/threads/opening-a-bank-account-with-poa.35523/

sheramber

HSBC state

An attorney can open a new account on behalf of a donor, including savings accounts and ISAs.  However, an attorney can't apply for overdraft facilities, or any types of lending such as credit cards or personal loans.

For a general (ordinary) power of attorney, you won’t be able to open a new account on behalf of the donor, including savings accounts and ISAs.

https://www.hsbc.co.uk/help/life-events/poa/what-an-attorney-can-do/

EssexHebridean

Martin mentioned some savings accounts that could be opened by holders of POA's on his show the other week - I recall that Chip was one but not sure what the other two he mentioned were.

Malthusian

Either NS&I or a "cash savings platform" can be a good idea in cases like these, as opposed to spending loads of time on the phone trying to find which banks work well with LPOAs.
LPOAs require extra admin so attorneys are unlikely to get "best buy" rates, as they are most likely to come from banks with slimmed-down and "online only" application processes.