Buying a car for use by another member of family & POA

Beachflyer

I have Property & Financial power of attorney for my mum who is in a care home. On a good day, she has mental capacity especially when discussing money. On a bad day, the conversations can be random and while she's not so hot on money as on a god day, still understands the conversation. She's nearly 90 and we are selling her house which she always says is my inheritance (only child). She begrudges the government using her hard earned money to pay for care.

We are considering a nearly new car and it would be bought with her in mind, what my wife calls a sit-up & beg seating style that's easy to get into. We have one now, bought while my dad was alive and we chose it because he could easily step in & out of it.

Mum has said she'll buy the car for us. She's physically not capable of looking at cars so it would be me that handled it, and I'm the attorney.

What I'm not sure about is could this be seen as trying to defraud the government by using her money to buy a car that only my wife & I could drive. Mum would be the owner, but I would be the keeper, it would be insured for my wife & I and kept in our drive. It would be used to take mum out at weekends.

I'm not considering the insurance implications yet, need to find out if it's feasible before I get onto that.

One the house is sold, at the current care home costs she will have enough money to pay for about 9 years.

Has anyone done this without issue?

Keep_pedalling

These are always tricky areas, but with enough assets to pay for 9 years of residential care deprivation of assets is not going to be an issue.

If you will end up the only residuary beneficiary of her estate then I would say there are no issue. But if you have any siblings you should make sure they are OK with it.

As for ownership it might make things simpler if she gifted you the money, especially if the car turns out to be a lemon and you have to reject it.

tacpot12

Keep_pedalling is correct that deprivation of assets is not going to be an issue, but the idea of gifting you the money is problematical due to the rules on Attorneys giving gifts (especially to themselves). The Court of Protection would have to approve such a large gift, and I suspect they may not, given the disparity of the value you would get from the car vs. the value your mother would get. 

If you had a car worth say, £9000 but it was too low for your Mum to be able to get into it, then using a few thousand to trade that up to a car of the same age/mileage/condition would seem reasonable, but acquiring a car that is materially better than the one you have, when this is already a Sit-up-and-beg style and so suitable for your mother would not be reasonable as all the benefit falls to you and none to her.

I think the fact that you have a car that is already suitable for her kills this idea, unless you either want to go to the Court of Protection to request that you gift yourself the cost of a new car as your Mum can afford it OR you feel you are able to catch her at a time when she has capacity and can make the decision to gift the money herself. You would need to ensure that you document how you know she had capacity at the time, and that she had assessed the implications of the gift on her finances correctly.

Spendless

I also think you're in a grey area, since you already have a car and how frequently are you taking your Mum out, every Saturday and Sunday? My Nan entered a care home a month before her 91st birthday and died exactly one week before her 8th anniversary of being in there, so you can't assume that 9 years of funding will be ample. At the point my Nan went in, I thought she was too ill to last until the end of the year, having all her needs taken care of meant she became a lot healthier in body even whilst the dementia took it's toll.  

Beachflyer

Thank you both for your detailed replies, I am the sole beneficiary. I wasn't going to go down the route of gifting the money, I can see too many issues with that.

The reason we are looking is our car is 6 years old and it's starting to cost keeping it on the road. About £1200 in the last year thanks to the Blue HDi system in Citroens on top of regular running & service costs. We didn't ask for money, we were chatting about anything & everything and mentioned we are looking at cars, not seriously yet. We can afford the car ourselves but as I said, she begrudges her money being used for care, and she offered.

Regarding deprivation of assets, how would I stand if mum needed more care when costs could double and that 9 years could be 4 or 5? At this time, there is no sign of her health deteriorating, in fact she's made a noticeable improvement with a pacemaker fitted earlier this month. 

When it comes to money, that gets her attention. She has gifted us small amounts every year for the last 4 years and she has done the same this April. This is the first time since she went into the home and we had a member of staff around when it was discussed. I've handled her money for a few years, since she sent a completely blank cheque to pay a credit card. That's when we realised her memory was failing so I offered to help. Took her a month to come to terms with me helping, she had to make that decision herself. She'd fill her online grocery, clothes, etc order and I'd do the checkout with her, got rid of the password book next to the PC 😱

Everything has always been with her agreement, not done anything yet that she didn't agree to. If we don't think she has capacity to discuss something, we wait until she's in a better state and have the conversation again.

RAS

Repeat gifts in line with those given prior to the POA are OK, but not if they began after you started to use the POA.

We continued to buy presents for grandchildren and send cards of mum's behalf, in line with the value when she managed herself.

Spendless

Beachflyer said:

Thank you both for your detailed replies, I am the sole beneficiary. I wasn't going to go down the route of gifting the money, I can see too many issues with that.

The reason we are looking is our car is 6 years old and it's starting to cost keeping it on the road. About £1200 in the last year thanks to the Blue HDi system in Citroens on top of regular running & service costs. We didn't ask for money, we were chatting about anything & everything and mentioned we are looking at cars, not seriously yet. We can afford the car ourselves but as I said, she begrudges her money being used for care, and she offered.

Regarding deprivation of assets, how would I stand if mum needed more care when costs could double and that 9 years could be 4 or 5? At this time, there is no sign of her health deteriorating, in fact she's made a noticeable improvement with a pacemaker fitted earlier this month. 

When it comes to money, that gets her attention. She has gifted us small amounts every year for the last 4 years and she has done the same this April. This is the first time since she went into the home and we had a member of staff around when it was discussed. I've handled her money for a few years, since she sent a completely blank cheque to pay a credit card. That's when we realised her memory was failing so I offered to help. Took her a month to come to terms with me helping, she had to make that decision herself. She'd fill her online grocery, clothes, etc order and I'd do the checkout with her, got rid of the password book next to the PC 😱

Everything has always been with her agreement, not done anything yet that she didn't agree to. If we don't think she has capacity to discuss something, we wait until she's in a better state and have the conversation again.

But that's where an issue is, she begrudges funding her care home costs. She's not alone in this view, many people feel like this but it's the way the system works. She presumably got a better choice of care home than if she'd been solely dependant on LA funding. She would rather buy you a car that she can go out in than accept that potentially all her money will go in care home fees.

That would be exactly my concern, what is she lives to be in her late 90s or even into the 100s, and/or the care home fees rise during this time  and the 9 years of funding from her house sale isn't quite enough and the LA look into any big purchases made whilst she was in care. 

Beachflyer

Mum likes to spend and treat people, always has and more so since dad died 4 years ago. While she's been in the home, I've reeled in some of her ideas because I'm the attorney and the one that would face the consequences.

She's in the home of our choice, it's 200yds from our house with fantastic views and it's small, family run. Left to mum, she'd still be at home not feeding herself, not bothering to get out of bed and not looking after herself, probably wouldn't be here now. The staff are great and we know someone who used to work there. The home charges £100/day and they have told me that's the same as the council pay to fund some of their residents.

theoretica

Is this an LPA or an older EPA? Some of the comments about gifts seem to be looking at the case where the donor has fully lost capacity and the attorney is making the decisions and acting independently, but from the description it seems this is not yet the case and the mum can make her own decisions, with help carrying them out.  My understanding for LPAs is that while the donor still has capacity they can do whatever they please and use the attorney simply to do it. And if the donor still has capacity, the attorney cannot stop them doing things that the attorney thinks are foolish. So here there should be no problems around gifts/the attorney potentially benefiting, if it can be clearly documented that this is mum's wish and she understands.  It may be different if this is an EPA.

Beachflyer

theoretica said:

Is this an LPA or an older EPA?.

Thanks for replying, that makes sense and was the way I was thinking. It's an LPA and on a good day, she definitely has full capacity as the doctor found out when he broached the subject of a DNAR.

Would it be a gift? Ownership would remain with mum but for us to insure & use, including taking her out.

Regarding the style of car, we might not get a similar car if we only thought about ourselves but she's here so we haven't even considered that. 

sheramber

Surely, the best answer would come form the Office of Public Guardian

https://www.publicguardian-scotland.gov.uk/guardianship-orders/following-a-guardianship-order/when-to-ask-for-consent