Revoking an LPA to add a new attorney

waveyjane

My mother has capacity, and set up LPAs naming myself and my father as attorneys. She didn't name my sister as she thought it would be a burden (sister's always very busy it seems).

My father has since died, and my sister would like to be an attorney for my mother now. I understand that in order to do this, my mother needs to revoke her current LPAs and apply for new ones. That's fine. 

However, she has registered her P&F LPA with her bank and other organisations (and I have access to those on her behalf now to pay bills, etc.)

If she revokes the currently registered LPAs, I assume she will need to re-register the new one with the banks etc. all over again. Is that right?

Not only that, but if there's a gap between the revocation and registration of the new ones, will the relevant organisations revoke my power of attorney in the meantime? 

That might be a bit of a problem.

Brie

I'm wondering how a bank (or whomever) will know that the original has been revoked.  Given how bad so many work systems are I can't imagine this could be updated automatically (assuming they are sent any kind of info from whomever) and so they'd be none the wiser until a new document is sent to them.

But in the meantime your mom could do a simple letter of authorisation which you could use should there be any questions.  "To whom is may concern, please note that I give waveyjane my full authority to deal with all matters on my behalf." mom's name, signed, dated, current address of mom.  Another alternative is for mom to grant you third party authority on her bank accounts so you have have debit cards etc in your own right.

waveyjane

I suppose if the organisations she's registered my PoA with won't know she's revoked it, then we'll be OK. Feels a little risky but for now she has capacity so could do her own admin for a while if needed I think. We can then send in updated stuff (in most cases it's been a certified copy of the LPA in the post to them) once we get the new one through.

And I guess for some organisations a letter of authority might work as a stopgap, but anything substantially financial will want proper PoA I would think.