LPA - Father signature issues

Mr_Mister

Hi
My elderly father is starting to lose his memory so I have been trying to set up a financial LPA but he is struggling to sign his own signature. He can sign but he is signing in uppercase rather than lowercase as per his original signature. We have tried to show him copies of his originally signature but he is struggling to copy/remember and is signing in his own different way. 
So my question is, will the LPA be accepted with the signature he can sign now or does it need to be his original signature?
As most things financially is in joint names with my mentally sound mother (property, bank accounts etc), is having one LPA for my mother sufficient to cover most eventualities if my father cannot sign his own LPA? 
Thanks 

maman

I can't give you a definitive answer but DH witnessed our neighbour's signature when he was in later stages of Parkinsons. He was very shaky (although fully compus mentis) and his son needed to steady his hand. It didn't exactly like his old signature but was accepted. 

Keep_pedalling

People’s signatures change over time you don’t need home to try to replicate what he used to be able to do, let him sign as best he is able because that is his current signature. He must sign in the presence of a witness so this should not be a problem.

Flugelhorn

My father's signature deteriorated over the years (parkinsons) I suspect many people's do - TBH upper case name is probably just a version of making a mark - I found this when searching 

"

Making a mark

In some cases, the donor might not be able to write their own signature. If they are able to hold a pen long enough to leave a mark in the signature box unaided, this will be an acceptable form of signature for the LPA to be valid. The donor must ensure that he/she has done this in the presence of an independent witness.

It is advisable that if the donor has difficulties in writing their signature that they are encouraged to do so. However, if this is not possible the OPG would require a written explanation detailing that the donor can only leave a mark.

Flugelhorn

PS also looking at page 3 here it allows for signature or mark https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/media/5a75c321e5274a4368299c56/LPC-Continuation-sheets.pdf

Mr_Mister

Flugelhorn said:

My father's signature deteriorated over the years (parkinsons) I suspect many people's do - TBH upper case name is probably just a version of making a mark - I found this when searching 

"

Making a mark

In some cases, the donor might not be able to write their own signature. If they are able to hold a pen long enough to leave a mark in the signature box unaided, this will be an acceptable form of signature for the LPA to be valid. The donor must ensure that he/she has done this in the presence of an independent witness.

It is advisable that if the donor has difficulties in writing their signature that they are encouraged to do so. However, if this is not possible the OPG would require a written explanation detailing that the donor can only leave a mark.

That's a relief thanks. He can hold the pen and slowly sign and even end with the squiggly marks but it's just the upper and lower cases that's the issue which is different to the original.

Also can the witness be one of the attorneys or can it be the named Certificate Provider who also signs the form? 

ian16527

Mr_Mister said:

Flugelhorn said:

My father's signature deteriorated over the years (parkinsons) I suspect many people's do - TBH upper case name is probably just a version of making a mark - I found this when searching 

"

Making a mark

In some cases, the donor might not be able to write their own signature. If they are able to hold a pen long enough to leave a mark in the signature box unaided, this will be an acceptable form of signature for the LPA to be valid. The donor must ensure that he/she has done this in the presence of an independent witness.

It is advisable that if the donor has difficulties in writing their signature that they are encouraged to do so. However, if this is not possible the OPG would require a written explanation detailing that the donor can only leave a mark.

That's a relief thanks. He can hold the pen and slowly sign and even end with the squiggly marks but it's just the upper and lower cases that's the issue which is different to the original.

Also can the witness be one of the attorneys or can it be the named Certificate Provider who also signs the form? 

I think it says on the form that it can be the Certificate provider but not an attorney

Brie

to answer your last question....

To witness a lasting power of attorney (LPA), you need to:

• Be over 18 years old
• Not be named as an attorney or replacement attorney in the LPA
• Not be related to the donor or the attorneys
• Be independent and impartial
• Be either someone who knows the donor well for at least 2 years, or a professional such as a GP, solicitor, social worker, or independent mental capacity advocate (IMCA)

Keep_pedalling

Mr_Mister said:

Flugelhorn said:

My father's signature deteriorated over the years (parkinsons) I suspect many people's do - TBH upper case name is probably just a version of making a mark - I found this when searching 

"

Making a mark

In some cases, the donor might not be able to write their own signature. If they are able to hold a pen long enough to leave a mark in the signature box unaided, this will be an acceptable form of signature for the LPA to be valid. The donor must ensure that he/she has done this in the presence of an independent witness.

It is advisable that if the donor has difficulties in writing their signature that they are encouraged to do so. However, if this is not possible the OPG would require a written explanation detailing that the donor can only leave a mark.

That's a relief thanks. He can hold the pen and slowly sign and even end with the squiggly marks but it's just the upper and lower cases that's the issue which is different to the original.

Also can the witness be one of the attorneys or can it be the named Certificate Provider who also signs the form? 

The witness cannot be one of the attorneys or replacement atterneys, but the certificate provider can be.

maman

It doesn't have to be anyone in an 'official' capacity just, as @Brie posted, someone who knows your dad. As I said, DH witnessed POA for our long standing neighbour and DD has recently done the same for hers. 

lr1277

To answer your final question, if you can, get LPA for your dad, otherwise financial and other institutions will only deal with him, which can be difficult especially if he is losing his memory.

If you dad is losing his memory, can he still remember passwods when talking to banks' helpdesks? We had a situation where my dad was losing his memory and could not remember passwords. So on a call to a bank helpdesk, mum and I were prompting him even with things like his address. The bank staff member heard this, thought dad was being coerced and immediately suspended the account. Dad had to go into branch to show ID to get the account working again.

We were in the fortunate postion, dad could still sign his name. So for certain banks, we ended writing to them with dad signing the letters. This was after explaining to him what the letter said and getting his agreement for the required action.

Stlightly at a tangent, if you have not done so, find out how your dad's GP surgery deals with enquiries from your dad's family members. At my dad's GP surgery, they needed a letter from him saying which family members could contact them about dad, which we sent in. This meant all surgery staff could talk to mum or I about dad's condition. Until the letter was submitted, the surgery staff would not even talk to dad's wife about his health.

It is not just banks, but pension providers, DWP, utilities, councils and basically any organisation with which your dad has an account. Some organisations are more amenable to changing the contact person/details, but others require official paperwork. You will have to deal with it on a case by case basis.

How does your dad access his emails? I ask because potentially we had a situation with my dad. He has had a yahoo email address for years. Then in 2016 he bought a phone, and the phone store staff put the yahoo app on thephone, so he no longer needed to enter a password to get his emails. This was good and bad. Good because we could put his email on other devices like a tablet and on his windows computer and the yahoo app would be used to confirm if was a legitimate account. The bad was that if the phone failed, there was a chance we would never be able to see his emails again, which might cause even more problems. So as dad got worse, we started moving account ownership (of whatever accounts) to mum and this included giving mum's email instead of using dad's email. For a long time, mum used dad's email address but I knew this could not continue if we could not access dad's emails.

HTH