POA on single account and joint account help please

sarah1972

Hi

I have a POA on my grandfathers current account and we also have a seperate joint account. 

I am thinking to move his current account balance to our joint account and then use his current account for day to day bills. 

This, of course would also help ‘when the time comes’ and would save any probate or solicitors fees in obtaining his current account balance as it would already be in joint names. 

Is this a reasonable thing to do? 

Emmia

This is an action which specifically and solely benefits you, at the expense of others including your grandfather whose money this is. It isn't your money even though you have POA, but by moving it to the joint account it effectively becomes your money to spend.

Are you the only beneficiary of his will? How would you feel if someone else did this to your detriment.

I'm going to say No. This isn't reasonable.

Edit: the fact you're mentioning probate being needed to access the balance when the time comes, makes me think this is a relatively large amount, which should be counted within his overall estate.

sarah1972

Emmia said:

This is an action which specifically and solely benefits you, at the expense of others including your grandfather whose money this is. It isn't your money even though you have POA, but by moving it to the joint account it effectively becomes your money to spend.

Are you the only beneficiary of his will? How would you feel if someone else did this to your detriment.

I'm going to say No. This isn't reasonable.

Edit: the fact you're mentioning probate being needed to access the balance when the time comes, makes me think this is a relatively large amount, which should be counted within his overall estate.

Thats my thoughts too. 

It’s £20,000 and yes I am the only beneficiary x

YBR

My mother has insisted on setting up a joint savings account with me, which has a few thousand pounds to cover expenses prior to probate. It's her choice, there's no POA in play as yet, and I don't think will save me (or her estate when the time comes) any significant money.

In your case you're making the decision under POA, which must be strictly in the best interests of your grandfather, which makes it highly challengeable. Additionally, should you get into financial difficulty, funds in a joint account would be viewed as yours and you might be obliged to repay a debt with that money.

Another opinion against.

Keep_pedalling

No, please don’t do this it is beyond your authority as an attorney and would cause major problems if anything happened to you before she died.

The simple way make sure liquid assets are available pre probate is to keep amounts held by any one institution below that bank’s probate limit. These limits are set at quite high levels, for example it is £50k with Barclays.

As for solicitors costs, apart from conveyancing if she has a house to sell, you can avoid those by applying for probate yourself, it is not difficult to do especially for someone who has been handling the finances before death 

sarah1972

Keep_pedalling said:

No, please don’t do this it is beyond your authority as an attorney and would cause major problems if anything happened to you before she died.

The simple way make sure liquid assets are available pre probate is to keep amounts held by any one institution below that bank’s probate limit. These limits are set at quite high levels, for example it is £50k with Barclays.

As for solicitors costs, apart from conveyancing if she has a house to sell, you can avoid those by applying for probate yourself, it is not difficult to do especially for someone who has been handling the finances before death 

Thank you.

Just checked, it’s way below Nationwides threashold which I didn’t know existed so thank you. 
No house or anything to sell. 

sarah1972

Thank you everyone x

Keep_pedalling

sarah1972 said:

Keep_pedalling said:

No, please don’t do this it is beyond your authority as an attorney and would cause major problems if anything happened to you before she died.

The simple way make sure liquid assets are available pre probate is to keep amounts held by any one institution below that bank’s probate limit. These limits are set at quite high levels, for example it is £50k with Barclays.

As for solicitors costs, apart from conveyancing if she has a house to sell, you can avoid those by applying for probate yourself, it is not difficult to do especially for someone who has been handling the finances before death 

Thank you.

Just checked, it’s way below Nationwides threashold which I didn’t know existed so thank you. 
No house or anything to sell. 

That should be very straight forward you won’t need probate.