Estranged

Altior

It's far to long to go into the detail here, unless it's relevant. Still long, sorry!

I have one sibling, a brother. A few years ago my Mother passed away, and inherited all assets. Property circa £400K value, and around £150K cash. My Mother had always dealt with all of their financial affairs, Father wouldn't/couldn't even use am ATM on their own.

So both me and my brother assisted my Father with everything that needed to be done, for example we'd separately assist with online banking, using the ATM and all the other day to day financial affairs, we both had the log on credentials etc.

I am a finance professional, so whilst my Father was grieving (as we all were), I reluctantly went along with it (although, fully aware of the technical risk if the account security was exposed), after a few weeks though I put a stop to my involvement, and issued the ultimatum, we'd either need to arrange PoA, or I would have to pull out of the situation to personally de-risk.

My Father point blank refused to even discuss a PoA, so I absolved myself from assisting going forward. As one might imagine, this strained the relationship with my Father. I do not trust my Brother an inch and the upshot is that I believe that they have manipulated everything so that they plan to inherit the lot.

I suppose many people will say similar things, it's not about me getting the potential share of inheritance, is that my Brother has no right to all of it, and they have been manipulating things since my Mother's death to that end.  

My Brother has definitely arranged a formal will with my Father without my knowledge, refuses to tell me which solicitor, or what it contains. They definitely turned off paper banking (I know for a fact my Father loved to keep paper copies of all their bank statements, as he can't use online banking). I am almost certain that my Brother arranged for them to put my Father's cash assets into a joint account, ie my Father and Brother as the signatories. This would have been under the guise of making things easier for my Father (online shopping, 2FA/MFA et al). I also know that PoA has subsequently been arranged and triggered, my Brother now has full control of my Father's financial affairs.

Of course, I was able to view the ownership of the property, and is/was in the sole name of my Father, however I have been informed that my Father will be moving into residential care. So it's quite likely that the property will be sold imminently to fund the care.

My question to those who are experienced in these types of matters, as the sole sibling, do I have any recourse to interrogate what has been done in regard to the PoA, either now or in the event of my Father's passing, when the executor has been appointed? The manipulation hasn't just started, my Father genuinely thinks my brother is an total angel and I am the devil incarnate, so it's almost certain that the will will include appointing my Brother as the Executor. If the property is liquidated, it's overwhelmingly likely that it will be distributed into a joint account. I don't believe I can involve the authorities re legal wrongdoing, as I believe my Brother will have convinced my Father into agreeing to these things apparently willingly, as I've outlined. One might even say, gaslit. Or is it overwhelmingly likely that my Brother will get what they have wanted all along when the time comes, and I am powerless to influence it.

Edit: PS I believe the property will need to be disposed quite soon, as most of the cash will have evaporated. I suppose it will let me know if my fears are actually the reality.

elsien

The only recourse you have with the Power of attorney is to raise any concerns with the OPG along with any evidence that you have and for them to investigate if they see fit.
You have no right to see anything unless your father wants you to. 

Altior

elsien said:

The only recourse you have with the Power of attorney is to raise any concerns with the OPG along with any evidence that you have and for them to investigate if they see fit.
You have no right to see anything unless your father wants you to. 

Thanks elsien, yes unfortunately I would need access to all of the affairs to produce the evidence. For example, I know what happened with the paper banking as I coincidentally banked with the same firm, and at the time the user had to opt out of paper banking. My Father told me on the phone that the statements had stopped being delivered by post, but they didn't know why. I told him my Brother must have switched them off, and to get him to switch them back on again, which they did but many many months later. My Father also refused to tell me what the balances of their accounts were. But I cannot prove who turned paper statements off, or why. At the time, the accounts were in my Father's sole name, all done under my Father's log in, so it's circumstantial at best. I would also need to see the records of the potential joint account, and the movement of funds. 

I was almost certain I have no chance at all of having sight of any of this whilst my Father is still with us, but I was hoping there was a way after my Father had passed. To at least test it. PoA can't be a carte blanche, but who interrogates that it is all carried out above board. 

J63320

Some banks outsourced the printing of their statements to a company called Communisis. Last year this company went into administration, and because of this many banks, including mine, turned off paper statements for the majority of customers. At the time, there were threads on this forum discussing it. I don’t know the situation for other banks, but my paper statements have now been restored.
So it might be that this was what happened with your father’s statements, and there was nothing sinister going on. If you were already opted out of paper statements for your own account, you might not have even been aware that there had been a problem.

p00hsticks

Altior said:

elsien said:

The only recourse you have with the Power of attorney is to raise any concerns with the OPG along with any evidence that you have and for them to investigate if they see fit.
You have no right to see anything unless your father wants you to. 

My Father told me on the phone that the statements had stopped being delivered by post, but they didn't know why. I told him my Brother must have switched them off, and to get him to switch them back on again, which they did but many many months later. My Father also refused to tell me what the balances of their accounts were. But I cannot prove who turned paper statements off, or why.

I'm not 100% sure, but I think at least one of the banks and utilities I've dealt with have at some point adopted an 'opt out' approach where unless you specified that you wanted to remain on paper billing (and sometimes pay a charge for doing so) they would automatically switch you over to the paperless option.

Altior

The paper statements thing is almost certain. As I alluded to above, the whole story is far too long to recount in full detail, however I mentioned in my OP I banked with the same bank, and had the same account. When I logged into online banking at the time, (my account and my father's), you'd get a notification, along the lines of do you agree to switch to online statements. Of course in my Father's account it was always rejected. The bank was pushing this, so the alert popped up a lot.

Three things happened around this time, banks upped their security (an EU thing I seem to recall) so it became very difficult to access another person's account remotely anyway (2FA was mandated). This also happened in peak lockdown.  And I pulled out of accessing my Father's account remotely due to the risk and it actually not being permitted, as I outlined. My brother was the 'bubble', and my Father was on the extreme risk category as outlined by the NHS, no longer wanted me to visit at all, not even outside (he is/was incredibly fearful of covid due to the alarmism on the news). So paper statements were switched off after I ceased accessing the account, or had visibility of it with my Father.

Absolutely, my brother would have 100% known how important the paper statements were to my Father. He used to file them away for many years. No way at all could they have been switched off accidentally, and in that incredibly unlikely scenario should have have been turned back on straight away. From my recollection, it took over a year for my brother to switch them back on. By which time I had zero oversight of any of my Father's finances whatsoever. I assisted with sorting everything out after my Mother's death, DB pensions etc so it wasn't a privacy issue. Yet he refused to even tell me what the balances were (which I only wanted to know for his benefit, to ensure he wasn't being robbed, basically). 

I appreciate that there's probably a grey area, and it wouldn't be easy to prove if my Father is/was effectively being robbed wilfully or against his will. The extent of the mental manipulation of my Father is likely to be that he would not admit to it, even if deep down he knew he was being robbed/defrauded. And it probably won't have been super material to his lifestyle anyway. It's all unknown at this point, as I have no idea whether what's left of my Father's assets are being deployed in the most prudent way/best interests for him. IF the property is liquidated and the funds go into a joint account, the account could be drained out quickly and he would then be at the mercy of the council. Then it would be a direct, material impact. 

Savvy_Sue

If you were notified at the time that your father was appointing your brother as sole attorney (as I believe you should have been), then you could have objected at that point. I'm not sure of the OPG will investigate unless you can provide evidence, and they might ask why you did not originally object. 

If your father has made a new will, then you'd need to establish that he did not have capacity at that point to do so, and it does not sound as if you doubt his capacity. 

The council will ask for details of any joint accounts, so if there appears to be an interesting spending issue recently, then they will spot it and ask awkward questions. 

You can set up an alert on the Land Registry site to see if the property is sold. 

And after your father dies, you can issue a Caveat to prevent / slow down probate. 

But on a first reading, you have probably missed the boat as far as preventing any financial shenanigans goes. 

Altior

Savvy_Sue said:

If you were notified at the time that your father was appointing your brother as sole attorney (as I believe you should have been), then you could have objected at that point. I'm not sure of the OPG will investigate unless you can provide evidence, and they might ask why you did not originally object. 

If your father has made a new will, then you'd need to establish that he did not have capacity at that point to do so, and it does not sound as if you doubt his capacity. 

The council will ask for details of any joint accounts, so if there appears to be an interesting spending issue recently, then they will spot it and ask awkward questions. 

You can set up an alert on the Land Registry site to see if the property is sold. 

And after your father dies, you can issue a Caveat to prevent / slow down probate. 

But on a first reading, you have probably missed the boat as far as preventing any financial shenanigans goes. 

Sequence of events, I wanted to arrange a PoA as my Father was not capable of running his own affairs. That was not age/capability issue, it was that he'd never ever done it (always relied on Mum/us), wasn't interested in learning, so wanted us to continue doing it in his name. He got really angry at the mere suggestion of a PoA. Not really drama you want when you've just lost Mum / Wife. In my view it couldn't continue all three of us accessing the accounts, so I called time on my involvement at that point (in the knowledge I could review the paper statements should the need arise). I was still providing general financial advice and help. 

Some time later, perhaps two years, I was ambushed on the phone, my Father called me out of the blue (never usually called me) and said he was now setting up a PoA and would I agree to be the stand in, if my brother was somehow not available. I had to agree there and then. I said I would, but since I now have no clue what his assets are at that point, we'd need to get a will arranged so that I knew the position I was agreeing to. Unbeknown to me, my brother was eavesdropping next to my Father on the phone, then interjected and played the emotional blackmail, eg do I no longer care about my Dad et al. I stuck to my position, however. I did not want to be involved until I knew nothing untoward had happened to my Father's assets.

It transpired that the will was already drawn up before that, I managed to get my Father to concede that to me at a later time. So both of them knew they had a will drawn up and approved, outside of my knowledge, and effectively lied to me about it. That's when I asked my Brother to tell me what solicitor they used and what the will contained. Completely palmed off, neither of them will disclose any of the details. My Father says he's happy for me to see it, but only if my Brother agrees!

Fast forward to recent times, I got a message from my Brother stating that my Father had been diagnosed with early stage dementia, and he was planning to take over the affairs (of course, that had already been effectively the position for several years). Now I've been informed that my Father is expected to need full time residential care. I've not had any formal messages about the PoA, but nothing had tangibly changed as my Brother was operating it all, anyway. 

elsien

Savvy_Sue said:

If you were notified at the time that your father was appointing your brother as sole attorney (as I believe you should have been), then you could have objected at that point. I'm not sure of the OPG will investigate unless you can provide evidence, and they might ask why you did not originally object. 

If your father has made a new will, then you'd need to establish that he did not have capacity at that point to do so, and it does not sound as if you doubt his capacity. 

The council will ask for details of any joint accounts, so if there appears to be an interesting spending issue recently, then they will spot it and ask awkward questions. 

You can set up an alert on the Land Registry site to see if the property is sold. 

And after your father dies, you can issue a Caveat to prevent / slow down probate. 

But on a first reading, you have probably missed the boat as far as preventing any financial shenanigans goes. 

That isn’t correct. The power of attorney gives the option of notifying relevant people but it’s not obligatory. it is for deputy ships, but not for LPA. It is perfectly possible to set one up without anyone else knowing apart from the person that you’ve appointed as your attorney. 

The difference being that with the LPA which can only be done when you have capacity you get to choose who you want to act for you and also decide who you share relevant information with. With deputyship you lack capacity so there is more need of a protective measure, because you can’t choose someone or object yourself.

Flugelhorn

I think it used to be (nearly 10 years ago) that there were people "to be told" when the POA was registered. Think that they  stopped that then

Savvy_Sue

Altior said:

Savvy_Sue said:

If you were notified at the time that your father was appointing your brother as sole attorney (as I believe you should have been), then you could have objected at that point. I'm not sure of the OPG will investigate unless you can provide evidence, and they might ask why you did not originally object. 

If your father has made a new will, then you'd need to establish that he did not have capacity at that point to do so, and it does not sound as if you doubt his capacity. 

The council will ask for details of any joint accounts, so if there appears to be an interesting spending issue recently, then they will spot it and ask awkward questions. 

You can set up an alert on the Land Registry site to see if the property is sold. 

And after your father dies, you can issue a Caveat to prevent / slow down probate. 

But on a first reading, you have probably missed the boat as far as preventing any financial shenanigans goes. 

Some time later, perhaps two years, I was ambushed on the phone, my Father called me out of the blue (never usually called me) and said he was now setting up a PoA and would I agree to be the stand in, if my brother was somehow not available. I had to agree there and then. I said I would, but since I now have no clue what his assets are at that point, we'd need to get a will arranged so that I knew the position I was agreeing to. Unbeknown to me, my brother was eavesdropping next to my Father on the phone, then interjected and played the emotional blackmail, eg do I no longer care about my Dad et al. I stuck to my position, however. I did not want to be involved until I knew nothing untoward had happened to my Father's assets.

OK, I'm out of touch then about the need to inform you, BUT I think that if you had been named as an Attorney, even a 'reserve' attorney, you'd have had to sign something. So do you think Dad's been left with just your brother as Attorney?

And actually, I think you were mistaken to say that Dad NEEDED to get a will set up, and that you NEEDED to know dad's financial position. Our sons are our replacement attorneys (first stop is each other), and they had no clue about our finances when they agreed to act in that way. I'm one of three attorneys for an in-law: I could in theory access the accounts but I don't NEED to because I trust the person who is doing most of the donkey work - if I didn't trust them, I'd check up, and I do ask the 'how's the money going?' question from time to time. 

I think as a substitute attorney, you'd have no responsibility for what your brother might have done until you needed to be active. From that point onwards, you'd be responsible for what YOU did. 

Are you still visiting Dad? Or have relationships broken down completely now? You may find you can visit Dad in the care home and at least try to establish that you care.