Problems that may arise without LPA

KezJH100824

Hi, I'd like to get your advice about a situation my wife is in with her family and wonder if you could share the potential problems that might arise without an LPA for her mum. Here's the situation:

Her 86-year-old dad is living permanently in a nursing home and has dementia. An LPA is in place (both financial and health) with my wife and her mum as joint attorneys.

Her mum and dad each own 50% of their house (tenants in common) and their wills are identical.

Her 86-year-old mum has stage 4 merkel cell carcinoma which has now spread to her liver. She won't be having any further treatment (chemo) following 2 years of immunotherapy. That type of cancer is aggressive so she possibly only has a few months to live. There's a chance the merkel cell will reach her bones, brain and lungs. There is no LPA in place for her mum.

The way my wife sees it is that because all financial accounts are in her dad's name, her mum doesn't need to have an LPA in place. Her mum also doesn't want the hassle of doing one either.

We're now just trying to figure out if it's worth pursuing or not. The main thought that sprang to my mind was, what if her dad dies first and her mum's cancer reaches her brain or she is on so much morphine and pain medication that she loses mental capacity?

Has anyone experienced a similar situation? Or can you think of any major reasons why her mum should have an LPA (financial and/or health) in place? Thanks very much.

p00hsticks

I think my main concern would be that she has no financial accounts in her own name - if she has any income of her own, she should at least ensure that that is going into an account of her own. If her husband died before her then she'd be left with no access to finance, and there is also the complication that while he is alive and without capacity it is the duty of those in charge of his LPA to be using the money in his accounts for his benefit, not hers. 

Where is she living and how is she funding her day to day expenses at present ?

elsien

They aren’t that much of a hassle to do. You don’t need a solicitor, you can do it online and if you don’t put much in the way of preferences in, they are very straightforwards and all  she really needs to do it is agree it and sign it. They cost £82 each to diy, less if you’re on a low income.

Does your mum have a pension of her own and where is that going? They really should be separating out the finances now, now that dad has lost capacity. 

In my grandmother’s case with regards to her money, she could still make decisions but she couldn’t physically get to the bank or access anything so she needed the power of attorney to do that for her. 

if there is a chance that things might spread to her brain then who does she want making the health decisions for her at the end of life, and if she needs care, what that is going to look like and where she is going to receive it? Next of kin has no legal meaning when it comes to decision-making, and with our PA, her daughter would be consulted but wouldn’t be making those decisions.

Mands

KezJH100824 said:

Hi, I'd like to get your advice about a situation my wife is in with her family and wonder if you could share the potential problems that might arise without an LPA for her mum. Here's the situation:

Her 86-year-old dad is living permanently in a nursing home and has dementia. An LPA is in place (both financial and health) with my wife and her mum as joint attorneys.

Her mum and dad each own 50% of their house (tenants in common) and their wills are identical.

Her 86-year-old mum has stage 4 merkel cell carcinoma which has now spread to her liver. She won't be having any further treatment (chemo) following 2 years of immunotherapy. That type of cancer is aggressive so she possibly only has a few months to live. There's a chance the merkel cell will reach her bones, brain and lungs. There is no LPA in place for her mum.

The way my wife sees it is that because all financial accounts are in her dad's name, her mum doesn't need to have an LPA in place. Her mum also doesn't want the hassle of doing one either.

We're now just trying to figure out if it's worth pursuing or not. The main thought that sprang to my mind was, what if her dad dies first and her mum's cancer reaches her brain or she is on so much morphine and pain medication that she loses mental capacity?

Has anyone experienced a similar situation? Or can you think of any major reasons why her mum should have an LPA (financial and/or health) in place? Thanks very much.

It has been taking around 6 months for LPAs to be registered. Does that impact your decision in either way? 

KezJH100824

p00hsticks said:

I think my main concern would be that she has no financial accounts in her own name - if she has any income of her own, she should at least ensure that that is going into an account of her own. If her husband died before her then she'd be left with no access to finance, and there is also the complication that while he is alive and without capacity it is the duty of those in charge of his LPA to be using the money in his accounts for his benefit, not hers. 

Where is she living and how is she funding her day to day expenses at present ?

Mum and dad have one joint bank account where pensions, Pension Credit and Attendance Allowance are all going in to. In terms of other 'accounts' everything is in dad's name (broadband, gas, electric, water, and so on).

So if dad died before her, mum would still be able to access the joint bank account, which would be transferred into her name only. That's when it could become tricky if she lost mental capacity I guess.

KezJH100824

elsien said:

They aren’t that much of a hassle to do. You don’t need a solicitor, you can do it online and if you don’t put much in the way of preferences in, they are very straightforwards and all  she really needs to do it is agree it and sign it. They cost £82 each to diy, less if you’re on a low income.

Does your mum have a pension of her own and where is that going? They really should be separating out the finances now, now that dad has lost capacity. 

In my grandmother’s case with regards to her money, she could still make decisions but she couldn’t physically get to the bank or access anything so she needed the power of attorney to do that for her. 

if there is a chance that things might spread to her brain then who does she want making the health decisions for her at the end of life, and if she needs care, what that is going to look like and where she is going to receive it? Next of kin has no legal meaning when it comes to decision-making, and with our PA, her daughter would be consulted but wouldn’t be making those decisions.

Thanks - that's what I thought in terms of her care and decisions about her health.

KezJH100824

Mands said:

KezJH100824 said:

Hi, I'd like to get your advice about a situation my wife is in with her family and wonder if you could share the potential problems that might arise without an LPA for her mum. Here's the situation:

Her 86-year-old dad is living permanently in a nursing home and has dementia. An LPA is in place (both financial and health) with my wife and her mum as joint attorneys.

Her mum and dad each own 50% of their house (tenants in common) and their wills are identical.

Her 86-year-old mum has stage 4 merkel cell carcinoma which has now spread to her liver. She won't be having any further treatment (chemo) following 2 years of immunotherapy. That type of cancer is aggressive so she possibly only has a few months to live. There's a chance the merkel cell will reach her bones, brain and lungs. There is no LPA in place for her mum.

The way my wife sees it is that because all financial accounts are in her dad's name, her mum doesn't need to have an LPA in place. Her mum also doesn't want the hassle of doing one either.

We're now just trying to figure out if it's worth pursuing or not. The main thought that sprang to my mind was, what if her dad dies first and her mum's cancer reaches her brain or she is on so much morphine and pain medication that she loses mental capacity?

Has anyone experienced a similar situation? Or can you think of any major reasons why her mum should have an LPA (financial and/or health) in place? Thanks very much.

It has been taking around 6 months for LPAs to be registered. Does that impact your decision in either way? 

Yes to be honest that probably does impact the decision. Thank you for telling me that - I knew it would take time to register an LPA but didn't realise it would take that long!

kaysdee

I emailed the OPG recently. It’s been over a year since I last applied to register a LPA (which took around 4 months) but the auto reply said this:

”On average it is taking up to 8 weeks to register applications following receipt of the paperwork and confirmation of payment. This begins once we have received the paperwork and confirmed the payment.  

Please allow up to 8-10 weeks from receipt of your LPA for your application to be processed.”

It seems like things have improved in the last few years but not sure how well that reflects real life experience.

p00hsticks

kaysdee said:

I emailed the OPG recently. It’s been over a year since I last applied to register a LPA (which took around 4 months) but the auto reply said this:

”On average it is taking up to 8 weeks to register applications following receipt of the paperwork and confirmation of payment. This begins once we have received the paperwork and confirmed the payment.  

Please allow up to 8-10 weeks from receipt of your LPA for your application to be processed.”

It seems like things have improved in the last few years but not sure how well that reflects real life experience.

From my experience, one of the stages of processing the LPA is for the OPG to write both to those named as attorneys and to any other interested parties whose details have been given to let them know that an LPA has been applied for and to give them four weeks to raise any objection. So it's never really going to be any quicker than 8 weeks end to end