How to approach aunt about potentially appointing a power of attorney

elsien

it’s about control and people being scared of losing control. so I think the way to approach it would be to stress that while she is still has her marbles you cannot do anything without her consent.
And also don’t just talk about finances talk about health and welfare as well.

Not disparaging your concerns about the scammers, because they  may well be true but you need to be careful if you do get her consent for the power of attorney not to do things she doesn’t know about. While she has capacity it’s completely her decision whether you use it and what for. and if she finds out you’ve been checking stuff without that discussion and without her permission you might find the power of attorney is revoked. 

it took my mother (now 86) about 12 months from the start of the conversation to when she actually did it. She recognised the need but  part of it was not wanting to acknowledge getting older and possibly losing her faculties.

So do you also have powers of attorney for yourselves because if you do, or if you’re setting one up by yourself this also also shows it is a really sensible thing to have whatever age you are. Part of the reason I convinced my mum was because of my line of work - I was able to tell her about the number of much younger people who had strokes or  accidents and lost capacity with no notice or slow deterioration. 

 Possibly you also need to try to moderate your reactions in front of her, because if she’s not telling you stuff because she knows you will be upset that already gives no go conversation areas. She is  at the age when some people do start decluttering to make life easier for their relatives when they go and maybe that’s part of what she’s doing. 

itsthelittlethings

Maybe she needs to declutter. 

N6xxy

Thank you for all your suggestions.  Honestly we are very helpful. With regard to the care home. Realistically if you started boxing up things she would freak out. She won't actually love even though I actually think a warden assisted place would be great for her. She could socialise while also asking for help if needed.

We have tried to get her to change her number but she won't. We managed to call the bank with her agreement and it was confirmed that in the last months alone she's paid out £900 to "insurance" companies i.e. scams that call as something different each week. The bank said someone from the fraud team would call mum back but they didn't and it's hard to get aunt to allow us to chase it up.

She is so able and capable in many ways but she is still so private about some things, understandably.  She will discuss certain things but I can tell when she wants to get off the subject. I phoned her phone provider to try and get unknown and scam numbers blocked but they were as helpful as a chocolate teapot.

sheramber

N6xxy said:

Thank you for all your suggestions.  Honestly we are very helpful. With regard to the care home. Realistically if you started boxing up things she would freak out. She won't actually love even though I actually think a warden assisted place would be great for her. She could socialise while also asking for help if needed.

We have tried to get her to change her number but she won't. We managed to call the bank with her agreement and it was confirmed that in the last months alone she's paid out £900 to "insurance" companies i.e. scams that call as something different each week. The bank said someone from the fraud team would call mum back but they didn't and it's hard to get aunt to allow us to chase it up.

She is so able and capable in many ways but she is still so private about some things, understandably.  She will discuss certain things but I can tell when she wants to get off the subject. I phoned her phone provider to try and get unknown and scam numbers blocked but they were as helpful as a chocolate teapot.

You should be able to block unknown numbers on her phone yourself.

YouTube has videos. 
 

My BT phone only registers numbers that in my known contacts list. 

All other numbers do not ring. 

Every so often I delete them- 0800 numbers usually- from my caller list. 

Madmel

MiL was 11 years older than my DF. She respected his opinion on financial matters even though she didn't know him that well. DH and I were worried about her falling prey to scammers etc so at my request, my DF wrote a letter where he asked me "to remind MiL" about certain matters. This is maybe 20 years ago so before LPAs came in, but I think it was Enduring PoA then. MiL had studiously ignored me or DH asking her to set things up, but as soon as my father "mentioned" it, she was onto it. 

Sometimes, you have to be a bit cunning to get what you want. MiL died some 13 years ago - DF is still going string at 90...