Power of Attorney - NEED HELP

Sn00py

Hello, please can anyone help.

Having watched Martin and the Team on TV and the topic of Power of Attorney's (PoA) price increase my husband and I decided it was time to do our forms. Prior to the fee increase, my husband and I completed our PoA documents and paid £82 for each application. Both forms were posted together in the same envelope and sent via signed-for delivery; they were received and scanned on the system under separate reference numbers.

Unfortunately, the Office of the Public Guardian (OPG) processed both documents as if they belonged to my husband, stating that I had submitted the same first page twice, one for each completed document. While both documents were scanned as separate documents, the remaining pages were entirely different and clearly related to different people / applications. No one contacted me to advise they were both being processed in my husbands name.

Despite many calls and emails with OPG, they have now advised that I must pay the new, higher fee and forfeit the £82 already paid for my application. Losing £82 and paying the increased fee is simply not feasible for us, particularly as my husband is a pensioner.

Can anyone please offer some constructive advice on how we can get OPG to change their minds; we are now at our wits end and are around in circles with them.

elsien

Have you followed their formal complaints procedure? https://www.gov.uk/government/organisations/office-of-the-public-guardian/about/complaints-procedure

They do charge if you make a mistake so I suppose it depends if the mistake was yours or theirs. (Although  I agree with your points they should have  noticed.)
 My Mum missed out a page of preferences  somewhere in the middle, and was given the choice of completing it without the preferences or paying to start again. 

Sn00py

Hi Elsien, thank you for responding and yes I did make a formal complaint. To which they responded it was my fault for adding the same front page twice. They even sent me the two scanned forms and yes the front page is the same on each PoA but all the information contained in the other pages is very different. Clearly I am the Donor on one and my husband is Donor on the other. I did not make copies for myself before sending them which was a big mistake but it is my word against their word. I completed the forms separately online so why would I input the same information twice on page 1 but change everything else, it doesn't make sense but how can I prove they mixed up the scanning. If the same page was scanned on both documents it stands to reason when they downloaded them and sent them to me they are showing the same pages they scanned. This is extremely upsetting and now I am left with no PoA.

Does anyone know if there is an appeals process? 

elsien

There is. If you look at the link I posted I think the next step is the OPG chief exec and then the parliamentary and health ombudsman. 

Sn00py

Update: I had already made my formal complaint. I have now appealed that complaint to their Chief Executive. I've also downloaded my PoA from their website again just to ensure I had not entered my husband's details on my form. It is correct and has all my own details, not his,. I know I only printed one copy of each due to printing costs so there is no plausible way I could have attached the same page twice.