Cash for the remote elderly and vulnerable

Martin5243

My mother is aged 94, just giving up driving and living a long way from family. We have regular video calls and telephone calls with her through Facebook Portal. We can order food through Tesco's online portal or other supermarket portals.

How can we order cash deliveries to her door, so that she can pay her visiting hair dresser or gardener or window cleaner etc, please. She banks with Barclays, used to drive to the Post Office for cash, but that is all going to stop having given up driving. we her family live 4 hours away. It would be a great solution if there was a service that could deliver cash. I think the Post Office did something during Covid times and lockdown. I'm trying to find a solution for my remote independent 94 year old mother to have cash in hand.

Many thanks,

Martin

la531983

She probably needs someone more local than you.

In any case this would likely have to involve someone taking her debit card and drawing money out for her, I wouldnt be telling the bank of this arrangement.

Can none of these service providers take payments in other fashions?

gwynlas

It would probably be best if you set up LPAs for both health and wealth.

She could have online banking and transfer payments directly to hairdresser etc.

Alternatively you could access the account and make payments on her behalf.

If she really wishes to have cash to hand then she could keeep a limited amount at home

Keep_pedalling

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/comment/82059997#Comment_82059997

I second this, the hairdresser ect should be happy to accept BT payments, this is how I paid people for my mother when she was at home and later in a care home. They sent me an invoice and I paid it from my mother’s account.

Marmaduke123

I pay my hairdresser, cleaner, gardener and window cleaner by bank transfer. Does your mother have a smart phone or use online banking? If so that would be the easiest solution.

Or perhaps you could make the payments for her and she could reimburse you in whatever way is convenient

Best to avoid keeping cash at home

elsien

I appreciate she may want to carry on having some cash around in case of emergencies – my mother does, although she does use online banking to pay her cleaner and gardener.

Giving her cash card to a third-party to get money out for her would probably be breaching the bank terms and conditions in case of theft or fraud. You are also not going find anyone in a professional capacity who will catch cash for her.

Is there any community transport which she could use to get back-and-forth? A helpful neighbour who would drive her? Would the cost of a taxi to and from the post office be prohibitive?

otherwise you are looking at a third-party bank mandate (presuming she still has capacity around her finances which it sounds as if she does). Or a power of attorney. Neither of which is going to solve the cash issue but would allow you to get money for out for her when you visit or and pay bills online in the interim.

bouicca21

Maybe set up an arrangement with a local taxi/minicab to take her to the bank weekly or monthly and give her time to mooch around for a while? That way she gets the cash herself and has a chance for coffee/cake/window or real shopping. It can’t be fun being stuck at home and a regular trip out might be just the thing she needs.

Brie

As @elsien suggests someone using her bank card would definitely breach bank T&Cs. Anything nasty happens and they'll simply blame her and refuse a refund.

I also agree that a PoA should be set up but that can take time. If possible either yourself or a trusted individual near her should be granted third party authority and then a debit card would be issued and online access to the account granted. I had this with my MiL so that I could manage her finances for her. The usual procedure is to have an appointment with the bank (ours was at the hospital with NatWest coming in with all the paperwork). We had MiL & my passports etc as ID and MiL was able to prove she was mentally competent still at 92 so the visiting banker was happy to set us up.

You having access also means that you could check up on her to ensure there's nothing odd suddenly happening on her account - i.e. she hasn't written a cheque for £5k to some random individual or similar.

BridgetTheCat

My 89yo aunt is in a similar situation with no family within 100 miles. She has an arrangement with the bank that her solicitor can withdraw cash and bring it to her. Obviously they charge for this but I don’t know how much. However if your mum is still physically fit enough could she get a taxi to her bank? I persuaded my parents to give up their car a couple of years ago by calculating how many taxi journeys the sale price and running costs would pay for.

oldhaggis

I was in a similar position a couple of decades ago. My elderly mother lived 6 hours drive away and my children were 18 months and 6 years old. Mother dealt only in cash and didn't understand how credit and debit cards or cheques worked.

In those days people collected their pension in cash from Post Office. Hers was 6 miles way and there were very few buses. Initially some kind family friends would collect her pension for her once a month but then she began to lose capacity and claimed they had not brought her the money. I assured them that I believed them and thanked them for their kindness. Clearly after this incident, they understandably declined to continue fetching her pension. On my next visit I found she had put the money on top of her wardrobe.

My only option at the time was to send her cash though the post. I would never recommend this as the risks are high but she lived in such a remote area and had to pay her gardener and window cleaner in cash. I would collect her pension each time I visited.

Obviously this situation could not continue indefinitely and as we already had an enduring power of attorney in place, once she was diagnosed as having dementia , we were able to move her into residential care near us.

CRANKY40

You can have yourself added to her bank account and have a card on her account. The option then is that you can send cash Royal Mail Special Delivery by 1pm the next day. It is insured for loss that way (my late husband was a goldsmith and both my platinum wedding band and my engagement ring were sent to be verified and hallmarked by the Assay Office by this method).

If you are a joint person on her bank account this will also save you so much trouble if your mum becomes incapacitated for any reason even if just for a short time. My dad's 83 year old cousin has just added her son to her account for this reason. You will have to make an appointment with her bank for both of you to do this and you will need to take ID and so on but you'll also get a short visit with your mum which is no bad thing?