Lasting power of attorney

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  • HUMBUG
    HUMBUG Posts: 339
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    edited 20 April 2018 at 12:09AM
    I've had lots of issues with the LPA process . It is very rigid and inflexible to even the smallest of errors where they reject the LPA and you can get charged an extra £41 to reissue.
    For example , the online system has some sort of intelligence where if you are repeating the first few characters of an attorney/donor/witness name it will offer you an option to choose and repopulate fields (such as name, address , postcode, etc) instead of retyping it all in again. Now when I typed in the full GP name and address for my mother's LPA , I typed in our GP's name , address, postcode (ie. Dr XXXXX) . But when I re-used the 'repopulation' option for my fathers LPA , I didn't notice that it had defaulted to 'Mr' instead of 'Dr'.
    So on the day I arranged the meeting for my parents to visit the GP to get all the witness and certificate provider signatures , I happened to notice this 'Trivial' error on my fathers LPA (but I'd missed spotting it before I paid the £82). Not knowing whether the OPG would reject my LPA for this trivial error or not , I had little choice but to speedily go online again and create a brand new LPA from scratch and fix the 'Mr' to 'Dr' error . This cost me another £82 to create a brand new one. Now if I had used the original faulty one and sent it to the OPG for registering , they might have rejected it and I would lose my £82 fee. By spotting the error ,not sending the LPA , creating a brand new one (although it cost another £82 upfront) , I will get the my original £82 refunded after 40 days (too long for me so I have complained to their Chief Executive).
    The process is far to rigid and inflexible to even the most trivial of errors offering little option to correct things after you've paid. It is time consuming , frustrating and has made me very angry today. I'm sure they could make the process a great deal more flexible and limit penalising the public for trivial errors.
    Further , when I visited my GP to sign as Certificate Provider , he made a mistake writing in the date , crossed it out and corrected it (adding a little signature next to the error) . Now that has really stressed me out because I don't know whether that trivial error will now cause the LPA to be rejected .
    So more time spent today , scanning that page and sending it to the OPG Customer Services asking whether they will reject my LPA because of that correction typo error (expected time to receive a reply = 10 days).
    Even further bad news when we were about to leave the GP's office after he spent 5 minutes max filling out the forms as witness to the donor signatures (ie. my parents) and Certificate Provider. He asked his secretary to make photocopies and then she told me she would send me the bill for the time and effort spent signing and photocopying the forms. Wow! Never expected that and they never forewarned me that there would be a charge for signing LPA forms.

    So far spent £82 for my mother's LPA, £82 X 2 for my fathers LPA, taxi fare for my elderly parents back and forth to the GP, plus expecting some more unknown costs from the GP practice. And I still don't yet know whether the OPG will reject my father's LPA because of the GP's typo corrected date error.
    Surely , they can make this whole process more flexible as it seems to be an easy way of making money from the public for trivial errors.
  • AnotherJoe
    AnotherJoe Posts: 19,622
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    edited 20 April 2018 at 8:55AM
    It's not necessary to use a doctor or similar professional to witness.
    Anyones that's known them for two years would do.
    And then you can check the documents online before you print, you can print and check and then amend and reprint if you find a mistake. That seems quite flexible to me.

    Edit: also forget your conspiracy theories about them trying to encourage mistakes to rake in more money, they aren't making money from it, it runs at break even, that's what the recent refunds were about. Most (perhaps all?) of your additional spend was self inflicted especially all the taxi fare / GP stuff.
  • Flugelhorn
    Flugelhorn Posts: 5,492
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    edited 20 April 2018 at 7:43AM
    Ooops - yes it is private work for the GP and not covered by the NHS, TBH many GPs are reluctant get involved and usually advise people to get a friend of the person to be the certificate provider instead, the tend to know them better on a day to day basis.

    Those who do do it will charge - for example I have just googled and found one example list of fees :
    Exam and cert £110 (£104 from another one in 2014)
    witness to LPA £46
  • HUMBUG
    HUMBUG Posts: 339
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    edited 20 April 2018 at 2:46PM
    AnotherJoe wrote: »
    It's not necessary to use a doctor or similar professional to witness.
    Anyones that's known them for two years would do.
    And then you can check the documents online before you print, you can print and check and then amend and reprint if you find a mistake. That seems quite flexible to me.

    Edit: also forget your conspiracy theories about them trying to encourage mistakes to rake in more money, they aren't making money from it, it runs at break even, that's what the recent refunds were about. Most (perhaps all?) of your additional spend was self inflicted especially all the taxi fare / GP stuff.

    The taxi fare stuff and GP charges were just a pointer to how time consuming and costly the whole process is (even when you DIY it).
    However, I didn't expect the repop tool to change the Dr to Mr, so wasn't looking to check that as an error. Imho, that is an issue or bug their website needs to fix so I want them to fast track my refund rather than wait 40 days.

    The GP practice website doesn't state any fees for non-NHS admin work and I was emailing them back and forth whether our GP was prepared to sign the forms (I think 5 emails were exchanged). Not once did they inform me that there was a charge involved until after he had signed them. So if they charge £46 to witness an LPA , that will mean another £92 for 5 mins , plus maybe another £92 to sign as Certificate Provider . So £184 for 10 mins ?

    PS. They can quite easily make their process less rigid so that the customers don't have to recreate a brand new LPA and pay another £82 to amend a trivial error such as changing Mr to Dr .
  • HUMBUG
    HUMBUG Posts: 339
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    With the list below it sort of leaves one with no option but to use your GP , especially with parents who are virtually housebound and don't get to meet other people apart from relatives.


    People who can't be a certificate provider
    The certificate provider must not be:

    an attorney or replacement attorney for the LPA

    an attorney or replacement attorney in any other LPA or enduring power of attorney that you've already made

    a member of your or your attorneys families including wives, husbands, civil partners, in-laws and step-relatives

    an unmarried partner, boyfriend or girlfriend of yours or of any of your attorneys whether or not they live at the same address

    your business partner or one of your attorneys business partners

    your employee or one of your attorneys employees

    an owner, manager, director or employee of a care home where you live, or a member of their family

    anyone running or working for a trust corporation appointed as an attorney in a financial decisions LPA
  • HUMBUG
    HUMBUG Posts: 339
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    Here is something useful if an error has been made by the Certificate Provider.The contents of the emails was sent below by OPG Customer Services.


    Thank you for your email dated 19/04/2018 the contents of which have been noted.

    The Office of the Public Guardian does not provide a pre application checking service to determine the validity of an LPA and is unable to give direction regarding registration of LPA's. The status of a document in terms of perfect/imperfect/invalid, can only be determined when an application to register such documents is submitted to the OPG.

    However I can advise the correct way in which a document can be amended. If the LPA has already been signed by the donor in section 9 in Property & Finance then no amendments can be made to sections 1-8. If the donor has not yet signed section 15 then amendments can be made to sections 10 (Certificate Providers declaration) and 11 (Attorney/s declaration).

    This can be done by simply crossing through the mistake, (do not use correction fluid as this will invalidate the LPA) then write the correction in the next nearest available space, this amendment then needs to be initialled by
    a. the donor and the certificate provider regards section 10.
    b. the attorney and their witness regards section 11


    Good to know that corrections can be done as per above but I wish I knew this before I paid another £82 for correcting Mr to Dr .
  • AnotherJoe
    AnotherJoe Posts: 19,622
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    edited 21 April 2018 at 7:04AM
    HUMBUG wrote: »
    The taxi fare stuff and GP charges were just a pointer to how time consuming and costly the whole process is (even when you DIY it).
    Its not a pointer at all since its not a requirement of the LPA that you use a doctor nor that you take a taxi to your doctor. Its utterly irrelevant. When i did mine and Mrs AJ's I used my next door neighbour, when i did my mums, i used the lady in the flat about a minutes walk away from her along the corridor. No fees no taxi.

    Your experience is all self-inflicted damage.
    HUMBUG wrote: »
    T
    However, I didn't expect the repop tool to change the Dr to Mr, so wasn't looking to check that as an error. Imho, that is an issue or bug their website needs to fix so I want them to fast track my refund rather than wait 40 days.

    So you didn't check what came up there, you didn't check it when you had a final look before printing (unless you didn't bother) you didn't check it after you printed, and you didnt check after you got it signed (unless you didn't bother? ) and before you sent it off.

    And thats the fault of the LPA process according to you?

    HUMBUG wrote: »

    The GP practice website doesn't state any fees for non-NHS admin work and I was emailing them back and forth whether our GP was prepared to sign the forms (I think 5 emails were exchanged). Not once did they inform me that there was a charge involved until after he had signed them. So if they charge £46 to witness an LPA , that will mean another £92 for 5 mins , plus maybe another £92 to sign as Certificate Provider . So £184 for 10 mins ?

    This is irrelevant to the LPA as its neither necessary nor required, and any fees your doctor charges are nothing to do with the LPA.

    HUMBUG wrote: »

    PS. They can quite easily make their process less rigid so that the customers don't have to recreate a brand new LPA and pay another £82 to amend a trivial error such as changing Mr to Dr .

    And you could have done that had you not painted yourself into a corner by unnecessarily booking GP time to sign the docs and put yourself under time pressure.

    All Self Inflicted.
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