Is this a backward step?

[Jcloughie]

We are just tidying up our joint bank accounts. As my wife suffers from dementia I now find it necessary to invoke the power of attorney. Also, I wanted to reduce our current accounts from two to one. (More difficult than I first thought). The bank, Barclays were excellent. We were there for over 1 hour and all necessary bits were done with good advise. All direct debits were transferred to one account, but I have to deal with the income payments with the pension bodies directly. My teachers pension was dead easy on line. But my wife’s old age pension with the dwp is proving really difficult.

Now the odd bit. Today I received 3 letters from the bank. 1 had a cheque book for the account we are keeping, the other two had cheque books for the account we are closing.

We have not written a cheque for over 15 years I think!

Regarding the dwp. What a waste of time. 3 1 hour plus phone calls just to get through. I then spoke to someone who insisted that I quote the digital Power of Attorney code. He would not accept that ours are paper based. Told me to get them digitised with the Office of the Public Guardian. I told him that that was in progress and estimated may take 10 years. Eventually he said he would send an official to the house to look at it. But I have heard nothing.

Not at all helpful.

It should also be noted that in the case of our surgery. Invoking the health Power of Attorney has been very difficult. They have no systems for dealing with it. Very worrying.

John

 

[otherclive]

We are just tidying up our joint bank accounts. As my wife suffers from dementia I now find it necessary to invoke the power of attorney. Also, I wanted to reduce our current accounts from two to one. (More difficult than I first thought). The bank, Barclays were excellent. We were there for over 1 hour and all necessary bits were done with good advise. All direct debits were transferred to one account, but I have to deal with the income payments with the pension bodies directly. My teachers pension was dead easy on line. But my wife’s old age pension with the dwp is proving really difficult.

Now the odd bit. Today I received 3 letters from the bank. 1 had a cheque book for the account we are keeping, the other two had cheque books for the account we are closing.

We have not written a cheque for over 15 years I think!

Regarding the dwp. What a waste of time. 3 1 hour plus phone calls just to get through. I then spoke to someone who insisted that I quote the digital Power of Attorney code. He would not accept that ours are paper based. Told me to get them digitised with the Office of the Public Guardian. I told him that that was in progress and estimated may take 10 years. Eventually he said he would send an official to the house to look at it. But I have heard nothing.

Not at all helpful.

It should also be noted that in the case of our surgery. Invoking the health Power of Attorney has been very difficult. They have no systems for dealing with it. Very worrying.

John

I had LPOA for my father, and for the last three years for my BIL. My advise to anyone is take them out early for relatives or yourself. When the need to use them arise I couldn’t believe how differently organisations dealt with them. My father’s bank, Santander, were a nightmare. DWP for my father would not accept the digitised reference codes, so I had to go into our local DSS office who kindly took a photocopy, endorsed it and arranged to send it to DWP. Most finance and investment companies required a full copy of the LPOA, which undermines the OPG efforts to encourage use of discrete digital authorisation. For my BIL I simplified everything by ending several banks accounts and focussing it in to one, where we manage his monthly fees and outgoings. So far other than registering with HMRC I’ve not had to deal with them as his tax affairs run smoothly.

Once it’s all up and running a LPOA really does help but it’s not necessarily plain sailing to get to that position.

 

[Jcloughie]

I had LPOA for my father, and for the last three years for my BIL. My advise to anyone is take them out early for relatives or yourself. When the need to use them arise I couldn’t believe how differently organisations dealt with them. My father’s bank, Santander, were a nightmare. DWP for my father would not accept the digitised reference codes, so I had to go into our local DSS office who kindly took a photocopy, endorsed it and arranged to send it to DWP. Most finance and investment companies required a full copy of the LPOA, which undermines the OPG efforts to encourage use of discrete digital authorisation. For my BIL I simplified everything by ending several banks accounts and focussing it in to one, where we manage his monthly fees and outgoings. So far other than registering with HMRC I’ve not had to deal with them as his tax affairs run smoothly.

Once it’s all up and running a LPOA really does help but it’s not necessarily plain sailing to get to that position.

Thank you, that’s very useful information.

John

 

[DeauxChevaux]

Thank you for writing this thread, it helps me (maybe and others) plan for LPA and its issues

 

[otherclive]

Just to add that I obtained three authorised copies of the LPOA. One from OPG and two from our solicitor duly endorsed as copies. This was to avoid having to send the official OPG copy away as even by recorded delivery documents can get lost in the mail, or a recipients offices. Also some recipients took ages to process the change and the LPOA could be away for several weeks. So if you only have one copy things come to a halt.

 

[Beachball]

After caring for my wifes aunt for over four years, she was admitted to hospital and her condition declined, she started panicking and wanted her neice to have "power of attorney". I went to her solicitor and drove him back to her hospital bed where he discussed with her aunt in private [so could confirm her own wishes] and was granted this so could deal with everything like the bank etc. It felt like such a big thing to do but was necessary so we could carry out all her wishes and keep everything running as she wished. Wishing you all the best in the future.

 

[Jcloughie]

Just to add that I obtained three authorised copies of the LPOA. One from OPG and two from our solicitor duly endorsed as copies. This was to avoid having to send the official OPG copy away as even by recorded delivery documents can get lost in the mail, or a recipients offices. Also some recipients took ages to process the change and the LPOA could be away for several weeks. So if you only have one copy things come to a halt.

Good idea. £35 per official copy. But just found out DIY is possible.



John

 

[otherclive]

Good idea. £35 per official copy. But just found out DIY is possible.

View attachment 10271

John

I tried that with my father's LPOA but a couple of organisations did not accept it as they wanted to talk to him and in his care home he was not able to use a phone. The criteria of Mental Capacity is a very low bar, as both my father and BIL were/is deemed to have capacity, but in reality were/are unable to make any real decisions for themselves. My daughter who is a mental health nurse in an intervention team for the elderly comes across this every day. Patients are deemed to have capacity but unable to make meaningful decisions even if guided. Which can make them especially vulnerable when LPOAs are being set up by relatives who may not have their best interests at heart.

 

[Jcloughie]

I tried that with my father's LPOA but a couple of organisations did not accept it as they wanted to talk to him and in his care home he was not able to use a phone. The criteria of Mental Capacity is a very low bar, as both my father and BIL were/is deemed to have capacity, but in reality were/are unable to make any real decisions for themselves. My daughter who is a mental health nurse in an intervention team for the elderly comes across this every day. Patients are deemed to have capacity but unable to make meaningful decisions even if guided. Which can make them especially vulnerable when LPOAs are being set up by relatives who may not have their best interests at heart.

That’s a very sad state of affairs.

I have just ordered two official copies (£70 😟). Straight forward with the OPG by phone. On the hope they would be able to give advice, I mentioned that Barclays were very good, but the DWP and my surgery are awful. She said at least that one plus.

John