POA advise please

[southlucia]

Our Father has recently been given a diagnosis of vascular dementia. Dementia with Lewys bodies has also been mentioned, but as yet not official diagnosis. He lives alone. We approached him a couple of times with the suggestion of one of us having POA, but he refused. Since then he has deteriorated quite rapidly and we really need to sort out the POA. At what stage is he considered unable to make this decision? Any advise would be appreciated.

[dingly]

In my situation GP had to confirm mum still mentally able / mental capacity to make the 'decision' to appoint me POA. Without GP confirmation to our solicitor I would not have been granted POA. x

[bunnies]

The first question is would your father now be willing to agree to POA? Because if he isn't able to confirm that this is what he wants, no-one will be prepared to certify the document for sure, GP or not.

If you think he might still understand, if only roughly, what it is, and if he has two people who have known him for longer than 5 years that are willing to certify that he understands roughly what it means, and if he is willing to sign the document, then you might be able to do it. In England at least (I don't know about Scotland) you do not need a doctor to do this.

In my own experience my aunt did not have anyone else around who knew her and could certify, so we did have to go to a doctor. We asked a hospital consultant (GPs will very likely charge you). My aunt was still living at home with visiting carers, but her mental capacity was quite low. But she did know it was a safeguard to manage her finances if she became more ill, and that seemed to be enough to convince the doctor to sign. So, as I said at the beginning, the first thing you need to establish is if your father will be able to say he understands the need for it...

[nsc-68]

I have just done all this with my Grandparents, we are waiting for the application to go through-and they were adament they didnt want it. Grandma only got a diagnosis of alzheimers two months ago. I did the paper work myself without going a solicitor and saved a fortune. You are probably looking at about £450 solicitor fees plus about £130 for each application form. I was quoted about £800 for both of them plus the application form fees. One for health and welfare and one for property and financial affairs. I think you are just referring to the latter. The way we got round it was by saying they wouldnt have to worry about payments or things being late because we could do it all. At the moment they are still in control of their money, Grandma is still insistant on that but we will have control and access just in case. She isnt handling her money that well. We said this measure wasnt for now, it was for in the future and for just in case, that way she isnt getting defensive and upset at the idea. Unfortunatly now as she has deteriated rapidly I dont think she understands the implications of the powers of attorney and I think we may be met with resistant when we have to take over.

My mum and Uncle are joint powers of attorney, Im the replacement attorney (though you dont necessarily need one) and got a sympathetic family friend to be the witness and certificate provider. I think if you alone are to be the attorney you would need two people who have known your father for at least 5 years. (I would have to check that) If unfortunatly you cannot get the right people (GPs can charge about £150 for this) then you would probably have to get a court order to say he is not of sound mind and would need a GP to do this. This process is longer and more hard work than the LPA and I would avoid it if possible, but if it is your only option then go for it. This is something that inevitably needs to be done. My Grandparents refused point blank to do the health LPA so we just applied for the finance one.

Feel free to message me if you have any queries about the LPA as I know it inside out! Hope this helps and good luck.

[jenniferpa]

A lot of people have prepared these themselves so if you have any questions please post. The application pack comes with quite a detailed "how to" instruction booklet.

If he's still unwilling to make out an LPA then no amount of capacity (or otherwise) will help. At that point (and you may already be at that point) your only option is to apply to become his Deputy. It's more expensive, more time consuming but it is an option if he still refuses to cooperate in this.

I'm moving this thread to Legal and Financial as that is the most appropriate place for it.

[hollycat]

In our case when we did LPA for mum, we asked her consultant to sign off the LPA form as we felt she was best qualified to decide if mum had capacity to do so.

If you do it via a solicitor, you always stand the chance of the solicitor asking the doctor or consultant for a medical report/certificate/letter to advise on capacity.

We completed the forms ourselves then paid £150 for consultant to sign them and £260 to register it all TOTAL £410.

It appears that our elders seem to have a certain stubborn attitude towards LPA so the way we managed to convince mum was:

do you want the COUNCIL to look after you and your money or US ?

Best of luck

[southlucia]

Thanks so much for all your replies. You lot are brilliant
I'm going to raise the subject with Dad today, and depending on his response, read through this again to get my head around it. Just one more question for now.... Is it easier for just one person to have LPA, or 2 of us?

[jenniferpa]

I would say, if you get on with the other person two, to act jointly and severally. Or alternatively one of you as the primary attorney and one as a substitute. One doesn't like to think of it happening, but an attorney could become incapacitated and if that happened it would be as if the LPA had never been drawn up. I say jointly and severally because it's a real pain if you just do it jointly as you essentially have to be joined at the hip - all checks have to be double signed etc and it just makes it massively cumbersome.

[hollycat]

Echo Jennifer's post above.

We did hubby and I as joint and severally and our daughter as substitute.

Basically means I can act for mum or hubby can act for mum and we do NOT have to discuss anything with each other (although we actually do discuss things anyway).

[Andy7]

Sort out your LPA ASAP and my suggestion is use a solicitor, why because we did a LPA some years back now my father in law has at last been diagnosed with vascular dementia and are in a battle with the social over finances.

It seems that the patients welfare goes out of the window when things don't go the way the local authorities want.

So always use a solicitor..

Good luck.

[jenniferpa]

Hi Andy and welcome to Talking Point.

To be honest, I'm not sure how using a solicitor will avoid the sort of problems you're describing unless failure to us a solicitor resulted in an invalid LPA. And even then, if you look at the justice site you'll find some cases where solicitors were involved in failing to make a valid LPA so there are no guarantees.