Query about Court of Protection

[Pottingshed50]

We (my sister and I) hold a joint and severally EPA for mum. I deal with all the finances. Mum is in a CH and is self funding. If the time ever came to go to the CP. There is no way on earth that either my sister or myself could afford to pay any of my mother's expenses or fees, we are both pensioners on the basic pension. The posts I have read here are indicating that initially the family is supposed to pay out until the Court gets its act together! Am I reading that correctly. Mother has plenty of savings and a house to sell when the time comes. At the moment this covers her fees and day to day expenses including the running of the house which she still owns. Surely I cannot be alone here. Can someone in the know let me know please, it is quite worrying. As I say they would have to whistle if they were wanting any of us to pay Mums fees when she has all that money in the bank to pay anyway. Surely that cannot be how it is?

[Saffie]

We (my sister and I) a joint and severally EPA for mum. I deal with all the finances. Mum is in a CH and is self funding. If the time ever came to go to the CP.

If you have POA for your mother, why should you need to go to the COP? We were discussing Deputyshipon the other thread and this is only necessary when there is no POA in place and the person concerned has lost the mental capacity to set one up.

Without the permission of that person, one is unable to access funds which belong to her/him which is why the Deputyship is needed. In my case, the fees for the nursing home were held until the Deputyship was granted but this was very nearly at the same time as my husband left the hospital to enter the nursing home.

The whole purpose of the Deputyship is to protect the person for whom it is granted from any sort of financial and legal abuse.

However, as I have said, with an existing POA, I can't see that you have any cause to worry.

[jenniferpa]

As Saffie says I can't see a situation where you would have to apply to the court as you already have an EPA.

[Pottingshed50]

A million thank you's for putting my mind at rest. I really had got hold of the wrong end of the stick , handnt I. For once I am happy that I have. Yes we do hold (sis and me) an EPA and I am happily in a position to watch the bank on my laptop daily, so I know there is nothing going on untoward. You do hear of such dasterly things that some people to do the old folk. I wont say what I think of them on here but I can imagine everyone on here would express the same term.

Thank you once again.

[Nebiroth]

We (my sister and I) hold a joint and severally EPA for mum. I deal with all the finances. Mum is in a CH and is self funding. If the time ever came to go to the CP. There is no way on earth that either my sister or myself could afford to pay any of my mother's expenses or fees, we are both pensioners on the basic pension. The posts I have read here are indicating that initially the family is supposed to pay out until the Court gets its act together! Am I reading that correctly. Mother has plenty of savings and a house to sell when the time comes. At the moment this covers her fees and day to day expenses including the running of the house which she still owns. Surely I cannot be alone here. Can someone in the know let me know please, it is quite worrying. As I say they would have to whistle if they were wanting any of us to pay Mums fees when she has all that money in the bank to pay anyway. Surely that cannot be how it is?

There seem to be two issues here.

I am assuming that your EPA is registered as you are managing your mum's finances.

You don't need to involve the Court, because you have a valid EPA, which gives you the necessary access to your mum's finances. The only time, therefore, that you would need to involve the Court would be to sell her home (this is because very large transactions or the sales of property - espescially someone's main or only house - usually require specific permission from the Court, even where there is an attorney. The reasons are obvious and it is extremely unlikely the Court would block it) or if someone lodged a complaint about the attorney failing in their duties. In that case the Court would investigate and potentially revoke the attorneyship and appoint an independent to take over. This usually only happens when there is a family dispute that cannot be reconciled.


The other issue is your concern about payment of fees. As you have a registered EPA then the Court is not involved in this except in the matter of sale of mum's house. You cannot be obliged to pay mum's care fees yourself - only her assets are relevant. Therefore, either her assets are sufficient (in which case you as attorney access them to pay) or they are not (In which case, she would no longer be self funding).