LPA - am I ok?

[Salli]

The LPA is just registered and I have begun the process of stopping all the stuff being delivered that mum has been ordering – over £800 a month. But she is absolutely livid about the registration and is going to phone Office of Public Guardian and complain (they sent her registration notification with their phone number). She is 'disgusted' that this has been done behind her back. Of course it wasn't, she agreed to it and I was very careful to make sure she actually knew and understood – as did the certificate provider and of course the OPG wrote to her as well at the time. However, she remembers nothing. I have been subject to hours of venom when she was almost spitting with rage. I am interfering, need to mind my own business, who do I think I am trying to run her life and how dare I tell her what to do etc. etc. She says she was ill but is better now and everyone knows there is nothing wrong with her. All this from someone who had just told me she has £5 but meant £50, then indicated her will wasn't valid until I signed it, and that her missing money had been hidden by children.

I suppose if she does phone they will send her a form to complete or she will need to put something in writing so I should be not unduly bothered because she will not understand and ask me to do it! They may not even get her address from her as in her mini mental test she always gets it wrong. In a way, I wish I'd gone to solicitor now as all this is falling on my shoulders as I am sole attorney (my brother having disappeared over the horizon at mention of joint attorneyship), and I suppose it could look a bit dodgy or something. However, I'm pretty sure gp or consultant would confirm with medical evidence. But there is no formal diagnosis yet as mum is due for neuro psychological testing having had scan which did not show anything too untoward for her age – she's 92.

I have read somewhere that the attorney does not need medical evidence if lacking capacity is apparent (as it clearly is) and I have masses of evidence to show she has no idea what she is doing with her finances and is vulnerable to scams and being taken advantage of, so I think it will all be ok. Just looking for a bit of reassurance, I think!

[jenniferpa]

You will be fine. Can I ask - have you got the registered LPA back? Because if so, it's too late for her to do anything about it. However, even if it's not back yet there are only a few grounds on which it can be contested, most of them to do with the attorney's eligibility (the attorney is bankrupt, the attorney is dead, for example). If none of the factual grounds are applicable (and I don't think they are) then she's have to claim that she wasn't capable of making the LPA in the first place, or that she had revoked the LPA, or that fraud was used to force her to make the LPA or that the attorney was proposing to act in a way that would not be in the donors interest.

The reality is, of course, that she's extremely unlikely to be able to follow through with this, and even if she could it would be pretty easy to show that her objection was pat and parcel of the dementia.

I'll say it again - you will be absolutely fine.

[lin1]

Hello Salli
When mum first created the LPA their had to be at least one certificate provider to prove that mum had capacity to understand what she was donating to you her attorney and mum was agreeable to this
You know this I know this
sadly mum has forgotten

I think you just need to weather this storm and perhaps not mention the LPA or what you are doing re mums finances to mum
I found their comes a time when explaining to much can make things worse
I made this mistake of explaining too much to my mum, it certainly put her head in a spin, I had to learn not to and it wasn't easy

Ps Jennifer is quite correct in what she has told you

[lin1]

Hi me again
I dont know if you have read this thread apologies if you have
it just that you may find it helpful, tho I must say its not easy to follow when tearing your hair out
my halo slipped many a time

compassionate communication with the memory impaired
http://forum.alzheimers.org.uk/showt...emory-Impaired

[Salli]

Thanks Jennifer for confirming what I thought - good to have some reassurance. Yes, it's registered and I have the forms back, and mum also received a form advising her. Lin, thanks too, but it's all a bit fresh in her (muddled) mind. Her lifeblood, i.e. debit card, is going to be unusable and someone has told her this, hence the ranting!

[jenniferpa]

Then yes it's too late. Of course you still have to deal with fall-out but she can't actually rescind it.

[Nebiroth]

You will be perfectly fine. Once the LPA is registered the person who created it cannot rescind it, since they have - by definition - lost capacity.

If your mum does by some miracle manage to complain - which in itself will involve a lot of form filling, which she won't be able to cope with - then it would be immediately obvious that she has lost capacity and it will go nowhere.

The idea that they are perfectly well and able to manage is extremely common in dementia - almost a defining feature, I would say - the Office of the Public Guardian and the Court will have seen all of this before. In essence, whilst of course they have to take complaints seriously, there is very little chance of anything being done. In any case, you have plenty of evidence that your mum wasn't able to manage her affairs - her reckless spending being and obvious example.

In short you will be fine aside from having to weather the storm, there is in reality nothing your mum can do and her threats are empty ones.

You are correct in that an attorney is not required to provide any formal evidence of lack of capacity when they register the LPA