Financial matters

thats life

Registered User
Jan 2, 2013
98
0
Northumberland
My friends mother in law has frontal lobe dementia, her husband and sister in law have power of attorney, She lives in sheltered housing funded from rent from a house she owns she also has a good private pension.DIL wants to transfer £250.00 a month from her bank account into, accounts belonging to her grandchildren, my friend thinks this would be financial abuse. Any advice???
 

Beate

Registered User
May 21, 2014
12,179
0
London
Yes it would be. As DIL is not attorney, they just need to tell her she can't. Some people are unbelievable.
 

Shedrech

Registered User
Dec 15, 2012
12,649
0
UK
hi that's life
interesting that you write 'DIL wants to ...' rather than MIL, so this is not even a thought coming from Grannie that she wants to gift £3000 a year to grandchildren

Attorneys are required to act in the best financial interests of the donor - when this donor ie your MIL has her own rent etc to pay, and the possibility of further care fees in the future, how would giving away this amount per month be in her financial interests?
 

thats life

Registered User
Jan 2, 2013
98
0
Northumberland
Made a mistake

I made a mistake with DIL, it is my friends sister in law who wants to put the £250.00 a month in grand kids accounts, she thinks as she has power of attorney, she is allowed to do this
 

lemonjuice

Registered User
Jun 15, 2016
1,534
0
England
I made a mistake with DIL, it is my friends sister in law who wants to put the £250.00 a month in grand kids accounts, she thinks as she has power of attorney, she is allowed to do this

As Power of Attorney she has 'rights' to administer financial control only in the interests of the person for whom they have PoA - in other words the mother with dementia.
If not it would certainly be classed under deprivation of assets and I would think would constitute abuse of that power. The grandchildren could be asked to pay back those 'gifts' when money runs short, so I hope they would be in a financial posoition to do so.
 

Shedrech

Registered User
Dec 15, 2012
12,649
0
UK
hi again that's life
your friend's SIL needs to read up carefully on her RESPONSIBILITIES as an Attorney; she has no 'rights', and definitely no right to make decisions about the donor's money that benefit her as Attorney or her children - her duty is to always act in the best financial interests of the donor
she may make gifts as was customary to the donor eg if the donor gave each grandchild £25/100 for each birthday, that can still be done - but that is very different from setting up a new arrangement and one that will take a substantial amount out of the donor's funds (I'm assuming the donor doesn't have millions)
here's a link to the GOV site re POA
https://www.gov.uk/power-of-attorney/overview
it can all seem such a good idea that granny would want to give her beloved grandchildren some money before she dies - the fact is granny wasn't in the habit of doing that before; if she had wanted to she easily could have
best wishes
 
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