My parents money questions

[Roxymoo]

HI sorry if this has been covered many times before. Situation is my Mum and I have LPA for my Dad. They both have individual current accounts and individual savings accounts with the same bank.

Can the two individual current accounts be merged into the 1 account in my Mums name? This is mainly for ease of Direct Debits as some are in one and some are in the other plus My Dad's current account has a very small amount in it and so not enough to cover future direct debits.

Can the savings account in my Dads name be transferred to an account in my name? Is this classed as a Gift? Not sure what implications that has.

My mum has been to the bank and registered the LPA but I think got told she cannot merge the accounts - is there another way of sorting this out? The bank staff were not very helpful. Is there a simpler way we could sort this out or do we need to change the direct debits to my Mum's account?

Any help or experience greatly appreciated, thank you.

 

[canary]

Hi @Roxymoo

Unfortunately, you have to keep their accounts separate and you are not allowed to simply transfer funds from his account into someone elses.

What you can do though, is rearrange the Direct Debits and standing orders.
I am assuming that you have had your dads POA registered at his bank so that you/your mum now have an attorney account for your dad. My advice is this: make sure that all his income goes into his current account - pension - Attendance Allowance etc so that it is truly separate. Then change all the Direct Debits to your mums account, work out what a reasonable amount for your dad to pay for his share of bills ("board and lodgings") and have this amount transferred on a standing order to your mums account. Anything else that is needed for your dad (eg clothes) come out of his account.

This way all the bills get paid, your dad is contributing to them, but it is obvious where his money is going.

 

[Roxymoo]

Good advice thank you. I just couldn’t get my head round it but setting up standing order makes the most sense, thank you.

 

[Beate]

The advice with dementia is usually to separate accounts rather than merge them, especially if the PWD has less money. This is because in any financial assessment any money in a joint account is classed as belonging 50:50 to the joint account holders.

Transferring money into someone else's name would be classed as deprivation of assets, so don't even think about it please.