problems with Power of Attorney

GrannyJo

Registered User
Jul 9, 2014
2
0


My mother was diagnosed with Alzheimer's Disease in 2011. She is now living in sheltered accommodation and, fortunately, she is receiving good care. However, I do all the shopping for my mother and look after her financial affairs. I have Power of Attorney for my mother and in the past three years I have been asked to provide evidence of this on several occasions. Taking the documents to a local organisation for them to be checked has been no problem but I am becoming increasingly reluctant to post the documents to organisations in other cities. Just recently, I have received requests to post the documents to DWP in Northern Ireland, and to EON in London. I live in the North-West and, frankly, I don't want to post the actual documents to either place. Surely there must be some way I can prove to these organisations that I do indeed have Power of Attorney for my mother without having to post the original documents over and over again? I would be interested to hear if anyone has found a solution to this problem.
 

Raggedrobin

Registered User
Jan 20, 2014
1,425
0
Yes, you can get photocopies certified by various specified people such as a solicitor etc. there is some discussion about this on the financial forum. For DWP some people have said you can take the original to a local Jobcentre plus and they will copy it and send it on. Everyone who's posts I have read strongly advise not letting go of the original if poss as apparently it is a big problem if it gets lost.
 

Dazmum

Registered User
Jul 10, 2011
10,322
0
Horsham, West Sussex
Do.you have several certified copies GrannieJo? If I have to send them anywhere I always enclose a letter asking for it to be returned and send an sae too. I've never lost any this way, although it is a pain having to do it!
 

lin1

Registered User
Jan 14, 2010
9,350
0
East Kent
Hello
You are wise to be very cautious about posting the original LPA documents.
Mail does get lost in the post and could easily be lost or shredded by the company who requested them.

It is possible to get certified copies made, normal photo copies are not usually accepted but it is worth contacting them to find out.

If you want to get certified copies made I suggest you shop around as prices will vary greatly.
solicitors can do them
I believe job centres can as well, but have read on here that some establishments will not accept them from job centres.
I also believe that if the worst should happen and you mislay the original , they can use a certified copy to re issue an Original document , if I am right in this (others here will know for sure) it would be wise to have one or two certified copies made just in case.

Hope this helps

Just noticed you are a new member
Welcome to TP.
 
Last edited:

lostflower

Registered User
Jul 7, 2014
7
0
stoke on trent


My mother was diagnosed with Alzheimer's Disease in 2011. She is now living in sheltered accommodation and, fortunately, she is receiving good care. However, I do all the shopping for my mother and look after her financial affairs. I have Power of Attorney for my mother and in the past three years I have been asked to provide evidence of this on several occasions. Taking the documents to a local organisation for them to be checked has been no problem but I am becoming increasingly reluctant to post the documents to organisations in other cities. Just recently, I have received requests to post the documents to DWP in Northern Ireland, and to EON in London. I live in the North-West and, frankly, I don't want to post the actual documents to either place. Surely there must be some way I can prove to these organisations that I do indeed have Power of Attorney for my mother without having to post the original documents over and over again? I would be interested to hear if anyone has found a solution to this problem.

I don't have POA on my Mums affairs but I was made an appointee for her Pension by the DWP and any documents they had to see an original copy of, I took to the local job centre who photocopied them and signed to say they had seen the original, this was fine
 

Saffie

Registered User
Mar 26, 2011
22,513
0
Near Southampton
I've just had to send off my marriage certificate. I only have ever had the one so I was advised to send it via what used to be registered post but is now apparantly called Signed Delivery. It cost me £1.20 which I was told is a flat rate for letters under a certain weight.
 

Katrine

Registered User
Jan 20, 2011
2,837
0
England
I have found that some organisations will accept a scanned copy sent by email, while others require a hard copy. There are times when you need to contact a number of organisations and you don't want one of them to be taking their own sweet time to return your precious original, or your only certified copy. I therefore recommend that you arrange to get 3 certified copies.

These might cost around £10 each from a solicitor, unless your own solicitor is prepared to do it gratis. Some solicitors charge for making certified copies but MIL's solicitor doesn't and we must have had 10 copies from him over the last 12 years. What happens is the solicitor photocopies each page of the original POA, then puts a sticker on each page stamped with their logo and the date, and signed by the solicitor. So a certified copy is a photocopy, but marked in such a way as to certify that the original has been seen and approved as genuine.
 

Beate

Registered User
May 21, 2014
12,179
0
London
Well I just phoned the Office of Public Guardian and they advised me that in their opinion, unless the donor self-certifies, only 3 people can make certified copies: a solicitor, a notary and a stockbroker. They'd never heard of job centres doing this but said if a bank etc. is prepared to accept a copy certified by a job centre, that's up to them. So I guess it's worth trying.
 

Trailblazerram

Registered User
Jul 9, 2014
1
0
Trailblazerram

Hi I am new to this forum but find many of the comments helpful when trying to deal with my mum's illness. The thing that annoys me is that I have Power of Attorney and I have 4 copies from my solicitor BUT I do not know why every financial institution has to have a different process for accepting this paper and giving me the opportunity to deal with my mum's finances. It has taken me literally 10 weeks to complete everything to the standard and systems that I have been asked to follow; filing in different forms and returning other paperwork. As if this illness isn't hard enough without banks etc putting obstacles in the way!
 

Raggedrobin

Registered User
Jan 20, 2014
1,425
0
i thought the job centre copy thing only applied to copies being prepared for the DWP?:confused:
neither or my banks has needed copies certified by a solicitor, one says a teacher will do and the other scanned the original while I was there to make their own copy.
 

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