Deputyship

[Eaexh01]

The chance for me to get LPOA for my Mum has long gone and so am looking into applying for Deputy. As explained in my previous post Mum is currently under DoLS at a psych unit. She doesn’t have capacity and is likely to be an inpatient for at least 6 months.

Unfortunately I am already facing issues with the logistics of managing her affairs although I am grateful that most of her bills are paid by DD. The biggest problem I currently is with Halifax insurance who were entirely unhelpful when I told them her house is unoccupied and will be for some time.

i have lots of questions about the application process but furstly I am wondering if I should just hand it to a solicitor to complete it. I need to be appointed Deputy urgently and can’t risk delays through mistakes or errors I may make. The fee (in addition to court fees) would be £905 + vat). Reasonable??

 

[canary]

I dont know how much quicker it would be if a solicitor did it TBH. I did mums CoP application myself and found it doable, but it did take 6 months. Most of the waiting time is waiting for the court slot, although I believe that you can apply to the court to fast track it.

 

[thistlejak]

I second canary's response.

I did both MIL & FIL at same time - you will probably have to supply the information to the solicitor anyway so they are being paid to fill in forms . The CoP website has lots of helpful information as to what you need to do. I applied September last year and needed an interim order to get all the bank details - it took me 6 weeks to get all the information ( but that is another story as to the delay - just to say some banks are more helpful than others)- the final application went before the court in December and we got the actual order mid January.

If she owns her house and you will be selling it don't forget to ask for permission to sell it in your initial application - if you don't ask they don't give you permission to sell and you have to go back through the whole process again.

 

[nitram]

Leaving the house empty and potentially uninsured is not good.

Try contacting the insurers again, if necessary escalate the problem to head office, hopefully you will be able to come to some solution.

Until a premium is due it could mean extra conditions, visited every so often, water turned off, electricity turned off, letter box blocked,.... I've had all of these, I've also had drain central heating and leave heating on in winter!

 

[Eaexh01]

Thank you, this is really helpful. Naturally Mum’s solicitor is more than happy to take on the application process but actually I am more
Than capable of completing the forms and no point in shelling out if there is no value add.

I will also apply for an interim order to try and speed things up.

Thanks also for the advice on telling the COP we want to sell her house - the house has actually been on the market but of course we haven’t been able to accept any offers.

One other sticking point is whether I do this alone or apply for joint with my brother. The reality is he lives 4 hours away and to date has had very little involvement with Mum’s welfare or finances. Personally I just think it would complicate matters but not sure how to broach my suggestion of sole Deputyship with him

 

[canary]

Why not ask your brother what he thinks? I have a brother who was in exactly the same position and when I said that I was applying for deputyship and did he want to be involved, he declined.

Deputyship is more onerous than POA - you have to keep records of everything that you do as you have to submit annual financial reports which account for literally every penny spent, which makes it quite difficult for more than one detuty. Also the bank will only issue cheque book, cards etc to one person, so that makes it quite difficult too. I also dont know whether you would have to act jointly on every decision - and if thats so, dont do it because its a pain in the neck to even just go shopping and probably more involvement than your brother would want.

 

[thistlejak]

The interim order did not speed things up - it was granted to get details from banks etc - we knew that they had money everywhere just not how much and not account numbers needed to compete the application.
With regards to sole Deputyship - if something were to happen to you then a new application would have to be started. We did it as me and my husband - it is his parents - with our son as substitute - this was in agreement with my husbands siblings as they did not want to be involved. This covered all eventualities.
As it turned out they both owned the house we are having to apply for Trusteeship to enable us to sell thier house - not sure how it works with a sole owner - might be worth a call to the Court- they are very helpful on the phone.
As you say you want to get it right first time as it is a lenghty process.

 

[canary]

not sure how it works with a sole owner

Mum was the sole owner of her bungalow and I was the sole deputy.
There were no problems and it was very straighforward. I requested the authority to sell her property in the original application and was granted it - it was specifically allowed in the terms of the deputyship, so I simply gave one of the certificates to the solicitor who was dealing with the sale.