POA Rules help

Cromo6555

New member
Sep 29, 2020
2
0
My wife and her brother are joint POA over their fathers finances, their father has dementia. My wife wants to have access to all her fathers financial dealing that her brother looks after. He refuses to let her have any information and continues to make all financial decisions without consulting my wife. He has recently arranged for their father to go into a care home and told my wife to take him in as he was going away on holiday the day before. My wife has requested on many occasions information and details of their fathers financial incomings and out goings. He will not reply and totally ignores the emails, text messages.
Legally where does my wife stand and what can she do about this, how can she force her brother to respond? As you have probably realised my wife and her brother are not talking to each other.

Thanks
 

Rosettastone57

Registered User
Oct 27, 2016
1,839
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Welcome to the forum. Others will be along soon with better advice, however is the LPA written as attorneys working jointly or jointly and severally?
 

MaryMac54

Registered User
Aug 23, 2019
15
0
It was explained to us that where there were more than one Attorney they could act together or separately. There is usually one person who takes responsibility but this does mean someone can take over if the other can't. This is one of the drawbacks if one is excluded. I understood that Attorneys can only act in the best interest of the person and not for themselves. One example I was given was: A niece sold the Aunt's property and moved her in with them and built an extension with the Aunt's money. This was deemed to benefit the niece as the property was in her name albeit the Aunt lived there and it breached the POA. So the question is 'do you believe your wife's brother is using his position for the benefit of your wife's father'? I would suggest that your wife gets some legal advice. Is the Local Authority involved in the moving to the Care Home as I am sure they would scrutinise the finances because of having to pay Care Home Fees. I am taking the lead for my husband's finances although my son also has POA and we have also set up two alternates should we be unable to fulfil the role. I am interested in peoples comments on this as it probably affects quite a lot of us.
 

Bernycol

New member
Oct 8, 2020
6
0
It was explained to us that where there were more than one Attorney they could act together or separately. There is usually one person who takes responsibility but this does mean someone can take over if the other can't. This is one of the drawbacks if one is excluded. I understood that Attorneys can only act in the best interest of the person and not for themselves. One example I was given was: A niece sold the Aunt's property and moved her in with them and built an extension with the Aunt's money. This was deemed to benefit the niece as the property was in her name albeit the Aunt lived there and it breached the POA. So the question is 'do you believe your wife's brother is using his position for the benefit of your wife's father'? I would suggest that your wife gets some legal advice. Is the Local Authority involved in the moving to the Care Home as I am sure they would scrutinise the finances because of having to pay Care Home Fees. I am taking the lead for my husband's finances although my son also has POA and we have also set up two alternates should we be unable to fulfil the role. I am interested in peoples comments on this as it probably affects quite a lot of us.
Hi there. I am in a similar situation with my sister, who has care of my mother. She constantly refuses to consult.
What your wife can do is register her POA with her fathers bank. They will then give her a debit card and online banking access. I dealt with Barclays and it took a few weeks, but I can now oversee any transactions on my mums account. I hope this helps.
 

Cromo6555

New member
Sep 29, 2020
2
0
Hi there. I am in a similar situation with my sister, who has care of my mother. She constantly refuses to consult.
What your wife can do is register her POA with her fathers bank. They will then give her a debit card and online banking access. I dealt with Barclays and it took a few weeks, but I can now oversee any transactions on my mums account. I hope this helps.

Hi Thanks to everyone's replies, I have been to my fathers bank and registered as POA but will not give out another card or acces to my father online banking. They say that they can only give out that information and access to one person.
 

lollyc

Registered User
Sep 9, 2020
947
0
When POA is completed there are options for the attorneys to act
"jointly" i.e attornies have to agree , or "jointly and severally", where they can act independently. If jointly, each attorney can apply to access any of the bank accounts etc., without permission from the others, as Bernycol says. You will need the original POA document , or a certified copy. My sister and I act jointly and severally, with me primarily controlling Mum's money, as she lives with me, and has several accounts. We both have card/cheque book for one of her current accounts (not sure why the bank won't allow that Cromo6555?) and my sister has main access to another savings account. If anything happens to me she would be able to deal with Mum's money until she had applied to manage the other accounts. It works for us - but we do speak to each other!
 

Bernycol

New member
Oct 8, 2020
6
0
When POA is completed there are options for the attorneys to act
"jointly" i.e attornies have to agree , or "jointly and severally", where they can act independently. If jointly, each attorney can apply to access any of the bank accounts etc., without permission from the others, as Bernycol says. You will need the original POA document , or a certified copy. My sister and I act jointly and severally, with me primarily controlling Mum's money, as she lives with me, and has several accounts. We both have card/cheque book for one of her current accounts (not sure why the bank won't allow that Cromo6555?) and my sister has main access to another savings account. If anything happens to me she would be able to deal with Mum's money until she had applied to manage the other accounts. It works for us - but we do speak to each other!
Hello again. Are you sure you have officially
Hi Thanks to everyone's replies, I have been to my fathers bank and registered as POA but will not give out another card or acces to my father online banking. They say that they can only give out that information and access to one person.

Hello again. Are you sure you have officially registered the POA with the bank.
As lollyc says, seems a bit odd they won,t give you access.
You will need the certified copies of the POA to do that.
If you don,t have them you can order copies from the Office of the Public Guardian.
 

nitram

Registered User
Apr 6, 2011
30,072
0
Bury
@Cromo6555
If the POA is joint not joint and several every action has to be actioned by all attorneys.
With online banking and use of cards this cannot be done, hence they are not allowed.
 
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lollyc

Registered User
Sep 9, 2020
947
0
That makes sense nitram, but if cromo6555's is jointly (not severally) then she should be involved in every transaction relating to her father's money. It doesn't sound like she is.
 

MartinWL

Registered User
Jun 12, 2020
2,025
0
67
London
@Cromo6555 to help us to help you can you say what the POA actually says, is it jointly and severally, or jointly only? Are there any additional stipulations as to who can act in what circumstances? If so please quote them word for word ( excluding names). This will help everyone to give advice.
 

northumbrian_k

Volunteer Host
Mar 2, 2017
4,415
0
Newcastle
I am an Attorney for my wife's Financial affairs (and health), acting jointly and severally with her son. In practice this means that I do everything as he has never shown any interest in acting on his Mother's behalf. This makes it much easier for me to act promptly and in her best interests. If the situation arose where he wanted to have details about her finances and/or become more involved in decisions then I would see it as part of my duty as an Attorney to give him the relevant information. From what @Cromo6555 says it would seem that, as she has requested, his wife should have a reasonable expectation of being given relevant details of her Father's financial affairs and how they are managed.