Power of attorney / court protection

[stu291155]

My mum has not been diagnosed with dementia but the doctors say she is showing signs of dementia and suffers with paranoia which is getting increasingly worse. She has been in and out of hospital for the last 3/4 years on a regular basis suffering from urinary and chest infections which have added to her confusion. She has had carers assigned to her but will not let them do anything apart from the very occasional wash and empty her commode . She is hospital now and as had mental capacity assements and the doctors are now saying she doesn't have mental capacity and that because of her needs she now needs to go into a residential nursing home. Myself and brother don't have power of attorney and she has a property that has to be sold to cover her nursing home fees. My question is can we only go down the court protection route or could we still get power of attorney obviously with doctors input and agreement

 

[Katrine]

Do you think your mum would be willing to grant you POA if she is displaying paranoia? She has to be willing to sign the forms without coercion (feeling forced into it). If she has been assessed as lacking mental capacity then it's going to be difficult to prove that she understands the purpose of POA, which she will need to do at the time of signing, even if she forgets about it afterwards.

My mum had got as far as drafting the forms with her solicitor, then became very ill and was in hospital for some months. My brother got the solicitor into the hospital to get the forms signed and sent off for registration. The solicitor questioned her very carefully because her mental capacity was borderline to say the least. The solicitor was satisfied that my mum was very clear about who she wanted to manage her affairs, and that she wasn't deviating from her previous instructions. Therefore the solicitor felt my mum did have mental capacity to grant POA, even though she was generally very confused. I don't think it would have worked if my mum had not already given instructions about what she wanted.

You can fast track an application for Deputy powers via the COP, not necessarily to get full Deputyship quickly but to get authorisation to access bank funds that are needed to pay for NH fees. Alternatively your mum might qualify for assistance from her local authority for a deferred payment arrangement. This is in effect a loan where the LA pays the fees and gets reimbursed later when her property is sold.