question on selling house without my mothers consent to fund care home fees

[Aquamanda]

My mother has been diagnosed with early Alzheimers and is on Aricept; my father died a few months ago and she did not cope well at home on her own. She had 2 bad falls, did not use her Lifeline, could not cope with phone calls, could not cook, so only ate cold food etc. She refused any help from social services or private care agencies so I tried to do everything I could to support her. She finally decided to try a wonderful residential home, very near to my house, which was a great surprise as she has always had a phobia of any sort of residential care. We are delighted with the care she is receiving but she is still not 100% happy and often talks, sometimes very aggressively, of returning home, even though she said she would kill herself if she had to stay in her own home any longer, before she moved into the residential home. She agreed for me to have both types of Power of Attorney, money and health and welfare. However, very soon, I will have to sell her house to fund her care and I know she will never agree to this. Even today, she told me she is going home 'tomorrow'! How can I get to the position of being able to sell her home without her consent; at the moment the house is unoccupied and is costing a fortune to run each month and we need the capital to fund her care.
Do I have to get the residential home to get a Doctor to declare her mentally unfit to make decisions now, or does the Power of Attorney give me automatic rights to sell her house, as it is in her best interest?
Many thanks

 

[jenniferpa]

I'm assuming you have registered the LPA. If that is the case, you don't have to obtain her consent - you may now do whatever you have to do to manage her finances in her best interests. Unfortunately a lot of people talk of returning "home" even thought that isn't an option, and for some of them, the home they are talking about may be the home of their childhood.

 

[Saffie]

I sympathise with you greatly about this because, even though Jennifer is right i know, i get the feeling you do not want your mother to be upset about this. I can understand that. I think to lose one's home can be terribly upsetting but a lot will depend upon how advanced your mother's AD is. Will she remember it if you tell her what you are doing? Do you ever take her out of the home? If not, then she will never know and a litle white lie - we all have to tell them as sometimes it's the only way - will ensure your mother remains unaware. Good luck with this, i know it won't be easy but what must be, must be.

 

[graybags]

Assuming the LPA's are registered then you can go ahead and sell the house as if it were your own, something that my sister and I have literally just done, fortunately in our case pretty much painlessly, both in terms of the actual process and mum and dad's reactions to it.

 

[Aquamanda]

Thank you so much for your helpful replies; so I guess I have the right to sell the house under the 'money' power of Attorney rather than the Health and Welfare POA? The reason I ask this is because I spoke to S Services before my mother went into care as I was so concerned about her and I mentioned that presumably I would have the right to say where she lived once the POA came through but they told me that was not so, and that she would have to be declared mentally unfit before I could action the Health and Welfare POA but I assume that does not apply to the Financial POA?
Yes, both POA's are currently being registered with the Courts and should come through this month.
You are right, Saffie, I do not want to upset my mother - I am afraid she would really react if she found out I was selling or had sold her house. Before she went in the home, she kept saying that of course the house would have to be sold in due course, but now she never mentions that; in fact she has gone into a very negative phase over the last few days and keeps saying she is definitely going home; she does mean she wants to go home to her old house. Her memory comes and goes, e.g. she does not know the day or time, gets confused re things, but is still really sharp re some things, like she could do a crossword and have a conversation with someone. So she never stays on the same level, one minute she is sharp and rational, and then another time, she is very confused and her short term memory is very bad. I am finding this all so stressful as I know most people play up when they go into care and say they want to go home but my mother is really stubborn and I am scared she is going to really demand to go home. I just don't know how I will cope if that happens, plus we have paid a huge non returnable deposit to the home etc etc.
thanks for listening
Elizabeth

 

[nitram]

lPA

"...they told me that was not so, and that she would have to be declared mentally unfit before I could action the Health and Welfare POA but I assume that does not apply to the Financial POA?..."

That's correct, a registered F&A LPA can be used whether the donor has capacity or is incapable (subject to no clause prohibiting this) but a H&W LPA can only be used if the donor is deemed incapable of making the decision in question.

If she is in a care home because she would otherwise pose a danger to herself and/or others and she says that she does not want to stay in the home but go home it could be argued that she is not capable of making that decision and you could invoke the H&W LPA

 

[safetyboots]

Lpa

Hello

We had to do the same in September last year.As long as the Property & Affairs has been set up with the Office of the Public Guardian then you can sell her house for her.
We did tell Mum what we were doing & it was my sister & I that started crying, not her, so I don't think she really knew what we were saying to her.

I would like to say to evrybody, that it is so important to get POA set up for parents, we were so pleased that we did,as it saved us so much bother.

I hope it all goes well.
One other thing if there is more than one Attorney & you are down as acting together on behalf of your parent, then both of you will have to be involved in the selling of the property or whatever it is you are doing for them.

 

[Aquamanda]

Thanks so much for all the great support, clarification and advice. I now understand that the house sale would come under the Financial POA which kicks in immediately but the other POA will not kick in until she is declared mentally incapable. It was her decision to give the home a try and she is self funded so am not sure how to proceed if she really keeps on about going home.
It is definitely in her best interests to stay in care; it is a wonderful place, with lots of activities etc. She has forgotten that she could not cope before, denies all knowledge of having falls, says she cooked a 'ready meal' every night, even though she cannot even use the microwave so was living on cold food unless we fed her, would not let anyone change the sheets on her bed, did not wash her clothes often (and is very clever at making up plausible lies about all of this) and would not contemplate any outside agencies getting involved. It was an absolute nightmare; she was not very local to me so the neighbours kept having to be involved, like when she switched the lifeline or phone off at the socket, and they were getting fed up with it, as you can imagine.
So how do I proceed if we have to insist that she stays in the care home? Does the fact that she is currently having 24 hour care count for invoking the Health & Welfare POA, and would the home have to arrange a GP to invoke it?
thanks so much everyone
Elizabeth

 

[jenniferpa]

If she really wanted to leave and she was felt to be at risk, there would have to be a dols assessment (deprivation of liberty).

Look at this fact sheet http://www.alzheimers.org.uk/site/scripts/documents_info.php?documentID=1327