Quick question re: form EP1PG

[Chrissyan]

I am trying to get an Eduring Power of Attorney registered via the solicitor (waste of money) I received four of the above forms today to be signed by myself & my brother. It seems I have moved in with Dad & my brother has changed his surname amongst other things. She is also asking for the £120 for the Public Guardian Office again ( already paid with the other fees)

No, the solicitors are not called Bodger & Bodger but they should be. One of the forms is addressed to Dad, one to his sister & the other two to my brother & myself (the attorneys) Is this correct why are we signing them for ourselves? I thought the other two were for my two nephews. Before I send them back getting them to amend the incorrect details, is this another mistake as well? I think so, but O/H is not so sure.

There is no rush as Dad has a clause in saying it can't be invoked until his GP says he is not mentally capable. Solicitor wrote to GP on Jan 30th. Still not done and solicitor only knows this as I phoned her to ask, knowing how useless the GP is.

 

[living in hope]

Hi Chrissyan
I am applying to register EPA for my husband and received 4 copies of EP1PG and one copy of another form (cant remember number) which had to be returned to solicitor with £120 for public guardian office. The ep1pg forms are one each for the people mentioned on the EPA as attornies and one for the person whos ill. Hope this helps
Lorraine

 

[jenniferpa]

You're not so lucky with either your GP or your solicitor are you?

While I would be inclined to check with the hotline you'll need to notify a minimum of 3 relatives (and all the members of a specific class of relative). Your father doesn't have a spouse? So you'll be notifying yourself and your brother as his children (1 class of relative). The next class is actually his parents (n/a I imagine) and then his siblings so, for once it does look at if the solicitor has got that bit right. I assume there is only one sibling?

Actually the booklet says

"If an attorney is also a relative, they do not have to notify themselves, but they still count as one of the three relatives entitled to receive notice. For example, if the attorney is the son of the donor who has no living husband, wife or civil partner but has three children, only the other two children need to receive notice."

So you don't have to actual mail a letter to yourself (so that's a saving on the stamp right there )

 

[Chrissyan]

living in hope: I am sorry to her about your husband, thank you for your quick reply. Thanks too Jennifer.

I thought the whole purpose of these things was to notify relatives in case there was fraud afoot. I can't believe we as attorneys count as well, and the only other person to be notified is my Dad's sister. She is 80 years old, lost her sister to VAD 11 months ago, followed by her brother in law's death 10 days later, is nearly blind, has just had a double mastectomy which went wrong & also got infected and she is nursing her second husband at home who is 89 & has bone cancer.

She knows this is coming I have spoken to her, but I doubt she would have the energy to object if she wished to.

At least I know now that I misunderstood & that the solicitor has only actually made three mistakes not four. Mind I haven't gone over it with a fine tooth comb yet, these were just the apparent mistakes at first glance.

Everything is so hard to do, I feel so stressed at my Dad's reaction to this, will probably get a call at work. I know once he has read it it will be discarded & forgotten 10 mins later, but I still find it hard to do, without all this extra hassle.

These are my Dad's long standing firm of solicitors & GP. Glad they are not mine.

 

[jenniferpa]

You know - at one point (2007 when I was about to register my mother's EPA) attorneys didn't count as a notifiable relative, which had the potential to be a real pain for me. They changed the rules (or rather the interpretation) though.

 

[Chrissyan]

They have messed up again!

Got the corrected forms back from the solicitors in double quick time, with a letter of apology for the three mistakes. I didn't return the EP2Pg forms as they were correct, she has sent more copies, so we are now doubled up on them.

Only three new ones have come back though, there is one for my Dad, myself & my brother. The one for my Aunt is missing.

Re: my brothers sudden surname change, O/H reckons it was the name left on the template on the PC from the previous one they did. I wonder if the next one they do will go out with our name on.

 

[Chrissyan]

Forms now ready to be sent off to the Public Guardian Office, it has only taken 3 months to get this far. It took Dad's GP well over two months, with three solicitors letters & two phone calls, one from me & one from the solicitor, to get him do the letter needed, to say that Dad was not mentally capeable.

Now the GP's surgery have the cheek to invoice us for £40, via the solicitor) for the letter.

 

[jenniferpa]

My inclination would be to invoice them back for your solicitor's time. Still you're moving forward, even if it's at a glacial pace.

 

[Chrissyan]

That was my thought too Jennifer.

The solicitor sent Dad's EP1PG to me to hand to him, I don't know if this is normal procedure or not. Mind if he had got it through the post he would have been trying to phone the solicitor & myself at work.

I did however come back from his house today with it still in my bag, must do better tomorrow.

 

[living in hope]

Hi
I'm also still registering my husbands EPA, our hold up was my daughter is now married so we had to send her marriage cert, and I kept forgetting to get it from her, have done it now so will see how long it takes. Interested to read about doctors letter, dont know if they have contacted our doctor, no ones said anything to me.
Lorraine

 

[jenniferpa]

Loarraine: I think the reason Chrissyan had to get a doctor's letter is that when her father's EPA was drawn up, it had a clause that said it couldn't be registered unless his doctor certified that he had lost capacity. Most EPAs don't have that clause.

 

[living in hope]

Hi Jennifer
Thanks for that info, I thought I might have another delay if we needed a doctors cert.
Love
Lorraine

 

[Chrissyan]

You certainly would Lorraine if you had my Dad's GP.

I didn't realise it was uncommon. Dad made the EPA in October 2007 and I was with him (not allowed now with new LPA I believe)

It was just one of the many choices the solicitor gave to him & he chose it, who can blame him. He had had a diagnosis of VAD a few weeks before, but of course didn't remember.

 

[Lanie]

Hi Chrissyann

Sorry to see your having problems with EPA, I have been experiencing problems with my Mum's LPA, in the first place it took forever to get and now finally having it, one bank has had the document since February and it's still not registered for me to act on the account and all her money is in there now. And I need to pay back £20000 in Care Home fees. I'm hoping that by May it will be sorted. I thought these legal documents were supposed to make life easier, but I certainly haven't found that to be the case.

Anyway I haven't been on for months how are things with you?

Love

Lanie

 

[Chrissyan]

Nice to see you back Lanie. Things not too bad here, hope your Mum is settled. That bank of your Mum's wants a rocket. I thought once the POA was registered with the Public Guardian Office & you handed it to a bank it was instantaneous.

How difficult it is to do these things, impossible if it is your spouse you need to do it for & you are elderly with failing health & no internet access for help & advice, I would imagine.

 

[jenniferpa]

Lanie that's awful. Have they given you any half-way reasonable reason for the delay? Because it strikes me that they are definitely failing in their duty. Not that anything would surprise me about banks: full of decent people who are reduced to tears (I've seen it) by systems that don't work.

 

[Lanie]

When the LPA was written it was me and my Mum's husband to act independently or jointly we were told that by having it done like this it wouldn't matter if the other prosn wasn't available or something happened to them, so when I finally received the document in February copies from the solicitor, I begun to put her affairs in order, I had used the document for some things and nobody questioned that there were two attorneys. So I took the form to the bank, you can't act until they send away to be registered with the right dept, filled out forms and signed things and was told that it would take 7-10 working days I checked a couple of times but it hadn't been done I went back to the bank, and the advisor rang the dept who informed her there were some pages missing, so the form was recopied and sent again. A week later still nothing had happened, over the coming weeks lots of phone calls and visits to the bank, the dept kept promising it would be done, still nothing happened, complained to the bank was told there was a question over capacity, but it had been set up to vbe used either before or when she lacked capcity, they were asking for a letter stating she know longer had capacity, in the mean time they promised the adviser in branch that it would be done the weekend before easter, still not done, so on the Thursdya before Good Friday i went to the bank to speak to some one, they said they were to busy, I told them that I woul dsit there all day if I had to I'd been waiting since February after and hour eventually got to see some one, who advisedme that they had been told by legal department that they couldn't set it up as there were 2 attorney and that my Mum's husband either wrote to say he didn't want to act on the account or they needed his ID, I'd been to another bank with his ID that morning so I gave it too them but apparently they needed to see him in person, as he was away I had to make an appointment for yesterday. I burst into tears in the bank, at no time had I ever received any correspondence from the bank to inform me of what the problem was and even though i was ringing constantly and everyone I spoke to was sympathetic nobody was a ble to tell me why it hadn't been set up, I did eventually receive a letter on the 15th April but know apology. Also when I went to withdraw money from Mums account for things she needed even though the attorney had not been set up they had stopped the card because she no longer has capacity, which I feel is wrong as that is not how the LPA is worded, and also she enjoyed it if you went to the shop she was able to pay, she didn't know the pin or anything but it was something she could do.
a warning to all LPA's don't always make life easier, in my case it cost a lot of money and has caused untold amounts of stress that I really didn't need

Hopefully it will now be set up in 7-10 working days, I'm not holding my breath

Lanie

 

[Chrissyan]

So now nobody has access to your Mum's account???? That is unbelievably bad Lanie, I don't know what to say. I have just been reading your other thread about the care home & dietitian.

Why is it that at one of the most difficult times in our lives we come up against nothing but bumbling incompetence from all the so called 'professionals'?

 

[Lanie]

I honestly believe that they have no comprehension of what it is like, I said that to the bank, Did they have any idea what it was like to watch some one dying from dementia with out having the added worry of finances, although they made noises in the right places. I think it comes down to the fact that the only people who really understand are the people who have experienced it themselves.

Lanie

 

[jenniferpa]

Of for God's sake Lanie - you don't need this. You're correct as well I think - jointly or severally means just that: jointly or severally. I suppose if it was a joint account they'd need her husband's OK but otherwise - they just don't know what they are doing. Would they be insisting on seeing him if he was dead? Not that that surprises me but it would be nice to think that there was some improvement over the years, but obviously not.