A new day and a new set of problems. We are awaiting an emergency care meeting that in the words of mum's social worker could go either way. By this I mean it could reccomend that mum be forced to stay in an emi care home or she may be allowed home from respite to the rented sheltered housing where she has lived for 2 months. As she needs to give 4 wks notice to quit her house I thought it best to enquire if I could even make some sort of provisional notice arrangement and then withdraw it if nescessary. Mum has only a few hundred pounds in the bank so it will be the trust who will be paying her home fees. As I know she will only get £20 pocket money per week I am anxious to protect what little she has so that I can use it for clothes etc for her. At the minute she gets housing benefit which covers 2/3 of her rent. If she goes into the home permanently this would stop and in theory mum would have a bill of £360 in rent with no means to pay it. I don't have power of attorney and the specialist we saw yesterday said mum lacks capacity so I presume getting this power of attorney is no longer possible. A solicitor had advised that as I was an only child and that mum and I had a joint bank account and there were no assets I did not need a poa. The sheltered housing won't take my instructions. Mum would probably sign anything I ask her to but I imagine that if I got her to do this I could get into trouble for asking someone whom I know lacks the understanding to sign away her tenancy agreement and thereby make herself homeless. I've also been warned that I will need to account for every penny of mum's money that I spend and I may be asked to account for it since we had the joint account. This is panicking me as I had to buy so much to get her set up in her house and also because I did all the food shopping, clothes shopping etc. It never occured to me that I would need to do this as being an only child there would be no one to say they thought things should be done differently. It was only small amounts and anything large like furniture and tv and removal costs I do have receipts for. Maybe i'm panicking over nothing but I was hoping someone on here could help. Now that this doctor says mum lacks mental capacity and I don't have power of attorney will I still be able to use our joint bank account to buy her clothes, toiletries etc. Mum's incontinence means an awful lot of new clothes are needed.
