Do DH and I need power of attorney for each other?

@Midlifecareerchange I’m British and know a lot about it due to my career. Screwed over as in “trusted” family and friends spending their family member’s money and doing things like letting other family members live in their house for free while they’re in a care home. Some are total scum bags but there’s a lot of nuance to it, people who are misguided and perhaps don’t understand that they can’t spend as they please no matter how well meaning. One family I know of spent their poor mum’s money (while she was in a care home) on school fees / uni fees for their little darlings and couldn’t understand why they were being taken to court. People think it’s their inheritance / family money and they get greedy.

I did the government one. Very easy to do. The timescale window from paying online to sending documents back is short so we had to arrange it for when a certain family member was travelling up to sign the forms.

It’s not just if you’re old. It’s if one of you gets knocked down by a bus and has brain damage. It can’t be invoked while you have capacity to refuse. Just do it.

I'm not in the UK, but here a doctor has to sign a form to say the person no longer has capacity to make their own decisions before a personal care and welfare POA can be invoked. Everyone should have one (says she who hasn't organised one herself yet!) and the person who you name should surely know what it is you would want to happen if you weren't able to advocate for yourself. It does have to be done before you lose the capacity to make rational decisions.

Why risk it? Many families also act misguidedly - you only have to look at recent threads on here to see that. People wanting to invest their loved one's money in risky things that they have no right to - not realising the legal ramifications of their role as POA.

Also to another pp - it's not "the state" that steps in. It's a court appointed deputy.

As well as some of the healthcare decisions, health and welfare POA will also cover decisions relating to social care. For example, if you had significant care needs and were being discharged from hospital then your POA would be able to decide between care visits at home and a care home (if your care needs are high enough). However if you don't have power of attorney then it would be down to the social worker solely. They won't know that it is more important to you to be in your own environment even though you are at high risk of falling and breaking bones, but your husband would know you much better.
However if you don't trust him to act in your best interests then it is best not to put it in place or to give it to someone else. As you have already said, you cannot think of all possible decisons and your wishes in that situation and so it has to be someone who you feel would act sensibly and in line with your values.
The key thing is that if you want it, then do it early as it cannot be done once someone loses capacity.

@Darksideofthemoonshine I can imagine but there are also plenty of families who’ll do the best they can for their loved ones if they lose capacity. I’ll certainly do my best for my Dad. 🤷

I have LPOA for health and welfare but it's my sibling and young aunt not my husband. When my children are old enough I will change it to them. Doesn't have to be your husband.

But it can take a very very long time.

I really need to set up POA for myself but I have no-one to ask to do it. So, I will be left for the state to deal with, and no-one will be able to access my bank, sell my house etc.

Yes.

Nobody plans to get hit by the proverbial bus tomorrow, but sadly it sometimes happens.

Ultimately, it comes down to whether you would prefer the state to make decisions on your behalf if you should lose capacity, or whether you would like a trusted friend or family member to take on that role instead. There is no right or wrong answer, it's a very personal decision.

I have PoA (health/finance) for a couple of relatives. I love them deeply and will always act in accordance with what I believe they would have wanted had they been able to choose for themselves. I plan to get dd set up as my attorney in the near future... just in case.

Not RTWT.

Actually, I would not get POA. If you lose capacity, the OPG would appoint a deputy. The amount of people I have seen get utterly screwed over friends and family as POA, I would opt for a deputy every time.

Every so often, usually because of a thread like this one, I have yet another look at the paperwork. DH and I are in our 70s so we really need to get on with this.

I have to admit that I've not given it much thought lately, mostly because all our bank accounts are joint, so if either of us were to become incapacitated then the other could still access those. But I hadn't thought about other things that posters have mentioned, such as selling our property, or even that all the bills are in DH's name so I could find problems there.

I find the very specific order of signing and witnessing quite complicated, and that puts me off doing anything, especially in terms of who could act as our certificate providers. However, we're seeing our solicitor soon, on another matter, so I could ask if they could sort it out for us.

Thanks for posting, OP. A very timely reminder to not put this off any longer.

We did them and registered them immediately. I do not have the words to tell you what a godsend it was when my poor late DH acquired a neurodegenerative disease and I found myself having some difficult decisions to make that he could not participate in. I would strongly advise that you do this.

It is a lot more difficult, financially and emotionally as if a person loses capacity you have to apply to court for what is called deputyship rather than poa which is more straight forward whilst someone has capacity (I am however aware in my job role that people don’t always find the poa forms straight forward)

Further to earlier answer, POA isn't something that you can "sort out" unilaterally - it's your relative who has to start the process. They instruct the solicitor, who will then send the papers to you (and the other two people) to say you agree.

I definitely would. I’m a nurse and people assume NOK get a say but not always. If you don’t have capacity and decisions need to be made, it’s usually a best interests decision but in my experience the medical team make decisions first, it’s only if that’s disagreed with really that I’ve seen it go to best interests.

What doctors deem as a decision, might not necessarily be what you want but as previous posters have said, it only comes into play if you lose capacity. It might also be worth you looking into advanced directives if there’s things you know you don’t want, where your oh might change their mind about for you

I work with the elderly and dementia and unfortunately a lot of people never get round to it and then when they really need POA, they’re no longer deemed to have capacity after sudden onset of new confusion, dementia etc and then it’s too late so in fact falls to medical decisions by the medical teams caring for them

No, you can't, you have to have it beforehand. (As someone pointed out further up thread, "next of kin" isn't a legal category and means nothing). This is how people get in a hell of a mess when things go wrong - not wanting to have the difficult conversations. Bite the bullet. Frame it as wanting to make sure that you'll be able to help them if there's a problem. You name three people on a POA anyway so it won't be just you - talk to them about who else they want.

POA doesn't allow you to help yourself to someone else's money while they're alive - you can decide how it's spent but it has to be for their benefit, like on care. Maybe consider making an appointment with a solicitor who could explain all this to your relative.

Please do get it. An example we very commonly have on our ward is someone has a traumatic brain injury/ stroke/ dementia whatever which would mean they cannot possibly manage at home but they have no capacity/ insight so won’t/ can’t consent to moving to residential care. If power of attorney is not in place the family have to apply for guardianship. This costs thousands of pounds and takes around a year where we are.
It does not come into play until you no longer have capacity but must be made while you still do have it.

I'm wondering if you a appoint someone while you are fairly young, then decide you wouldn't want them to do it anymore, how hard is it to terminate?
My husband and I haven't got round to it yet but one thing that's putting me off is that everyone I know who has done it has a second adult. I would have my husband but would want someone to support him. My brother although lovely isn't suitable and my parents are would probably find it stressful as they are getting older. My kids are still, well, kids. And although I have friends, none of them are so close I'd expect them to deal with this. If I added my mum as well (she gets on well with my husband) could I take her off when she's a bit older?

Best argument in favour is this: By the time you need it, it's no longer possible to get one because you lack the capacity to consent. And it can take months to issue the POA depending on their backlog. In which case you'll get stuck in the hell that is the Court of Protection (or whatever it's called these days). Remember it's a two way street - you may be the one having to deal with your husband at a difficult time when he loses capacity. I found a POA to be great for fending off the more predatory tendencies of social workers and others whose job it is to get involved.

About someone appointing attorneys if dementia is present- it can happen. It's not the diagnosis, it's the mental capacity for the decision. Someone needs to be able to understand, weigh up and communicate their decision, in this case to give power of attorney to someone else.

Excuse me for a long post.

Just to be clear, nobody can force a doctor to act to provide any medical treatment that they don't think is beneficial. So if the doctor doesn't think a treatment is of benefit, they won't give it. This is how, for example, DNACPR decisions are made - resuscitation is a medical treatment and it's up to a doctor whether they think, if your heart stopped, trying to restart it would a) work at all and b) would result in anything other than an utterly shit quality of life. Hence your dh rocking up to a mental health hospital and saying 'here's my wife, she's got those funny hormone changes going haha, lock her up for me chaps' isn't going to happen. Apart from anything else, it takes stratospheric levels of illness to be admitted to a mental health unit in the UK, and tbh you can see why, as they are profoundly untherapeutic places, it's just that sometimes the alternative is even worse. (A sore point for me as my late dh was assessed as low risk and admission refused, 3 hours before he took his own life). It's also possible that you're mixing up American law with UK law - in general, AFAIK, US family members have more of a legal role in treatment decisions than UK ones.

What everyone has the right to do is REFUSE treatment options. And that can really matter.

It's important to understand as well that an attorney should make decisions in YOUR best interests - not theirs. So, for example, you are 89 and have dementia but you still enjoy life and unlike most people on these boards (unlike me) you have always said you want to keep going as long as possible. You get an infection, as people with dementia do, your GP goes to see you at home and sees that you arent very alert, you're not really swallowing so oral antibiotics are going to be a struggle, discusses hospital admission or urgent community response for IV antibiotics with your dh. Now, if it were me, I want no truck with anything to prolong my life once my mental capacity is shot for any big decisions, and I expect my dp to refuse IV antibiotics in any setting and for my GP to work on a purely palliative basis. But maybe you feel differently and your DP knows this. So he says yes to the IV, you have a few days of them, and you pull round for another few years, though you aren't as mobile as you were before the infection.

My Advanced Directive is on my GP notes. It's based on my son's age, and on the purpose of treatment. Nothing to prolong my life in any way, once he is a certain age (and I've lost capacity). I don't mind for example a feeding tube if that's the only way to get painkillers into me (eg I'm so dehydrated that my veins have collapsed). They can do what they need, provided the aim is palliative. I also specifically ask for a review by a palliative consultant, but I'm aware I can't demand that and expect to get it.

Ask yourself; if you don't trust your dh, why do you trust a sequence of ever-changing health professionals who've never met you MORE? Some will be great, some average, some not so great. The point is that you will not be able to decide. It really does happen, however difficult it is to conceive of it, that you can't make choices or communicate them.

You can always include others as a balance. But don't create a 'balance' by adding an attorney who hates your dh. Someone to support him, maybe.