Power of attorney while parents are well?

The whole thing about POA is that by the time you need to use it, it’s too late to set it up! My dad had it set up for 20 years before we needed to use it, and dh and I are away to set ours up in the next couple of months

Absolutely get the forms fill in , signed, witnesses and registered.

You only use them when necessary

Things to think about are

Firstly who is going to certify that each parent is of sound mind. A neighbour who is happy to put their name to this, and have you witness their signature is ideal.

Secondly how you and your siblings will share will share the power. Jointly and severally means that any one of you can act by yourselves. This makes things eg with banks much easier but you do need to trust each other. Jointly means anything would need all your signatures.

For what it is worth, I never used the POA for my mother's bank account. Set up an online account and administered it from there.

Good luck.

Do it, do it now! I’m medical and it’s a MONUMENTAL amount of bother if no POA in place and there are any kind of care needs later. Protects them, first and foremost, and makes life a hell of a lot more straightforward for you. My husband and I sorted it for each other when we were in our 20s! Need to get on the case for my parents, thanks for the reminder!

Which are good on wills and POAs link

There's a paywall, but it's not very much. You could subscribe for a couple of months, while you're getting things sorted.

Donor ASAP. My ma died out of the blue fit as a fiddle in her 80s and no need to use the poa (we had both health and finance poa In place).
It takes a while to get to sorted because of all of the witnesses you need.
Hell im in my mid 50s totally ok and have sorted this out with my dp. Last thing I’d want is something unexpected or expected to happen and my do not to be able to make decisions about my health or finances.

Strongly urge you to do this now. My ma was reassured I burr early 80s when we sorted this all out plus living will.

www.gov.uk/government/publications/make-a-lasting-power-of-attorney
is the link to the forms. AFAIR they are reasonably easy to complete but you will need various people to cooperate. Also your parents must be compos mentis at the time of signing.

But if you don't have the POA and they become mentally incapacitated, it's then impossible to do the POA this way and you have to involve the OPG. It's a complete disaster and costs quite a lot. Definitely cheaper to get a solicitor to do it now (if you can't work through the forms yourself for free) than to do it later.

One thing that can be useful to do while they are compos mentis is to become a joint signatory on their bank accounts and savings accounts. Then at least you will have the ability to carry on paying domestic bills. But you should agree this with your sister to avoid disputes.

If they agree, it's a very good idea.

My sis and I have had POA for my mum for a few years, but never had to use it, because she is fit and well. My mum set it up to make life easier for all of us, should she become unwell. Definitely do it soon before your DM loses capacity.

Just to clarify when I said you don't need to register them. I mean go through the official LPA process so that they are officially registered with the OPG and receive your certified copies.

But each company for example Banks, Councils, GP Surgeries have their own process so that you are registered on their systems to be able to act on behalf of your parent.

That is what meant when I said you don't need to register them.

Yes get it. I've been trying to sort out a friends affairs as he's just moved into a home . And not allowed out because of Covid. It's been a nightmare because I don't have it. A letter of authority is ok for somethings. I'm not going to get LPA for him as he's not a relative and not my responsibility really.

Like everyone else has said, get it done. At the end of the day if your mum doesn’t want you to have authority she won’t sign. It’s a hard conversation. You and your sister can both be attorneys. When my DH & BIL arranged theirs for my MIL they made the authority ‘jointly and severally’ with anything to do with the property requiring joint authority. If your mother loses mental capacity and there’s no POA it gets very difficult.

You can do it online it's much cheaper than a solicitor doing it but definitely, I had months and months of trying to sort things for my grandparent because there was no power of attorney and my dad had ignored it all for years, I told my dad that he needed to sort power of attorney for himself as I couldn't sort anything without for his parents, also it takes months we sent off my dad's in February got it registered at the end of July so get it done asp it's quite quick to do online but just takes a few months for it to be completed and registered, if either are told they have dementia or something similar or eblven if someone got ran over and was in a coma etc you won't be able to get it at all, you could try for a court of protection order but they are very costly and they can take much longer to go through, you wouldn't have to tell your sister if she doesn't agree although if she thinks writing a note will surfice she is massively not the one who should be looking after this, it won't work anywhere that believe me.
I would get it sported for both of them though not just your mum, they can select as few or as many as they want, it costs £84 for it to be done online for financial purposes and the same again for health purposes, you can select if the attorneys can assist straight away or just when it becomes necessary. Get it done ASAP.

My parents named who would have POA should they need it. They don,t at the mo but things are in place should they need it.

Agree with everyone else that you should treat this as urgent. You know your parents and can judge that their memory and cognition is still ok, but with the difficulties you are describing it may get harder for outsiders to make that judgement. The sooner you arrange LPAs for both, the easier and cheaper the process may be compared to later, and if either are judged to have lost capacity they can not make one.

Tell your sister that yes, she is quite right that you can make individual arrangements with the banks without a power of attorney. I've had permission to operate my mother's UK bank account for years on that basis (she lives overseas). However, she would like me to try to find a better place for her savings, and in order to open any new account (including with the same bank), I will need to dig out the power of attorney document that was done a few years ago. Individual arranagements are more limited than you may need.

OPG = Office of the Public Guardian

I did a new Will for my father in law 3 years ago online. It was straightforward and afterwards it asked if we wanted to do an IPA. It was easy to do, FIL was happy to sign it, although he had no health problems at a time.

Can I just ask what registering with the OPG is? I recently got a POA for a loved one, but no idea what the abbreviation OPG is.

Yes get it done right now. We are in a complete family nightmare at the moment due to no LPA.

Also, don't assume banks etc will speak to you even with authorisation from one of your parents. If you end up trying to manage your parents affairs without LPA it will literally become your full time job.

Do it ASAP.

My mum had to go to the solicitor in person to sign the papers so they knew it was her. (Or they could have come to the house but this was ore Covid).

So do it now while she is with it. If she is judged by the doctor as being incapable of managing her affairs you won’t be allowed to do a power of attorney. It will be a legal route that will take years and cost thousands.

Make the solicitor appointment now. Your sisters heads up her arse. Ignore her.

You are right, your sister is wrong.
But yes to get them registered straight away - it takes a lot of time and energy to get them registered and accepted by the Court if protection and various companies you need to deal with, which you may not have when you need to use them.

Yes, we had/have health and financial LPAs for my mum, parents -in-law and for ourselves (early 40s).

So far, we have only needed our mum's as she was in hospital for months and although mentally capable, she was very poorly and was unable to easily make phone calls to DWP Etc so I did it all for her with the power of attorney.

Just to say that there are two options with the financial LPA - one allows the attorney only to make decisions once the person loses capacity but the other allows them to make decisions (with consent) even though they still have capacity. We had the latter which was important when my mum was ill in hospital.

Being brutally honest, your parents are already not that well.

We left it too late with Mum - she caught an infection and died in a month.
Dad is very well, has no underlying health conditions but we sorted out his LPA as soon as we could face it after Mum died.
It's much better to do it too early than leave it too late.

And - in case it helps you persuade your sister - my understanding is that it's cheaper to do it while your parents are able to consent as if you need to involve a solicitor later, it will cost a LOT more.

Set it up now. You don’t need to activate it yet though. If you wait for them to get older and not have competence, you will have a bloody nightmare sorting anything.