Worst case scenarios please for no lasting power of attorney and dementia/stroke

No, they wouldn’t. There is no Adult Social Care left in this country. I speak from loved experience. We long term disabled/post stroke survivors are left to rot at home with no actual care not even welfare checks. Councils do a financial assessment, setting the qualifying income at £540 a month before they will chip in financially to assist.

It is financial eugenics designed to price the disabled out of accessing Social Care.

The notion that Social Services will help is a lie. They will insist on asking for more than double what the person receives in care components, then close their box-ticking exercise until neighbours complain about the smell of the deceased.

Far right policies to rid themselves of the ‘useless eaters’. It’s been happening for over a decade. Ken Loach’s film I, Daniel Blake is truthful and it’s getting worse.

That's a blinding idea @thanksamillion and yes @Allthegoodnamesarechosen I think you are right times and attitudes have changed. We protect the individual from unscrupulous relatives these days.

I also see a huge different between my dad and mum - dad was keen to get all his affairs in order to a low level of detail well ahead of pandemic but covid triggered a review and fine grained detail instructions (he has complex property and financial affairs and is in a foreign country)
He was a senior professional all his working life and familiar with anticipating and mitigating tricky problems, paperwork and dealing with legals.

My mum on the other hand comes from a cash in a sock under a mattress, uneducated immigrant manual working background who gave up being a teaching assistant in the 1980s.
Suspect the idea of dealing with an official government/legal document gives a high level of anxiety in the same way creating a will did (due to a personal unfamiliarity or cultural fear of)

I think this is a very good point. Elderly people ( of whom I am one) tend to think that things have not changed from their experience, when ‘ next of kin’, especially spouses but also children were automatically consulted in health matters and had considerable authority even in legal and financial affairs. So it is hard for us to realise that social distrust has set in , probably not without cause, and you need a proper ‘piece of paper’ to take these decisions.

of course, a lot of people, ( not me) do not like to face up to the fact that they may well not be able to look after themselves, or manage their affairs sensibly. It is like Wills, people think that by encompassing their own death they will somehow hasten it. So we/ they assume that family will just be able or willing to perform these functions, when actually they may not be allowed to.

i don’t know how we make people aware of this. Perhaps it should be rather like the sight test on a driving licence, something that just kicks in when you reach a certain age. Possibly link it to the bus pass, because that is pretty popular amongst my cohort!

I really think there should be some sort of public campaign to encourage people to set up LPAs. My parents did them years ago but my in-laws are reluctant for no real reason. My mum has recently had to go into a home and it made the whole process so much more straightforward but they still won't do it!

@mowbraygirl she's nearly 80

She called me several times in quick succession on Tues while I was enjoying a Zumba class and taking kid to piano lesson.

When she finally got through to me she sounded panicked and desperate asking if I'd heard her previous messages (nope). Could I come to do some gardening for her? I asked when and she reckoned asap and sounded unimpressed that I had commitments each day of the week until Sunday.

When I listened to the messages they were quite frantic about needing to come THIS EVENING.
She sacked her perfectly good gardener last week and seems to have forgotten I have a full time job.

Definitely thin end of the wedge I think. I noted the leaflet about POA hadn't moved from the hall table where I placed it.

Health LPA is less vital but still handy.

I've only used it as a magic piece of paper to get doctors to talk to me, but, I have an older friend who found her ailing husband "unresponsive" (as they say) in bed one morning.

She called an ambulance (I have always wondered why, as I got the impression he was clearly passed away, but it's not a situation that will recur so I wouldn't ask). They ushered her out and performed CPR. She could still hear and it has been a distressing memory that's hard to shift. Apparently if she'd had health LPA for him she could have prevented that, they said.

DH and I have health LPAs setup. If it gets to the point where I'm done for and everyone knows it, he can talk to the medics and make it as short as possible for me, if he thinks it best. I wanted to give him a free hand to do (within legal boundaries) the least worst thing at a shitty shitty time.

For the donor, health LPA means you have someone who knows you officially speaking for you, choosing care homes, discussing treatment. For the attorney, it means that the memory of a loved one dying isn't complicated by having their hands tied, thinking, "this is not what they would have wanted".

@Harveypuss I’d try to secure health LPAs as well.
My DF got pneumonia. He went to hospital My DM already had advanced dementia but his hospitalisation forced her to stay with me. It didn’t go well. She had to be sectioned. DF eventually returned to their home but had a catastrophic accident within a week and ended up in same hospital as DM was in MHU. He died a few days later. DM was under section without POA. All their estate transferred to her. It was a nightmare all round.
If we had the paperwork that you don’t have, DM could have been transferred to a hospital much nearer to us instead of 60 miles away for seven months.

Best to have it as it can all go pear-shaped pretty fast

Interesting thread. Just wondering whether it's necessary to have LPAs for both financial and health? I am an only child and my parents have set up financial LPAs with me but not the health ones. They figured that they'll be next of kin for each other and then I'm NOK for them? Is it necessary to have health LPAs as well? Any insight welcome.

I started reading this thread and realized I am the same age as the OP's mum I don't class myself as old and doddery as over the years tried to keep fit and well. My DH and I have done our LPA's for both property and health and in the last week have just registered them with our GP surgery and our bank. After hearing various stories from friends the problems they have had with elderly relatives trying to sort out their affairs because they are unable to do them anymore we decided we would sort out our LPA's. At the present time because of Covid it is now taking approx 20+ weeks after submitting them to the Government Department. I know some elderly people have it in their minds that if they do LPA's they will lose control of their finances and their family will take over and they will have no say they don't realize how handy it will be when they are unable to do things.

@Ruralbliss the thing is you can see these things coming down the line.

Like you, I wanted to be ready, to have things lined up.

In the event I wasted 5 years banging my head against a brick wall. Hindsight tells me it was always going to end up like this (in fact not even hindsight- foresight told me!!)

@Allthegoodnamesarechosen
Everyone who dislikes their relatives and resents helping them, though, I expect could just walk away.

Many on this board are here because their relative has failed to future proof.Helping and caring is made 100 times more difficult if you have gently been asking that person for a number of years to consider POA and they have deemed the whole issue irrelevant or unnecessary to their situation.
Without POA you can’t cancel utilities, you can’t insure, you can’t talk to health professionals. It adds layer upon layer of additional of red tape. To the person doing the caring it feels like the person who is in decline has no regard for their welfare or why else would they put them through the added hoop jumping?
And yes, it has changed significantly in five years...Dealing with the OPG in Scotland is like dealing with the DVLA. Months and months can go by without a response. I think the Court of Protection is similar.
I’m very glad it worked out so well for you and your DA.
However, it’s one of the toughest gigs going if you have to experience what some have been through.

Would strongly suggest always having someone a generation down with lpa. A friend's solicitor advised that she and her dh only needed mutual lpas. He was diagnosed with dementia and had to go into a home and she died within a few weeks of his diagnosis. Their relatives had a nightmare (they had no children but wider family were close) but it was a useful cash generation scheme for the solicitors who billed the estate for anything and everything.

Can people tell me what's usual, my dad is 78 with the start of dementia and profoundly deaf. His younger, fitter wife has LPA as he does for her.

Is it only when the spouse dies that you look to getting LPA given to a child?

@Mum5net yes I did post about it and you were very helpful on that thread as I see you being to others also.

It took weeks before I could bear to speak to her. I visit and help where I can now but I have stronger boundaries with her as a result of her actions and I resist getting pulled in.

OP I do hope you can get something in place otherwise it's like watching a slow motion car crash.

I had a similar problem with my DM, increasingly forgetful, especially about paying bills (hah!) until she rang in a panic one day saying she'd got a court summons over an unpaid water bill. It turned out she hadn't paid it for over two years!
I sorted it that day over the phone but it was a wake-up call and she realised she had to do something about her memory. We set up direct debits for everything and I went with her to her bank (with passport/id) where with her permission I was added to her account as a named individual who could use it on her behalf, eg write and sign cheques (which she still did😫) and talk to the bank about managing her finances.
Once we'd done that and she saw how much easier it made everything for her she was happy to sign an LPA. When you say the magic words, "We have an LPA", dealing with Social Services, GP, hospitals, banks, the council etc is so, so much easier.
It's quite possible your DM's situation could well reach a similar crisis or crunch point and she sees that she not only needs your help then but in the future too.
I hope so otherwise it will get extremely expensive for her - the Court of Protection can charge a five figure fee each year. Or it appoints a guardian who also charges but does sweet FA in return.

Perhaps things have changed in the last five years, but when my aunt went into care after a stroke, the medics , the social worker and the care home just assumed that I was the ‘right person’ to take the decisions, make the arrangements etc because I was the next of kin, and had been helping her with her finances etc before.
everyone who dislikes their relatives and resents helping them, though, I expect could just walk away.

@OhamIreally I think I remember you posting about this at the time - didn’t you have another username? Absolutely would be the camel-breaking straw.
I remember also someone who applied for both Welfare and financial LPA during pandemic but had only sent payment for one and only found out after waiting about a year.
@stratforduponavon totally share your view

@OhamIreally - yes we also arranged for the LPA's through the pandemic. Confirmation letters didn't arrive till he was admitted to hospital. His own Mom who passed away about 6 years ago had a similar diagnosis to my Dad and I think he just thought back to them times and what he and his sibling went through. He still asks to go home, I have never told him that his house and contents were sold to pay for his needs. It is so difficult as I can see what Dad was saying 'I worked hard for this house and the money that is in the bank - and it's mine'.

I'm sorry that you have been left with dealing with the consequences of your Mom objecting.

Took over 18 months to get the Deputyship for my mum. She had died by the time I received the sealed court order.
the reality was that I dealt with the council for care home fees and a charge was put on the estate (the house basically) and all the money was paid after the house was sold.
A complete nightmare though. You have my total sympathies

@system2319 you were fortunate he had that lightbulb moment.

I said all this to my mother but she made her choice and now has to deal with the consequences.

It still makes me angry as I have agencies calling me left right and centre assuming that I will take responsibility for all her issues. I do some, but I have my own life and frankly I'm not prepared to sacrifice it for her when she couldn't do something to help me help her.

She does understand financial lpa can only be used if she has lost capacity or if she explicitly gives you permission?

There is a tick box on the financial LPA to say it can start immediately, unlike the health one which only starts when capacity is lost.