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

Myself and my brother had this issue. We could see a problem with my Dads health, he had been diagnosed with Parkinsons. There were other signs that we were just not dealing with Parkinsons. He owned own house and had savings also. We kept asking him to do LPA's but he kept refusing. In the end my brother said 'Dad, what if something happens here and we can't look after your best interests, what are you going to do?' It was as if a light blub went off and he signed the paperwork. A week or so later he didn't know where his bathroom was in his house! He declined rapidly, ended up going into care straight from hospital. Them LPA's were a blessing on our part, at least we could take care of his finances easily to start paying for the care he needed.

Court of Protection is a lot slower and far more expensive than LPAs.

Short term would she let you have third party access to her bank account so you can pay for her groceries etc? If she does lose capacity then at least you'd be able to pay for stuff. (Long shot I know). Otherwise court of guardianship, which is not always a fast process. She does understand financial lpa can only be used if she has lost capacity or if she explicitly gives you permission?

@stratforduponavon I agree. It took me years of persuasion to get my mother to agree to sign a POA. I arranged everything all the people needing to be there (witnesses certificate provider etc) and finally got it all signed. I checked and copied the forms, paid the fees and sent recorded delivery all during the pandemic. It was really hard going.
At the final hurdle she received the letter confirming it and she wrote back, objecting to it.

Now she's in the hands of social services. They're applying for deputyship and asked me if I wanted to be the deputy. No thanks I said.

I do what I can for her but it's limited now.

Having gone through this with my elderly parents (divorced years ago) am I allowed to say I am heartily sick of the older generation running rings round us and refusing to do anything reasonable or sensible.

My good friend is being run ragged by her parents who refuse to have carers in and want her to do their cleaning, decorating and various errands every day. Phone calls nightly, lost remote control. Feeling a bit hungry and could she come over and doing them a bit of tea and toast….

She thought it was because they were being stingy with their money but has recently found out that despite being offered a considerable amount of free help they refused saying that their daughter did it all. Funny - they never mentioned it to her!

If she needed care and didn't have the mental capacity to agree to pay and make the payments then firstly the local authority (and in rare cases the NHS) would make a 'best interests decision' that she needed care and that she needed to pay for it.

The local authority would then seek to apply to the court of protection (COP) for someone to be made a deputy. They would look to suitable family members first to be this deputy, or if no one was willing or able to do it they would ask the COP to appoint someone as deputy - usually a solicitor. The solicitor would also be paid out of the person's funds for this.

Care would still be provided whilst these applications were being made and the bill paid by the deputy out of the person's funds when they are finally appointed (or out of their estate if they pass away - whichever comes first).

That is officially what happens.

In reality many families manage to access their family members funds to pay the bills without deputyship /lpoa in place and the local authority turns a blind eye unless they have concerns that they are taking money they shouldn't. These days families have already been supporting elderly parents via online banking / direct debits/ joint bank accounts before they lose capacity and just continue with that.

One scenario would be that she loses capacity and neglects herself/ property. Eventually her local Council’s social work team would become aware either by members of the public/ neighbours/ police referring her to them.

If there is no LPA in place and someone is deemed not to have capacity then you can apply to the courts for a Deputyship, which is like a LPA but done retrospectively.

Sorry don’t know where the random back came from in my post!

Hi I had an lpa for my dad but from a health and welfare point of view, if she was deemed as not back having mental capacity, you wouldn’t be able to choose what care facility she went to also from a financial point of view any spending from her accounts would need to be approved by the court of protection. Hope that helps a bit.