All I want for Christmas is ... Power of Attorney sorted

A solicitor can hold POA for someone, although obviously this is charged for. It might be worth your relatives having your health POA and the financial one being with a solicitor who can then handle all the financial side of it.

Same with executorship. You can name a solicitor as executor or the executor can get a solicitor to deal with the estate.

Yes. Well worth it. It took about five months to come through but you absolutely do not have to go through a solicitor. You just need a family friend to countersign the forms.

You will then have to register the PoA with the bank, local authority etc. They all have different procedures. Some will accept the access code which is generated by the gov website. Others need you to attend in person and sign loads more forms. But definitely worth doing.

Obviously I know that. They're not very likely to renounce executorship of their own parents, are they?

I've actually already made my sister and niece my executors with nephew as a reserve. So it's a lot for them, even just having to renounce all this stuff is a lot of stress. And as they are my beneficiaries they would still have to interact with whoever was doing it.

Rather than trying to get me to add more responsibility onto my poor beleaguered niece and nephew, are there any suggestions for someone else I could use?

It’s on-line, but once you’ve filled it in, you have to print the forms to get them signed. They don’t yet support electronic signatures.

or you can print the forms and fill them in by hand.

There is no extra cost for extra attorneys. There’s space on the form for 4 attorneys and 4 replacement attorneys. Once you’ve lost capacity you won’t be able to add attorneys, so sensible to have all the people you trust on the form now, either as attorney or as replacement attorney. I’ve got DH and DS2, with DS1 as replacement

They can also renounce the executorship, very easily. So everything to do you is contingent on them having the energy when the time comes

I'm hoping to do this for both of my parents in the New Year. Can anyone help me with a couple of questions please?
Is it all on line or do forms have to be printed, signed and scanned in?
Does it cost more to add extra attorneys? I want to do one for me and DH too with each other as attorneys but wondered if it was worth also adding our adult DCs on?
Thanks

Totally agree with this. Luckily my DM saw what my DH and I went through with his parents and agreed about 10 years ago (when she was mid 70's) to do hers. She's 84 now and although certainly still has capacity she has some memory issues. I've been looking after all her finances for a couple of years now and it's reassuring to know her POA is in place for when needed.

My DH and I did our POA's a couple of years ago even though our DS is only 24. We are in our early 60's and although it's uncomfortable doing it, once it's done you can just forget about it. He's an only child so we wanted to make things as easy as possible for him.

Yes, I understand all that. All of us also live in different locations. I'd not considered that aspect which makes it even more unlikely they'd be able to do much to help me.

Their parents are both older than me, and their mother invents has various health problems.

The fact is, statistically, they are likely to need to use their parents' (and the other stuff) before mine. And they would rightly prioritise their parents.

I just don't want to even ask them to consider it right now while I've asked them to consider being trustee for the child and they've not decided yet. That role will be a lot more difficult.

And there's not much point having a POA who is pretty likely to have to rescind. They'll probably have kids soon too so it would be quite a burden. I'm 55, I know it's not necessarily an age thing, but I'll think about it when I'm 60!

Do you mean that you paid a solicitor to say your MIL was capable of agreeing to POA when if fact she was "out of control with dementia"?

They don't necessarily have to activate the POA though if they don't feel up to it at the time as they have several others ongoing. If they rescind it then SS would then have to take over. So it would be their choice depending on circumstances at the time.

I hold or will hold soon four POAs, only one of which is currently 'active'. I'm afraid, if it came down to it, and I ended up with all four of them 'active' simultaneously I would be prioritising which ones I agreed to - you can rescind at any time. None of my four live in the same area, adding to the potential for chaos, and I have to be realistic about it. The worst case scenario is they're all active at same time, the reality is that some of them will probably never be needed or only for a short time.

So why not ask them, get it set up, but know when it comes down to it they have the choice whether to act on it or not?

Well, it doesn't make the burden any less. Also somewhat complicated by the fact they've never met her (nor have I).

So they have:

POA for their mum (who has no partner so it's just them), not yet needed
POA for their dad who has a partner but she has cancer so it may well fall to them, not yet needed
(Also executor for mother, only niece is executor for the dad for some reason)
If the worst happens, guardianship of step sister who is ten (because their dad will go to pieces)
I've asked them to be trustees for their cousin because I don't want to do it, and mum didn't want my brother to do it so I don't want to hand it over to him. My sister has refused to take it on. This child is five so it's quite a long commitment and would be fairly active. They are thinking about this, it's likely to be needed around the middle of next year.

So, it's a lot. And I don't want to ask them to be POA for me on top. They are my executors but I feel that's less onerous and unless my life goes very weird they'll be rewarded for that (plus I'll be dead so won't have to worry about the impact!).

So, no closer to finding someone to ask for me!

I second it.
When DF died after a short illness mum was in good health and that was the perfect time to suggest it. Something to be done now and put away until it might be needed some day.
I did it myself, it takes a bit of effort but is perfectly doable. At the same time we did them for DH and me with each other and DC as attourneys.

We never needed the financial one for DM as she had capacity until the end but the health and welfare came in handy in her last weeks when her GP sugery were very unhelpful.

I had it for my mum after dad died, to be honest, though she was pretty incapable (due to illness and hospitalisation) from April this year until she died in October, I didn't really need to wave the POA about, I just got all her passwords and was "her" on her online accounts. So I could pay her bills, check her utilities, etc. If I hadn't been able to access her passwords I suppose I'd have needed it (I could apparently put their app on my phone and set up my own passwords but I just used her phone).

I did lodge it with her main bank (took three goes to get an appointment with her where we could speak to someone helpful) so they copied me on any letters etc.

But I have noone to ask to do mine and it does worry me. I'm single (have a bf but he's really disorganised and terrible with money) and no kids. I have a brother I don't get on with (he's an idiot) and a sister for whom the slightest upset is a major trauma so she'd just go to pieces. She has adult children (my nieces and nephews) who I would choose but they have got them for both of their parents (they are divorced) and they now look like they might have to take on some guardianship of their young step sister. I've also asked them to be trustees for my brother's daughter for the money from mum's estate, so I really don't want to further worry or burden them!

It took two years to talk my DM into it, we got it just in the nick of time. I mentioned it one day and got lucky. Once she agreed I was straight round to her place with my sibling and her good friend and the firms. Having it really has been a godsend.

Another one saying do it soon, don't put it off. My parents conpleted their forms in late January but the OPG didn't register until Sept for DF and Nov for DM respectively. Apparently there is a large backlog at the moment. My DF ws admitted to hospital the first week of October and DM hasn't got a clue about their finances so it was a huge relief when both POAs came through and now I can deal.with banks directly instead of hoping blindly there is enough money in their account to pay their bills every month.

@Mum5net absolutely right. ILs only set up one for FIL - he was convinced for understandable reasons he would outlive MIL. He didn't and then it was taking 6 months to set them up. That 6 months was a nightmare and we were paying bills on behalf of MIL. She owed is over £4k by the time it was sorted.

My Dad chose me and my brother as attorneys but we can act independently as my brother isn't in the best of health himself and has spent considerable time in ICU when he wouldn't be able to act even if he wanted to.

Then Dad chose replacement attorneys of his adult grandchildren. Just to give the document a bit more longevity.

We chose each other as attorney and then our adult children as replacements.

You can have more than one attorney and replacement attorneys. So you could have spouse, with child as replacement. There are complications so read the guidance notes. For example, if your attorneys act “jointly” rather than “jointly and severally”, I believe the LPA dies when one of the attorneys dies.

The POA forms can be downloaded and the filing for for each is £82. There are 2 per.person one for finances/assets and one health and welfare, but you don't have to do both.

We did pay for a will writer to do ours, and my Dad's, and she cost £120 for each POA.

Looking back we could easily have done our own but I'm pleased she did Dad's as she asked him questions and it felt very independent. We would have done the same but it felt more comfortable that way.

We did ours a year ago (aged early 60s). Our adult kids also did them, as it wasn't a lot of hassle, and they saw the long term benefits. You can pay a bit extra to lodge them centrally with a government agency, so no problem about housing them safely

Thanks for the reminder. We updated our wills few months ago and next job was getting POA sorted for both of us but then things kicked off with MIL and we didn't get round to it. A job for the new year.