PoA admin -hassle registering it at financial institutions

A number of the building societies will just roll them over into a similar fixed term account otherwise. Though with a cooling off period. Do they not email you in the run up to maturity?

A lot better than the alternative, which is dropping them into an instant access with virtually no interest.

Skipton, Leeds, Nationwide won’t allow anything useful online so they will be shut as soon as I can. In contrast, I have local branches of Leeds and Skipton, so I’m planning to close YBS next, rather than set up yet another on-line account with its own password and protocols.

@EmotionalBlackmail yes, I think my parents almost treated it as a hobby, searching out all the best deals. Thankfully they didn’t go for any of those regular saver ones that are capped to £5k or whatever. If you have plenty of time on your hands I suppose it makes sense but definitely not when PoA has to step in!

Does anyone else find your elderly has a short-sighted approach to the numerous bank accounts? Mine chases interest rates but never seems to stop to think what they really mean. eg a regular saving account where you can pay in a maximum amount per month and which gives an extra .25% interest at the end of a year. But what that equates to in no way matches the time and inconvenience of getting the account open, dealing with it at the end of the term etc.

I am in the process of consolidating 38 accounts for my parents, although over less institutions (a mere 12 or so). I am going to have the issue of going over 85k but was thinking I would put the majority into NS&I which is fully protected. Doesn't help for the cash isas though as NS&I won’t accept tfrs in. Doubt the cash platforms would be useful for this but I could look.

Similar to someone mentioned upthread, this is all a result of chasing interest rates so virtually all accounts are fixed term so I need to keep on top of when they are maturing. A number of the building societies will just roll them over into a similar fixed term account otherwise.

So far, I have found YBS one of the best to deal with - can get full online access and via the app. They were also the most helpful in branch and seem to offer good ongoing rates.
Skipton, Leeds, Nationwide won’t allow anything useful online so they will be shut as soon as I can.

Something my mum did before her stroke was to consolidate all her accounts. It was still quite difficult but about a thousand times easier than this sounds. Barclays have been excellent but that's partly because I live fairly close to an actual branch, and quite a big one at that. God help you if you don't.

Interesting that NatWest have been terrible. I used to work as a temp in a compliance org years ago. There were SO many complaint files about NatWest but they were quite thin, suggesting they got a lot of complaints but resolved them well. There were very few about Lloyds but their files were always almost a foot thick and documented unresolved complaints going on for months.

Nationwide is one that I've struggled with. I have to ring the branch to make an appointment. The branch don't answer the phone. I can't go in to make the appointment, has to be on the phone. When I eventually get it registered, I am closing it. If they can't make things easy for me, they don't deserve the money.

Like you @BeaTwix I'm consolidating. I don't have a code either, as it's an Enduring PoA rather than an LPA and dealing with financial registration is a PITA. Why are their procedures all different?

@Jagsy thank you, I'll let my sister know. My dad also has loads of accounts but thank fully he has a spreadsheet of them all

Yh OP I found it a nightmare. I had to deal with NatWest and they were shocking, actually going so far as it destroy an original POA legal document (but denying it). Absolute idiots who don’t understand their own jobs. But this was par for the course I found as lots of other institutions e.g. Marks & Spencer’s, didn’t know what the hell they were doing.

I felt I was going insane with the stress of it all. I did complain and get some financial recompense from NatWest their overall laziness and stupidity and gung ho destruction of legal documents. But the stress was real. I hope things improve for you. I think you had to really go straight for the complaints department jugular in the end. They don’t train their staff. And you are just left alone, dealing with these issues for hours and hours with people who don’t know their arse from their elbow even though it’s at their actual job which they are meant to be trained for.

PS solicitors were just as bad, unable to answer the phone, unable to locate documents, sending original POA documents to the wrong address, it was never-ending. Does anyone know their job in this country?

Having experience what I did, I would be much more prepared and willing to go straight to the complaints department of any company or institution at the first sign of incompetence rather than spend weeks and months flailing about with this nonsense

sorry, New Year rant.

So pleased you had that experience as that’s exactly what we are trying to do. I have been doing this job for a very long time, and it was a convoluted process many years ago. Now it’s really evolved for the better.

@bestbefore hi, so if you have taken photos/scans of the original document that is fine as you can then upload those photos to us. It can’t be photos of a photocopy however, only the original. So if you have these already all you have to do is call us and we can help get it sorted for you. Also don’t go through the main call centre for the banks, just check the POA team tel number on the banks website.

@Jagsy hi no - I looked at them again today and it's just a pdf scan of the originals, from 2015. My sister is going to look into it - I've seen the comments about the code now.

Hi, do you mean you have a log in for the gov website and can provide a code to the bank so we can view a summary of the document is that right? Apologies I’m unsure of what you mean by PDF? Who has provided you with the pdf pls

My friend advised me that it's worth getting POA set up on accounts before you need it as it's such a faff and that's been good advice. I'm in Scotland and so are they.

I managed to get their main account done before most of the branches shut down by going in and refusing to budge until they had sorted it as I severely doubted it could be done online as they said. At the other institution they weren't going to allow it as not every page was hand dated, but eventually agreed to leave the room so I could rectify that. I gave up on the third.

I can't imagine having to deal with 27!

I use Hargreaves Lansdowne for my own savings and I would recommend it if you need/want to split across a number of cash accounts - one set of KYc, one login, easy to access platform. Which it’s important to me as my spare time to manage my finances very limited <bitter laugh>. Probably slightly better rates available by going direct but for me this is the best solution.

I haven’t used them for my parent so can’t speak to how they are on POA set up but they have U.K. call centres who I find helpful which needed to call.

I'm currently deciding where to consolidate their money to - needs to have a good online interface and decent interest rate. The number of places that pay terrible interest rates to long standing customers is staggering. Skipton BS differs from most in that when a bond matures, they move it into another 1yr bond with reasonable interest rate if you don’t do anything, rather than tipping it into Instant Acess with a derisory interest rate. No idea what their online capability is. But it’s so nice when that maturity notice comes in to think “well I can just shelve that for a year”

Yes, you can close and amalgamate as an attorney, or open new accounts in more convenient places. But not more than £80,000 in one institution - anything over £85000 isn’t protected if the institution goes bankrupt, and you need some space for accumulating interest.

No reason for probate to take years. You don’t have to deal sequentially.

Solidarity fist bump OP. I have had to take over management of finances of a parent and am in process of registering parent POA with banks etc. Doesn’t help they can’t remember where they had accounts. The POA predates the codes and so I had to get hold of certified copies from the solicitor who has the original and because they are crap that took 4 months. Then I’ve been trying to track down the money and register with each. All of which has a different system and forms are often unclear. It is very time consuming to chug through and frustrating. Particularly when you do one and discover there is £28 there.

@Jagsy hi sorry a quick Q, we have pdf versions of POA for our parents - will these be ok for the banks etc?

What a nightmare for you. I'd hoped that banks had improved.

It sounds as if your oldies have a fair amount of cash (certainly more than £85k).

You could look at placing it with a cash platform. There are at least 3 or 4 of these operating in the UK. The charity I am a trustee of uses Insignis (min investment £100k). Hargreaves Lamsdown has a min investment of £5k and Flagstone £10k. We chose the former for ease of having dual signatories and non-signatory access. They are pretty similar.

The platform owner does ONE money-laundering ID check on you on behalf of the financial institutions and also vets the banks that feature on the platform (who all have FSCS coverage if you stay below £85k deposits). Banks advertise what they are prepared to pay and the duration (instant access - 5 years). We're earning about 4.65% this year.

This fills me with horror. One of my POA, not yet activated, is for someone who probably has a similar number of accounts, who chases interest rates as a hobby, but I don't think closed any after they've moved on to the next one. They've got plenty of spare time to trail around banks and building societies, I don't! Once they reach the point when they're not managing it's going to be awful.

I've tried having the conversation about making things easier in the future but they talk about missing out on interest and the FSCS limit and what happens if the bank crashes!

Referring to whom I presume is your mother as ‘the oldie’ is awful.

Totally agree with the "casual racism" stuff I came up against that when executing dad's estate too. Lots of "we need the probate" and me going blue in the face telling them that the confirmation was all they were getting as probate does not exist in Scotland.