Power of attorney-could I be in trouble?

[Uhohamiintrouble]

Couple of months ago a good friend asked me if I’d witness some documents for her elderly dad, one of which is financial and health POA’s.

went round, watched her dad and her sign, signed myself, went home.

i’ve been told by a mutual friends she's being investigated now for improper use of the POA.

same mutual friend asked if I’d made sure dad knew what he was signing and if he consented. I have no idea 🤷‍♀️it was just a load of forms, sign here, witness signs there. I couldn’t honestly say whether he knew what he was signing.

was I supposed to explain to dad what he was signing? Reading some of the forms it appears as witness I was.

apparently they may contact me to make sure it wasn’t coerced? Could I be in trouble
for not properly witnessing the documents?

Did you witness or did you act as Certificate Provider?

If you were just a witness, then it is not your responsibility to ensure he knew what he was signing. Although you presumably wouldn't have witnessed if you thought he had lost the plot

If you acted as Certificate Provider then you would have needed to ensure he knew what the document was, whether he knew who he was appointing, etc.

It depends on wether you signed as a witness to signatures, or as the ‘certificate provider’? If you were the certificate provider then yes, you should have explained it to dad.

if you were just witnessing that X signed on that date, then no.

We did this for my mum recently. She has a solicitor who explained everything, the witness as far as I understood literally just witnesses that the correct person has signed, you can't be responsible for whether or not her dad understood the implications of it. If she was obviously forcing him, that's one thing, but if he happily signed that's all you were there to witness - so if questions were asked you witness that he actually signed and no one forged the signature.

Your role was purely to confirm the individuals signed the document. End of.

The Certificate Provider is supposed to talk through the form with the Donor to make sure the Donor understands, before signing themselves, as Certicate provider. A witness just signs as a witness.
It does sound as though you may not have done the job properly.

sorry what’s the difference between witness and certificate provider?

it was forms downloaded from the government website. Friend just told me we all had to sign and she’d send them off.

it was literally “here dad, sign this for me” and he did. He wasn’t told he was signing POA forms at the time, so I don’t know if he was aware of the implications.

worried now. I am also thinking my friend is not the person I thought she was if she can take advantage of her own dad to the point of an investigation.

call The Court of protection and ask them - they’ll track the docs for you and can deal with any shenanigans.

These are the relevant bits of the form for certificate provider, OP, if it helps you jog your memory as to which bits you filled out

The OP says
I have no idea 🤷‍♀️it was just a load of forms, sign here, witness signs there. I couldn’t honestly say whether he knew what he was signing

She uses the word witness and says she witnessed the others signing. Then she signed.

There's nothing to suggest she signed as certificate provider. So on that basis there's nothing to suggest she hasn't done her job properly.

"it was literally “here dad, sign this for me” and he did. He wasn’t told he was signing POA forms at the time, so I don’t know if he was aware of the implications."

If that is an accurate description of the situation, I'm surprised you didn't ask any questions. You may legally be okay but not speaking up when you suspected he was unaware that he was signing PoA forms, and thus signing away his fundamental rights, is quite appalling.

Hopefully you are articulating the situation poorly.

But presumably you naturally assumed that they had already both talked about it and it was all agreed beforehand. All you did was watch two people sign some paperwork, and then sign yourself to say that you had witnessed their signatures.

That's all you did. It wasn't your responsibility to check whether or not he had capacity, or understood what he was signing, or indeed whether he had been coerced into it.