Are there any downsides to my financial plan?

[Rictasmorticia]

Let me start by saying I absolutely trust my kids and they trust each other. Same goes for son in law and daughters in law.Also, if the time comes when I need care, I will pay for the top notch available.

I am approaching 80 and have substantial savings. Over the last few years I have stopped paying into fixed rates so that I have enough ready money for care or health needs. This year the last few fixed rate accounts mature. Half of my savings are in ISAs.

I want to put the maturing non-IS money into joint accounts with each of my children. This way when I die they will have be able to easily access my money. Although they hold PoA for me, I know it will be less faff if my needs are met with money from the joint accounts.

I will discuss this with them, including tax implications. I don’t have enough to have to think about inheritance taxes.

What are the pitfalls or things I have not considered,

Doh!! Sorry…. I’m being dim. Thanks @Clockpic

if they have more money than you then they don’t need instant access to yours? If you intend to pay for care then putting money in joint accounts would be seen as deprivation of assets and will cause issues for your children.

I think you are kind to think of your children should they need to step in and care for you. As they would have to activate the POA should you become incapacitated , create activation codes let financial and health authorities know etc. giving them a 'float' to start your care while the administration is taken care of is a good idea. Something to pay for perhaps a months worth of nursing home fees, and take care of your home bills but it would not be necessary to give them joint access to all your accounts. Maybe set up the joint account for £5 -£10,000. It is not clear how many children you have or how many accounts you were thinking of. Some post have sad stories of problems with erring spouses etc but as you have a caring and loving and you can be cautious without worrying too much.

I read in here pretty much every day some poor woman discovering out of the blue that her husband is having an affair. You may think your children's marriages are safe and happy, but you actually have no idea. I would be very worried that by sharing out the money, in case of divorce, their other half would waltz off with your money. Surely there is a better solution?

I don't really know why you need this plan? Certainly not for more than a few £100

If they have PoA then anything up to your death will be covered. Why would they neeed access to your money after your death, especially if they are all well off so wouldn't have any cash flow issues for things that will ultimately be reimbursed by the estate.?

Perhaps enough to keep the bills on your house paid for a few weeks, but what else?

My MIL's bank accounts were all switched to joint accounts with my DH towards the end of her life.
It worked well for them and made life even more simple after she passed.
Obviously there are risks involved, divorce, theft, tax on any interest earned, but none of the risks materialised for us and it was a good move.

Isn’t there a simpler solution than joint accounts (which could lead to confusion over who owns the money/is liable for tax on interest etc)?

Why not just give your children your account login details? That way they can make payments out of the account if needed without having to invoke the PoA. A friend does this with her dad’s accounts.

Maybe there is some reason this won’t work eg if it’s a single name account then it can only have one phone # allowed to receive login codes or something. But it would be what I would try first.

Why not just give your children your account login details?
Do not do this. It is breaking the T&C of your contract with the bank. If any fraud were to occur, the bank can easily blame you for breaking your T&C and not keeping your security details secure.
Never share PINs or passwords.

Ok fair enough - although OP says she trusts her children, so…

A Third Party Mandate is another option- basically an agreement with the bank that a third party (your child) can access the account.

An affair could be discovered the day after OP dies when the kids have inherited everything and the assets would have to be split with the cheating spouse anyway, so IDK why everyone's focusing on this. Giving the kids the money now will not protect them from losing their inheritance later.

If your children have POA, they can just have a debit card from your account. No need for it to be a joint account. I just took the POA paperwork to the bank, they took a copy and away we went. I had a debit card in the post by the end of the week.
You don’t have to have lost your marbles to be using the POA - my relative was pretty much okay mentally but didn't want the bother of paying bills, shopping, paying tradesmen etc, so I took that over long before they eventually went into a home. (The home, residential not nursing, cost 6k a month 10 years ago now, so goodness knows what it would be now! )
Well done for thinking ahead though OP - so many older people make things so much harder by burying their heads in the sand about the practicalities of the last decades of their life.

Ok fair enough - although OP says she trusts her children, so…
Nothing to do with whether you trust the children. If you get defrauded by a third party and the bank discovers your security details had been compromised, they can deny your claim. Nothing to do with if the compromise is connected to the fraud. It's pretty easy for them to discover that multiple people have your details, CCTV at cash points is just one example, as well as logging on to accounts from multiple devices. Once they know the details are shared, you have had it.

Thank you everyone for your input. There is a lot to think over. Lots of good ideas. I am really fit at the moment but know dementia can strike unexpectedly. I will do nothing for a while. If I get to the stage where I know I am going doolally I will do it then. I think that nothing that has been said has put me off the joint account idea. Although my kids are better off than me, they are not cash rich. Their money is in investments.

On the estimates that have been suggested I will have enough for 7 years care and DH has enough for 10 years which I know he would use to pay for me. After that I might not care anyway.