Power of Attorney

[123teenagerfood]

A family member asked her daughter and grandchildren to be POA, they all reluctantly agreed and filled in the forms. The family member then only filed the grandchildrens forms with the solicitor not informing anyone. The grand children then received letters confirming they are now POA and the daughter then found out it was a trick to get the GC to be POA. Family member thinks POA is a duty on GC to do whatever they demand, I.e. shopping looking after them in elderly age etc. Family member is also a narcissistic abuser. Should the GC now just legally decline POA?

Yes you can. It does not mean caring responsibility just making decisions. If they have signed the forms then just write to the Office of the Public Guardian to say so. If not signed the forms just do nothing.

There is no legal obligation on being a atttorney.

If the GC and daughter expect to still in contact with the family member in their old age, and would feel any level of responsibility for them then having the power of attorney in place with make things easier.

The POA is just about making decisions regarding finances and health care once the relative has lost mental capacity. Before that point, the POA is irrelevant. POA does not come with any expectations or requirements to physicaly provide any level of care. And if the attorney doesn't want to use the powers they have, that's fine too

But for example, once they've lost capacity you can choose to spend money from their estate to buy in care, which I imagine, would be preferable to a choice between constant visits from the GC to provide care to abusive relative versus leaving them to fend for themself and and feelings of guilt that causes.

I'd suggest that the GC go to the gov.uk website and read up on POA so that when abusive relative talks nonsense they can confidently ignore

I also don't understand how part of the paperwork could be filed. I've just done POA for me and it's super clear that each individual page has to be presented in sequence so a missing page would render it void.
Edited to add: you can also step down and you don't have to do it (hence often it's recommended to have a backup )