AIBU my brother is arranging Power of Attorneys that offend me?

[NDFB]

My brother and I are the only two siblings, late 40s/early 50s. About five years ago he unilaterally arranged, without consultation with me, two Power of Attorneys (PoA) for our elderly mother. He appointed himself PoA over her finances and me over her health. Why do this? And why split the responsibilities? We should both be jointly overseeing her finances and her health. Last week, he sent me a PoA to sign (without prior knowledge, again), asking me to be JOINT PoA with his brother in-law, for his own health. I have never met BIL, don't even know his name. And to add insult to injury, brother has already appointed BIL SOLE PoA over his finances! And all this would be to take effect only AFTER my brother's wife has died! So, the scenario is: my brother's wife has died, he himself is mentally or physically incapacitated, eg on a life-support machine, and decisions have to be made regarding keeping-going or switching-off; or maybe brother is in nursing-home care etc. Then, a non-family member is now in SOLE control of my brother's finances; and that same person also shares control with me of his health. It is each person's own right to appoint their own PoA(s), but I will not accept having to share decision-making over eg whether to end my brother's life, or not, or decide on care-homes, with a stranger, the brother of my brother's wife, who herself may have been dead already for many years. Insulting, also that as you see, he has cut me out on both counts of having any power over finances, for either him or our mother, despite my always having been very financially savvy and sensible.

It’s your parents decision not his.

@Whatsgoingonherethenagain
yes- I said a professional OR someone impartial who has known the person granting PoA for 2 years and signs to say they are satisfied that the subject understands what they are signing.

i don’t think this part is necessarily in the actual PoA document itself, but I think it is part of the forms that are needed as part of the application that goes to the court of protection. The court will not accept applications that are incomplete, so if it has been accepted and lodged by the court of protection then the essentials must have been completed. A resting PoA is only legally binding once it has been accepted by, and lodged with, the court of protection.

@viques
which is exactly what I said.
” A professional (a gp/solicitor of social worker) OR someone who has known the person for at least 2 years…..”. (I have put the or in capital letters here for clarity, not in my other post).

My sympathies lies squarely with the brother

Must be very difficult dealing with the OP misunderstanding everything

My mother appointed my brother as sole POA as in her eyes he’s more intelligent than me! And went to great lengths to tell me. He wasn’t happy about her decision and is less happy now as he is having to go through a court to have her money released. I’m convinced she wanted to create a division between us - her loss because I’m fine with any and all of his decisions.

If she does think he’s more intelligent than you, then surely a sensible decision!

Nope, she could still have had them both.

My daughters have entirely different skill sets, and I fully expect that the each role will fall naturally to the most effective person (and would be the one that they would choose).
But having them both as attorneys for both roles, means that each can help the other out where needed, and if there's a crisis when only one of the two is available, either can step up.

It's just all normal sensible stuff really. My sisters husband is the financial PoA for my parents and I am for health. They did all this and I'm happy to go along with their wishes.

Similarly I think he's allowed of appoint you and his brother in law PoA and do whatever he feels happiest about. You can say no and it will just be his brother in law.

Honestly i don't really understand why you've chosen to be offended about all this. Also he's just carrying out what I assume are your parents wishes and doing a lot of the boring leg work.

She could have

presumably she didn’t want to, which was entirely her prerogative

You don't have to sign anything to make a commitment you neither want nor understand.

Two things that stand out to me here:

if you have a Finance POA you don’t just ‘get the money’- the provisions in the Donor’s Will still apply.

A Donor has to sign the POA. If they have lost capacity that route is closed.

lots of people have misconceptions of how this works. Especially if they have never been involved in one.

I’ve been involved in one.

it is very easy to do a home PoA. It is very easy for a trusted person to get donors and witnesses to sign things. Even if great aunt sally didn’t have capacity when she signed, proving it is difficult as the bar is very high.

once you have PoA - and no one checks with the donor or the witness it is done correctly, it is then very easy to simply cash in assets and transfer them to your name. If you’re the sole attorney no one else has access, and to go to the OPG you’ll need some sort of proof or indication the attorney isn’t acting correctly.

if you’re also executor of the will it’s even easier to cover it all up as only the executor has access to the deceased accounts. And again you can’t take it to the police unless you have evidence. You need to go through civil court and unless you have ££££ that’s very difficult.

it’s more common than we’d like to believe. It’s often done by a family member under the guise of “caring” and helping with money.

personally having been through it PoA should only be done via a professional. Solicitor, GP or bank. There should also be checks by banks and financial institutions with the donor that they have agreed to the lodging of the PoA, and bank accounts with PoA should be on a list and regularly checked for large transactions. Social services should also be involved if that level of care is needed to prevent financial abuse and coercive control.

@Whatsgoingonherethenagain

PoA should only be done via a professional. Solicitor, GP or bank.

Agreed. When we went to see the solicitor for me to become Dh's POA, the solicitor removed me from the room so that he could have a private conversation with DH to make sure that he wasn't being coerced and that he trusted me.

Nobody can "unilaterally arrange" POA for someone else or "appoint themselves". It's the person that the POA is for (so in this case, your mother) who starts the process and appoints the people they want (which has to be done while they have capacity). Then the chosen people get sent the papers and choose whether to sign or not. He's not being straight with you. Talk to your mother. If anyone's "cut you out" it's her, not him. As for having POA for him, you don't have to agree to it.

And find out who the executor of her will is.

The problem is that if it had to be done via a solicitor, it would be massively more expensive and most people would not have one. Which would cause all kinds of difficulties further along the line.

I don't think there's an easy answer to this.

A good start would be us all doing our own, rather than waiting until we need "help" to organise it. If it's led by the person giving PoA it's much less open to abuse than if it's being led by an appointee.

Assuming you are genuinely good with finances, I’d just reply no thanks, I don’t feel comfortable taking responsibility for someone’s serious health decisions if they don’t trust me with their finances. I spoke to a few friends and the first thing they all said was oh he thinks health decisions are women’s work, so there’s that too (you do not have to actually speak to any friends to say this)

and if your mum still has capacity I’d be talking to her about hers too.

Absolutely this.. outrageous.