Power of Attorney - how much should it cost?

[rosybell]

My Mother in Law is setting up power of attorney for her sister, and DH will also be named as someone who has PoA for his elderly aunt. My Mother in Law in going through a solicitor and has been charged £800 - is this completely unnecessary? A quick google has told me that you can just put it in place yourself by downloading the forms and paying a small fee...

Lots of other issues at play here. My mother in law will inherit her sisters house (she has no DC), and she is concerned about the house being sold to pay for her care. She is somehow under the impression having PoA will solve this. mine and DH's main concern is his elderly aunts wellbeing. She is showing worrying signs of dementia (possibly) or just general old age. Yesterday she answered the door to her cleaner wearing only a top. MiL is brushing this off saying she is just a bit confused, but DH and I feel she needs some kind of assessment/medical intervention but no idea where to start!

Sorry this is garbled. Any advice appreciated!

If you feel your mil is not acting in the best interests of your aunt then make a call to the office of the public guardians and state your concern.

Tbh from what you have said you are right to be concerned about your mils motives.

To answer your other question, that's about what my mother paid but you can do it yourself online.

If the Aunt is already showing signs of not having full mental capacity then you could have difficulties getting POA put in place.
If you're confident that she understands what POA is then I strongly suggest you get it set up ASAP.
It is fairly simple to do yourself online.

As regards an assessment usually the GP can arrange a series of tests to determine if it's just old age type forgetfulness or if there's an underlying health issue such as dementia. Sometimes something like a water infection can cause confusion in elderly people so it's not always a dementia diagnosis.

If it is dementia and the lady does require care then there's nothing to stop your MIL being the carer, this would prevent the house being sold to pay for professional care.

Having POA just means that you are acting in the person's best interests on their behalf, it doesn't mean that you can help yourself to property or money.

AgeUK are very helpful when you need advice on this sort of thing.

Thank you for all the helpful answers so far. I have just looked up the age UK helpline and will call them today - thank you for the tip.

Added complication is that MiL lives abroad and the aunt lives fairly close to us. We feel quite responsible for her as we are the closest family (geographically). I think a GP assessment is the way to go, but I think DH's aunt will be reluctant to go down this route.

I think you might struggle to get an LPA if your aunt is already showing signs of confusion, but hopefully it is just a urine infection.

It is very easy to do the forms yourselves as long as you can read and follow the instructions to the letter - the gov.uk website covers it well.

We did the money one ages ago for my mother (I think the banks are better at understanding them now than they were - we had to talk to multiple staff and their supervisors).
My mother's GP spent a good 20 minutes talking to her -we had to pay for her to do this and sign the form.

It took us 7 months to get the "health" one properly registered last year (we concluded that all the civil servants had been shifted to work on "Brexit"). Hopefully things have improved now.

Despite the LPA, the assets remain the property of the original owner.

Marlow Wills is run by a (maybe ex?) MN-we.

They do LPA at way, way less than £800 and do a really thorough advice conversation and consultation.

Having POA will not stop a home being sold to pay for care.

Thanks - that what I suspected . I think the solicitor has talked to my MiL and managed to persuade her that by getting PoA she can 'secure' the house.. but I was highly doubtful that was true. Ultimately if she needs care - which I think she does - it will need to be paid for.

GPs are quite used to reluctant elderly people not wanting to be assessed. With my dad the word ‘dementia’ was not used. We’d asked the GP in advance and they called my dad in for a “routine check-up”. He had a chat and then asked Dad things like did he know who the Prime Minister was, what season it was, could he draw a clock face with the time set at 1pm.
Unfortunately the answers my dad gave did indicate dementia so that meant more tests a week or so later at a memory clinic.

From first signs of forgetfulness to eventual death it was five years. I think that’s almost text-book. So if someone did want to step in as a carer it’s not something to be undertaken lightly. Same with the POA, even if you’re not providing hands-on care the amount of letters and phone calls and general appointments can take up masses of time.

You can download the forms from the government website. There are two - one for health and one for finances. Once signed the forms need to be registered and that costs about GBP 80 per form.
My mum and I completed hers last year - she is physically and mentally well. Her solicitor wanted GBP 500 (excluding the registration fee) for the LPA forms and she felt that was unnecessary as there are currently no issues with mental capacity.

I would suggest you and DH being attorneys 1) you are physically nearer to aunt and are the ones who in practical terms better able to help her administer her affairs 2) you are younger so with a greater probability of still being around. So it's the logical solution.

If you can avoid MIL being an attorney that might be best if you suspect her motives. But if she is included: you can specify that attorneys act "jointly" or "jointly and separately". The latter is more practical - saves having to get everyone's approval before buying a pair of slippers - but would allow MIL to take decisions without telling you. It's in this sort of complicated situation where it would be worth getting solicitor's advice, and just accept that it'll cost. There's an association of solicitors who specialise in elderly affairs - try to get someone who is on that list.

Your MIL needs to be educated in "deprivation of assets" which is basically depriving yourself of assets which it can be forseen will be needed for your care. While your aunt is receiving care in her home, her home isn't taken into account into the financial assessment, but once she needs residential care. LAs are very aggressive in diving back into the records for things like home being given to younger family members, or savings being used for unnecessary things (eg expensive jewellery that could then be sold by heirs), or unexplained cash payments disappearing from account. -

Most obvious influence of MIL would be to try to keep aunt at home rather than let her go into care when she needed it (although today trend is to keep people at home as long as possible). I think that would be difficult - once aunt is on SS radar, it'd be hard for a MIL overseas to argue against her going into car if SS felt it necessary. And once she did that, having PoA wouldn't mean that MIL could refused to allow payment of care home fees. But that's my opinion as a carer of an elderly person. I advise professional advice.

So, overall, if I were in your situation, I would be going the solicitor route not the DIY route.

And as PP said, call the Office of Public Guardian with your concern.