I wonder if anyone has any information about what will happen in a situation where an elderly parent has gone into a care home but they are ignoring anything to do with the finances?
The situation is that mum owns a house and therefore would be classed as self-funding but she won’t give me Power of Attorney to sort out the sale of the house to fund the care. She is of sound mind.
She has been in the care home for 4 months now so the 12 week disregard has well passed and she has had two letters from the local authority which as far as I can tell ( I live 100s of miles away) are asking her about paying fees.
There is a horrible situation too where my brother and his wife have used all her money in her bank accounts when she first became ill and actually got her in debt. They had access to her house whilst she was in hospital but did not have permission to use her cards. The carehome were informed and now know there is a safeguarding issue with my brother the police have been informed but she won’t speak to them. So savings that could have been used to pay care homes for 1 or 2 years have gone. Me and my Husband did what we could to deal with banks and sort out a payment plan for the debts but now my mother will not give me POA to sort anything else out which makes things impossible ( from my point of view) with care home fees. She seems to think that me having financial POA would not be fair to my brother, even though my brother went behind her and my back and drained all her savings from her accounts! I have tried to explain that POA would an admin task for dealing with finances and would be under legal scrutiny and all to benefit her but she doesn’t want to do it.
So, what is the Local authority likely to do when she just ignores letters about fees? What sort of action can they take? Will they take action against her in any way? I am expecting in a few months that she will contact me in a panic about some nasty letter or legal stuff which I can’t help her with as I won’t have POA.