Deprivation of assets? Can I be accused too?

[Mirandawrongs]

I have POA over my mother, jointly with my older sister.

I deal with all medical stuff and sister looks after the money.

mum is in a nursing home.
Self funding as over limit but will be under limit by November.

just found out my sister has given large sums of mums money to her adult children.
mum says it’s fine as the home can’t kick her out.

I’m concerned that this will be seen as depriving the assets mum has/had.

am I right to be worried??

Not only would it be deprivation of assets, I would have thought it would also be an abuse of your sister's POA. Why did she think she could just help herself to large sums of your DM's cash to give to her DC?

The home can kick her out if the council won’t fund it- the council usually has a limit they will pay and if the home she’s in is more than that they will move her to a cheaper home. Unlikely though.

If in England, you are quite right but that only becomes an issue if her money runs out. If she has mental capacity and told your sister to make the gifts, no issue aside from deprivation of assets. If she doesn't have capacity or didn't tell your sister to do so, you can report your sister to the Office of the Public Guardian who will investigate.

Also if you’re self funding and the weekly cost is over what the council would fund someone with no assets, mum might have to move somewhere cheaper.

Trust me, not all homes are equal. Your sister has been very greedy and your mum naive.

It completely depends how it was done. There is a limit you are allowed to give as "normal gifting" you have to act in mum's best interest and this can include inheritance tax planning. But this sounds like she just took the money and gave it to her kids so unlikely. If you are "jointly and severally" you will be ok. If you are jointly then you would have had to have signed off on any payments too. I think your best bet is to report to the office of the public guardian yourself. Otherwise you know about it and aren't protecting your mother - that's where things will get sticky for you.

Does your mum have capacity to make that decision?

i.e is it your mum who has made the gifts, or your sister?

make a report to the public guardian.

POA only comes into its own when the person no longer has capacity. If your mum still has capacity, then it is irrelevant here that your sister holds it for finances. If your mum has said it's fine, then she's within her rights to do what she wants with her money and can give it away to whom she likes even if in a nursing home. If your sister has given it away without your mum's knowledge though, then that's theft.

No it doesn't. You can set them up for if you go abroad and stuff.

Thank you for your replies.
I want to talk to my sister about the realities of this situation but she just brushes it off.

I’m now at a point of saying she’ll have to deal with it all and trying to remove myself from POA.
mum would’ve probably agreed to giving the money (she has never in her lifetime given that much money away) as other people in her home are there funded by council and she gets annoyed at that.
I’ve tried explaining but now I’m just more concerned I’ll be seen as responsible for my sisters actions!

Just to add mum has lots of medical issues and recently been diagnosed with dementia too

Are you on the financial POA? Or just health and medical.

tbh if you’re on it I’d def report it so you aren’t implicated. How was the money gifted? Band transfer? Can you show who made the transaction?

Speak to the OPG. You might find sister is removed and you're left in charge. Would you be OK with that.

Thank you all.
have some tricky phone calls to make.

It may depend a bit on the circumstances.

When my dad and his brother took over my grandad's finances after he lost mental capacity, they were a bit shocked at how wealthy he was as he'd always given the impression that he had hardly a penny. This was probably due to a scarcity mindset from having been brought up in poverty.

They did decide it would be fair and reasonable to gift each grandchild an equal sum which was intended as the "backlog" of christmas, birthday and wedding gifts that we all perhaps "should have" received over the years. But in this case the finances never got low enough for the LA to take over paying for care so the only "deprivation" was the relatively minor amount of inheritance tax that didn't get taken off that portion of the assets.

Has your sister explained why her children should receive this? In general the POA should only be used to manage finances in the interests of the person who owns the assets. If your mum has capacity to make rational financial decisions and just needed your sister to do the admin then it could be ok, but how confident can you be that this is honestly what your mum wants?

I’m not confident it’s what mum wants or even wanted.
she’s never given such large sums of money for anything
when sister got married mum gave her £1000.
that was the biggest amount I’ve ever seen from her.

mum gets very confused and doesn’t understand anything

I think you need to report your sister for financial abuse as this is not ok. X

That sounds like an abuse of power to me. If your Grandad had wanted to gift that money when he was of sound mind, he would have done. 'Fairness' doesn't come into it. The purpose of being an Attorney or Deputy is to ensure that the affairs of the donor are carried out in their best interests.

An OPA yes. An LPA, capacity plays its part. Depends which type the sister holds I suppose 🙂

If you have joint financial POA then yes you could be jointly liable for fraud/theft.

If you yourself only have medical POA then you yourself are free and clear.

Your sister is clearly going to be in big trouble.

If your mum has any property then the council will hopefully only put a charge against that to recover. If not then your sister will be looking at legal proceedings. The council WILL find out before the end of the year.

The sooner this is resolved with the “loans” being paid back before the council find out the better.

We are in a similar situation where the family member has given themselves and their children very large sums, with plans to give more.

we knew it was against grandparents wishes/knowledge as they have always said all grandchildren should receive equal shares.

we have reported to OPG.

How much has she given each individual

If you Google 'Age UK fact sheet 40' it will tell you everything you need to know about deprivation of assets in social care.

The health and welfare only comes into effect if no capacity the property and financial one the person can ask the attorney to do stuff for them if they have capacity but don’t want to act themselves. The attorneys are not allowed to personally benefit however outside the customary gifting rules so gifts the donor was making before they lost capacity.

there are two seperate, but connected, issues here

One is that as financial POA your sister has gifted her children a large amount of money each. It seems unlikly, given both the history, and the 'confusion' that your mother has, that she has agreed to this. Or has the capacity to agree to this. She may gripe about how the council pay some fees, but that doesnt mean that she has the capacity to understand the repercussions of depriving herself of assets, nor the whys and wherefores of who is funded. So that issue is financial abuse and she needs reporting to the OPG, ESPECIALLY if you are jointly responsible.

Secondly is the deprivation of assets. That is a council issue, and they can and will look back at how this money has disappeared, should it come to light that she no longer has the money to pay for her care through to November. With nursing homes being around £1K a week, and liability for council kicking in at £23K, Im guessing that your sister has cleared about £17K out. The council wil hold whoever has those assets as responsible for the care fees, so she effectively will be giving a load of hassle to her kids.

For a property and finance one the doner can register it to take effect immediately if they want