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??

We think our relative stole hundreds of thousands over a few years. under the guise of “helping” with money.

thing is now the grandparent is dead (before they needed care home) they’ve got away with it.

elderly abuse is way more common than you think.

This is why POA shouldn't be granted to greedy people with wishy washy morals, it's always a risk, she should have granted you jointly for financial purposes.

At the end of the day your sister should be keeping records of EVERYTHING in case she is asked for them and she shouldn't have any problem showing you those records. If gifts are being given, which IS allowed, they should be fair and across the board for all grandchildren, a lot of people do this and I would do the same thing, because I think the system is ridiculous, but it's important to do it fairly, accounting for all beneficiaries, and NON of it should be done in secret.

I would guess that the reason she doesn't want to show you is because she is stealing your mums money under the guise of 'reducing her estate', I say stealing because if you are joint beneficiaries, you should be equal in all of this and you're obviously not.

There are several issues here, as to the LA seeing it as deprivation of assets, from my experience they probably won't be too concerned by the two gifts, which are modest in nature, if it was huge amounts it would be different (its worth saying different LAs have different policies).

They may, quite rightly ask if your mother authorised these gifts. If she put it in writing as an instruction to your sister, preferably witnessed or did the transaction herself then I cannot see there would be an issue - however if your sister just withdrew the funds then there can be serious reprocussions.

In practice it is unlikely the LA would not pick up paying, but the normal procedure if they suspect deprivation is to take court action to recover the funds from those who have aquired it.

They won't do that for 20K, as the fees involved and time for them would way exceed that, so they would never recover it. However they would likely get the OPG to remove the POA from you/your sister, they could prosecute, again in theory)

This underlines why its a really bad idea for more than one person to jointly have POA.

Awful. And yes they can look at where the money has gone and reclaim it back so I hope the grandkids haven't spent it ( unlikely ).

This underlines why its a really bad idea for more than one person to jointly have POA

why? If only one person has it then surely it would be easier to abuse?

if it was only o/p’s sister o/p would never have found out 🤷‍♀️.

The home can absolutely kick her out, they are a private enterprise, it may be she is transferred to another home that handles LA funded patients, it works differently depending on where you are.

Round here the LA has a contract with a couple of utterly crap homes in the middle of nowhere.

True, but if the OPs sister was sole POA then

A- Her head wouldn't be on the metaphorical block with her sister

B- If her sister is defrocked by the OPG she could apply to take over.

Your sister says that your nephew is paying rent. How and to what account? If you have POA you should have served to her accounts and to be able to see rent going in. Your sister cannot operate these accounts without you having access to then.

She needs to be transparent in giving you access to all your mum's accounts.
My brother and I have financial POA jointly and severaly for my mum. If we make any payments from her account,, we inform each other. We each have the log in details to her bank account and can access it whenever we want. We will occasionally check that the other has looked at it recently. It's vital to us that the other can check the status of the account and any transactions at any time.

Being an attorney is a big responsibility, and we both feel the need for checks and balances carried out by the other attorney.

'Served' should be access (to her account)

THIS is the reason it works better for a joint POA, not saying either would do anything underhand, but there's no chance of that happening when you both have equal access.

Clearly you are doing it right!

You are correct, it's a huge responsibility, and as POA holders we have a responsibility to only use what we have control over to the benefit of the loved one we care for.

I would certainly never authorise a gift, especially when the person is not of full capacity, thats what the will is in place for. Until then the monies are there for their care / life needs and I have to account for every penny.

My brother even shares mum's online supermarket order with me so I know what's being bought! I keep telling him he doesn't need to go that far, but again, that transparency works for each of us

I would telephone the OPG & explain the situation. I would ask if it can be anonymous , but I suspect in any case they will keep all information confidential. I would report it and ask that they do not mention you if they investigate. THE OPG can investigate any POAs at any time as I believe so this should not be a surprise to your sister.

A friend of mine's sister looks after their mum's money. Mum in a care home but fit and well. I don't think there is POA but DSIL has access to bank account to get Mum money out for what she needs. DSIL has been withdrawing amounts to "put to one side " to "protect their inheritance." Which I think is just stealing. Mum trusts DSIL implicitly but doesn't look at what money is going in and out of her account.

Some people just are utterly without integrity I think.

You mention the house, is this accounted for in the £100K, is it disregarded or on a DPA (Deferred Payment Agreement), if its on a DPA then the care fees will be paid by the LA until she passes away, the executors then have 90 days to start to liquidate the estate and settle the DPA.

If the house is not in the mix yet, when mum runs out of money the LA will value the house (presuming its not disregarded by virtue of an eligible relative having it as their home, or not hers) and you have the option to either sell up and pay the fees from the proceeds or take out a DPA with the LA, which gives you time to plan ahead.

From a PP upthread:

"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."

That's appalling. I cannot believe how insanely greedy people get when it comes to elderly relatives' money. Maybe the gentleman had good cause not to dole out his money – but no, once he lost mental capacity, this greedy family decided they were entitled to his cash anyway.

Such an ugly way to behave.

I read on another thread this week that there is a limit allowed annually for gift giving before it is considered deprivation of assets. I think another posted said £6000 I've never read this, and it would be totally illogical. For someone who has amassed say £40k in their lifetime, meaning £17k to be spent on care before they're eligible for any help, it would be ridiculous to turn a blind eye to £6000 being given away when there was no history of this amount being given. There is a limit allowed annually for gifts with respect to inheritance tax, and many people wrongly think this applies to deprivation of assets. this may be the case with the poster in the other thread.

The court of protection could act though £10k is unlikely to be enough to trigger anything more than an order to repay as you can gift £3k annually (if the £10k was last year by the time the money runs out that's 2 tax years worth, £6k). The car unless very valuable is unlikely to trigger an investigation but the house will need to be sold before the council will fund so I recommend getting advice urgently on selling. Speak to the court of protection helpline for further assistance, however if the sums are as described I would consider the balance between protecting your mum and family harmony, perhaps talk to your sister about the way poa works and your concern that she could get into trouble eg phrase it as concern for her

Not quite. The Council can take steps, including via County Court, to recover the assets. This is slightly different from handing over the care home contract to them to pay.

https://www.proceduresonline.com/resources/careact/p_dep_assets_enforce_debts.html

Something else I hadn't realised is that deprivation of assets is a criminal offence. You can be prosecuted by the LA. OP, you have to report this and make clear that it wasn't done with your approval or prior knowledge.

https://www.ramsdens.co.uk/blog/is-deprivation-of-assets-a-criminal-offence

@MereDintofPandiculation

It's £3k per year

https://www.gov.uk/inheritance-tax/gifts

Yes it may seem odd if there's no track record if this but legal deprivation of assets is set limits. Also older people so start giving things away, dp's mum keeps trying to give me thing (I don't want but apparently are highly collectible and valuable )

I’ve been dealing with my parents estate.
I can’t believe how difficult it has been, and both my sibling and I as executors have been 100% truthful with everything.

I’ve been able to handle the finances as I don’t work, but every letter I’ve had, every statement that’s been sent and every bill I’ve paid, I’ve sent copies to my sibling.

As soon as my mum showed signs of dementia, we spoke long and hard about using the POA. I was in charge of paying the care home and house bills and again, I shared every transaction with my sibling.

I am aware of one situation where the father sold his house and went into sheltered accommodation. His work pension covered this so the family divvied up the quite large amount from the sale. I’m talking 100k each.
40k was given to a grandchild as a house depot. When the solicitor did all the checks, it came to light that the dad was not at capacity when this was done.
Unfortunately he has since died and the fall out in the family has been immense.

Please cover your back and let’s hope this won’t come back to haunt you.

When my mum went into care she was self funding. At her request we didn't disclose any financial Information. We were asked how long the money would last and I gave a conservative length of time though. We also had to be able to provide bank statements and any other information about her assets from the time she moved into the home until she was nearly at the threshold where they would be paying. Any large transfers would obviously be picked up so this might happen in your case.
Mum passed before the money ran out so we didn't have to disclose anything.

She needs to be transparent in giving you access to all your mum's accounts. OP can use her PoA documents to get access to all the bank accounts - she doesn't need to go through her sister.

It’s hard work holding POA because you not only have the work of managing the finances itself, but you need to keep extra records. I’ve read on here that people keep spreadsheets and I’m afraid I’m not that organised, but I make sure there’s always a contemporaneous WhatsApp message to/from my brother, and the chat is auto-archived so if OPG ever wanted to take a closer look then we could pull it up. When my brother does shopping for her he submits an “expense report” with the receipt and I then send him the money from her account. If mum gives him a tenner to go to the shops then he always tells me as he knows I keep an eye on how much cash she has. If i pay for something for mum and need to pay myself back from her account then I send my brother a message explaining it. I send DBs kids birthday and Christmas presents from their grandma, about £25 each, same as she used to spend when she did her own shopping (these days she doesn’t even remember the dates). It’s never ending.

@gogomoto you can gift £3k annually Can you provide a reference to this, as I have never seen any such limit with respect to deprivation of assets? There is a £3000 allowance for gifts in respect to inheritance tax, but that's a different matter entirely.

No, that's nothing to do with deprivation of assets. That's for inheritance tax. It doesn't apply to deprivation of assets.