No POA

[Ella1313]

Just wondering has anyone encountered a similar situation. My father in law has recently gone to a care home as he has late stage dementia. He has one son and one daughter. His daughter is his next of kin. I'm married to his son. His daughter has moved into the house and taken over his car and bank accounts. My husbands dad had no Poa in place . Can his daughter take over like this.

I don't have POA for my DM. I had access to her bank account for years before she went into a care home. I log in to her account to pay her bills. If I didn't do that I would have to go through the Court of Protection at my expense. It's much easier to just pay the bills.

Not sure on what the 'legal' stance is - if you have the log-in details, then the account holder must have disclosed them.

We don't have POA and are having to go through the Court of Protection to apply for Deputyship. It is indeed an expensive & complicated process!!

OP, if your DH doesn't trust his sister to do the right thing he can inform the bank. They'll freeze the account but that will cause problems in paying FIL's care home fees.

The LA are paying my Mum's fees until we gain access to her account & we will then have to pay back the money they've spent. This now means she can't claim Attendance Allowance, even though she's a Self Funder & would have been able to usually, although we may be able to retrospectively apply once we have proof of what we've had to pay back to the LA.

It's a ball ache without POA...

You'll need a deputyship, it is a long process (as are all legal processes in the UK) and it involves many, many forms, but you can do it yourself (I've done it twice) and most of the costs you can recoup from their estate when it comes through.

Has your FiL got a will?

If not then intestacy dictates that your H and SiL inherit jointly,
which may be irrelevant if he burns through his liquid assets and the LA put a charge on his house.
Has he got a Social Worker who sorted out his care package?
You can contact the Office of Public Guardian if you think she is mishandling his finances.
If she has no prior permission to access his bank, the bank won’t take kindly to her doing it.
You can put a block on the Land registry, assuming his house is registered, if you think she is intent on fraud.
Download the LR info and go from there.
Also make sure your H is ready to apply for letters of administration if there is no will, do it asap when Fil dies.
Assume and plan for the worst.

Have you been to the house to actually talk to her?

Are the banks aware it's her that's doing the banking? Do you trust her to act in FIL best interests?