Overwhelmed & Exhausted By Power of Attorney Responsibilities

[AgitatedGoose]

Does anyone else really struggle with being a POA and the amount of time it takes up. I admit I slept walked into this when I agreed to do this for both my elderly parents. I’ve never had a close relationship with them and had a very difficult childhood. I’m also an only child and there was no one else to take on this burdensome task and I knew the problems it would cause if I’d said no. I really regret this now because of the time it’s taking up. I’m trying to manage a stressful job and I live 3-4 hours away from my parents. My Mum has Alzheimer’s and my step Dad is struggling to manage his bank account and organise repairs for the house. In the last week I’ve had to spend 3 hours registering the POA with the bank and now they’ve emailed me saying part of the document didn’t scan properly so now I’ve got to go back. I could scan the document myself and email it to them but apparently they have to do it. I’ve also spent about an hour sorting out the house insurance.
The worst thing about being a POA is that your expected to do all this work for free. I can only claim nominal expenses such as car parking and stationary. I also do free lance work as well as my contracted job which I’m having to reduce whilst I sort out the POA stuff. Consequently Im losing money which doesn’t seem fair particularly as a professional attorney is allowed to charge for their services.

@cansu I apologise if I am being thick

if you don’t want to do it for your own child, what system do you want instead? Is it the cumbersome nature of it that you want changed?

OP it will get easier if it’s just this current set of things. But generally I am wondering if someone else can do it for your stepdad. If you mum already has Alzheimer’s, she won’t be allowed to choose another attorney I guess
btw where are you claiming expenses from?

Yes I think there needs to be some understanding that when a parent is continuing to effectively manage another human being's life for them that they are actually performing an important service. I won't be doing this for an elderly parent for a few years. I will be doing this for the rest of my life. I pay all my adult child's bills. I manage his money, deal with housing issues, buy all his clothes, book leisure activities, deal with benefits and liaise with carers and social care and OT. I have two children with these needs so have now taken on my second child's affairs. It is exhausting on top of all my own life admin plus a full time job. I have to complete a deputy report every year. I have to keep all receipts for every item of spending.

No there is no one else who could do it. I don't have a choice. Of course I want to help my child but there is no recognition in the system of the burden of this job on top of caring and working.

@EmmaEmerald There are no other family members or friends who could assume POA for my step dad. I could ask the local authority to assume deputyship for my Mum. I haven’t claimed any expenses at the moment. The OPG allows an attorney to claim nominal expenses. You invoice the person you have POA and claim from their funds. I cannot claim for lost earnings.

@cansu I agree this is a huge task on top of everything else and there needs to be some recognition. I think the problem is the majority of people don’t object to this and having POA is promoted as a good thing to have. I can see the advantages but their are also huge negatives.

Well, it’s on a par with jury service, isn’t it? Expenses only, no compensation for the great chunk of your time that you’ve lost.

I've found the responsibility of the care decisions to be the worst. I do it for a relative, not a parent, and I'd never do it again for anyone. I hate being the one who gets to decide if a DNR is OK or if they should be allowed to live in their own home.

No never again.

Anecdotally, I understand not all establishments will yet accept the digital code.

but yes, it will make the registration massively easier. Thereafter, you deal with each organisation just as if you yourself were the donor, so much less hassle. You’re still doing someone else’s life admin though.

POA is promoted as a good thing to have If you have accepted doing the life admin for your elderly parent, PoA unquestionably makes your life easier. It’s the burden of life admin that is the negative.

There was never a question for me that I would help my father with his life admin. When I was able to say, with his permission, “I’ll deal with all this for you”, it was immeasurably easier than the hours of fruitless discussion around every tiny decision.

Jury service ...but for the rest if your life.

Yes indeed. It was the principle I was talking about, the labour of the “little people” is there for the taking. The idea we have better things to do with our life is incomprehensible.

I hold POA for my brother and it is very time consuming - I’ve had 18 months of constant hassle - his house is 1.5 hours away and is derelict - I employed a builder to renovate it so I could rent it out but he didn’t finish the job and owes £20000 - he’s now declared bankruptcy so not expecting to get that back. It had all been so stressful - if I go to check the house I do charge him petrol money but that’s about it. Thankfully the house is now sold. I probably spend at least 2 hours a week on his stuff even though everything is sorted with banks/utilities etc. i do think it’s wrong that we can’t charge for admin work - we were not close before all of this - there is no way he’d do it for me.

You can complain to the bank that messed something up and get compensation for that, plus your time and travel costs spent dealing with it. But that's then extra hassle and you have to prove freelance loss of income etc so yet more admin!

The worst bit is getting everything registered, it runs relatively smoothly after that. It's also more straightforward if the person is in care as there's no property to pay for and maintain.

Thank you for everyone who replied in a really supportive way to my post. I’ve spent a of six hours at the bank over three separate visits and this doesn’t include travelling time and phone calls. I’ll probably now have to make another visit as they’ve now registered the POA for my mum and misspelled my surname for the second time. They’ve issued a POA debit card but registered the card to my parents landline number and not my mobile. This means I can’t make an online payment for anything as my identity can’t be verified via a text message. I can’t believe the incompetent idiots I’ve had to deal with and am totally stressed out.

You’ve been really unlucky. I’ve registered financial PoA at 6 banks and building societies, two government departments, a LA, 2 electricity/gas suppliers, a pension provider, 2 insurance companies, and a care home. The longest I’ve had to spend on it was an hour. I’d be pushing for compensation.

OP you don't HAVE to do it because you're an only child. What do you think happens to childfree people?
Parents made a choice to have you. Raising you isn't a gift it's the bare minimum. You're not obligated to do anything.

Childfree people like my late aunt and her husband ask people like me to be POA. My sister blithely agreed we'd be their POA - she lives abroad and at the time I really had no idea what was involved. Now my aunt has passed away and I am trying to support my uncle.

He is a lovely man and very appreciative of my help but he is now terminally ill and I am dreading the next few months. I work fulltime and was hoping to retire soon to enjoy more freetime with my dh - but looks like I will be dealing with uncle's affairs.

That sounds a total mess. It might be worth a complaint too as pp said. It can be very stressy can’t it OP?

I’m not sure that cock-ups are that uncommon. When I dealt with the bank, they seemed v unclear about the process and it took me ages to get clear. Also the solicitor sent the original power of attorney to the wrong address delaying matters by another month. I went a bit mental about it all at the time. Acting financially for another person seems to be v time consuming especially if you dont see them regularly.

TIP: I always immediately ask to be put through to the “power of attorney” department now when dealing with any institution.

The only trouble I had was with Yorkshire Building Society who insisted that because the PoA was able to be used before capacity was lost, I either had to write a letter to explain he’d lost capacity or I had to get his signature for every transaction. I managed to produce a letter which satisfied them without too much offending my regard for truth. But that was over 10 years ago. Banks etc are much more familiar with LPAs now.

I have always thought that power of attorney was oversold to the general public and many people have applied for these without fully realising what level of responsibility they were taking on. The whole process of registering is still both cumbersome and time consuming and many branch staff still do not understand this at branch level. It all needs modernisation and digitisation, none of these processes are digitised. If family members do not get on for whatever reason such documentation is frankly disasterous.

I would look at third party access re bank accounts as this is far easier to set up.

I definitely agree that POA is oversold to the general public and it’s promoted as a must have.,My parents went through a solicitor and I feel it should have been pointed out to them that the geographical distance between us would cause difficulties. I must admit I slept walked into this as I had a lot going on in my own life at the time and didn’t realise the full implications.

Thanks and yes I’ve made a complaint. It’s all been very time consuming and I’ve made a 4th visit to the bank today. There’s a lot which could have been sorted out online but because my own account is with a different bank I can’t have online access to my parents account. I don’t think bank staff receive enough training in registering a POA.

I had PoA for my parents, banked with different banks to them but was allowed online access to their accounts. Has your parents' bank given a reason you can't have online access?

Well, it’s on a par with jury service, isn’t it? Expenses only, no compensation for the great chunk of your time that you’ve lost.

Goodness me, not at all. Jury service has a beginning and an end and no emotional stuff that a family brings.

I'm sorry to hear of your hardship in this OP. Sometimes you just have to take your hands off it all if it is negatively affecting your personal life and job/income.

They didn't treat you the way you should have been loved as a child.
What comes around, goes around. Take care of yourself.

LPA now has an online code system that banks etc can utilise.

Third party access accounts don't help when you’re trying to change electricity supplier or make a complaint to the house insurer. Nor do they help if you want to move savings around. Or cancel the now redundant private insurance they’ve been paying into, or inform DWP, as you’re legally required to, that they’ve moved into a care home.

I have on line access to 2 accounts, one with POA and one with 3rd party authorisation. I do not have accounts at either of them. FYI they are Barclays and HSBC.
3rd party authorisation is slightly more restrictive but in my case it was done before I needed full POA and now I am very reticent to fiddle around and change it.

Hi sorry to hijack but I may also be in a POA situation soon - it sounds from this thread that POAs are expected to pay for everything themselves upfront and then claim back (possibly with some time delay) from the family member's funds...is that correct? Also what happens in that strange limbo period between where you're trying to find where all their funds are - are you just expected to unquestioningly pay for everything if they require a lot of care?