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.

@DoveGreys You stand more chance of getting the bank to refund that rather than the original £700. Then add in travel costs, time and stress. I’ll message you later today.

It's not just banks, it's everyone really. The police, NHS, insurance firms, shops, motor garages - you find complete incompetents everywhere who are arrogant and think they know better. I think it's a mix lack of education, lack of employer training and the modern way of people believing crap they see on the internet. No one has any attention to detail anymore. People also make up crap to hide the fact that they don't want to admit they don't know something.

I got a certified copy of the POA document from the solicitor who holds the original copy. My Mum had destroyed her own copy in a fit of dementia rage. It was a faff trying to get the copy as I had to provide written evidence that Mum had lost capacity. I asked the hospital for a doctors letter and predictably this straightforward request wasn’t passed on. Fortunately the solicitors accepted a DOLS document on the end. I then had a 4 hour journey to collect the copy as the solicitors wouldn’t post or email it. The solicitors didn’t charge me which was good. I hope it’s an easier process for you dealing with the OPG.

People also make up crap to hide the fact that they don't want to admit they don't know something. Had an argument with neighbour at end of garden who insisted my Kiftsgate rose was a bramble as "he had never seen a rose like that". Look - I actually know something about plant identification, you have demonstrated you know SFA, why will you not just believe me?

DH has PoA for his mum for finances - she lives 7 hours away and was a dreadful mother. But she can't deal with them on her own, she's in her 90s and doesn't use the Internet, can't leave the house unassisted and has fallen out with every neighbour and other relatives.

To be honest, most of the time it runs smoothly and just takes dh an evening a fortnight to do the admin. Everything is on DD, a care worker does her food shopping each week and she has a morning "wellbeing" visit from a wonderful Saint of a woman who does her cleaning, laundry, etc and let's us know if any important paperwork needs to be dealt with.

We try to visit twice a year, I really resent the money we spend on that as the fuel costs plus 2 nights in a hotel are a lot, but I try not to show it.

💯

"Do the banks no longer train people"

I was never trained to handle any aspect of Power of Attorney in the building society I worked for all those years ago. We had to refer to head office. Also if you venture into any bank branch these days there are very few staff members in there. I would put a crisp fiver on it now than none of them would know much about registering power of attorney documents (and you'd also need an appointment).

I maintain that the whole Power of Attorney issue has been oversold to the public in they do not fully understand how the process works and that the system for processing same is broken. The system is complicated to navigate with no digitisation in any part of the process so its outdated to begin with. Registering the P of A with banks has been problematic for many people for years; there is an awful lot of online reading about this particular issue.

I definitely agree with people not being given enough information about what they’re taking on if they agree to be POA for someone and it’s largely sold as a positive thing to have. Whilst it undoubtedly makes some things easier there’s little mention of how time consuming it can be. I’d never do this for anyone else and similarly wouldn’t ask anyone to do this for me.

We try to visit twice a year, I really resent the money we spend on that as the fuel costs plus 2 nights in a hotel are a lot, but I try not to show it. Wouldn’t your DH be wanting to visit his 90 year mum twice a year even if he didn’t have PoA? Well, possibly not if he felt she was a dreadful mother.

I was never trained to handle any aspect of Power of Attorney in the building society I worked for all those years ago To be fair, things have changed, at least in building societies, in the last 15 years, and it’s now possible to get a PoA registered with them without all those telephone calls to Head Office.

@AgitatedGoose what would you do as an alternative?

@MereDintofPandiculation sadly DH only feels a sense of duty towards his mother, not love. His parents put him.in boarding school when he was 11 and didn't really have much to do with him after that. His mum has never offered any help with our dc (fair enough, not. obligatory) but we were once desperate when I was hospitalised for a few weeks with dc2 and she wouldn't even have dc1 during the day for a few hours to help out. Again, her choice but neither dh or I feel obliged to do much to help her now.

Obviously she's too old now, but when our dc were small she came and visited us twice. And that was after a lot of moaning and complaining that it was too long a journey. She was younger than DH is now, we only lived 4 hours away, and she took holidays to Portugal and Madeira. She used to insist we visited her but wouldn't let us stay in the house so we always had to rent a holiday cottage nearby.

Anyway, I'm derailing the thread. But don't assume that families who don't visit their relatives are selfish, sometimes there are complicated back stories

@MereDintofPandiculation With hindsight I’d have been happy for the court of protection to appoint a deputy to manage my parents affairs. I don’t expect or want to inherit any money from my parents and should my step father die first the money they have will be spent on care home fees for my Mum. It’s also
unlikely my step father will be able to live independently for much longer.

@EmmaGrundyForPM I agree there are often complicated back stories regarding peoples parents. I come from an extremely difficult background and also resent the financial cost of visiting my parents particularly as it involved taking unpaid time off work.

Guess what?

I got a phone call from the manager of NatWest. They’d cocked up the photocopying or sending of my ID documents this time. I needed to come in again. 3rd time. What can I say?

Incidentally, I did comment to the manager when the original mistake was made that I didn’t think banking staff were trained properly. She immediately asserted yes that they were!! Needless, to say I didn’t argue with her. Although I could have said something pithy in reply.

Anyway, I have written a letter to the complaints department running at five pages now. Rather bizarrely the manager of NatWest has asked me or emailed me at least seven times can she help me “draft the complaint?”. Am I living in another universe or something? Sometimes I wonder.

Also. Office of public guardians told me today re Office copies, unlike originals, you can’t certify them, so it’s most likely you will need several of them at £35 a shot.

I hope everyone is well.

I intend to step back a lot more after this. It’s v time consuming and stressful and I’d do it for a loving caring parent I’m sure. But where this is not the case it’s really extra difficult … in effect you’re advocating for someone who never advocated for you.

But don't assume that families who don't visit their relatives are selfish, sometimes there are complicated back stories I don’t think I said anything to suggested I did assume that, did I?

@AgitatedGoose I can understand a professional could perfectly satisfactorily deal with the purely financial. It’s all the other stuff, wanting to sort out overcharging by your electricity supplier, enter into a new contract with an internet supplier, change the house insurance to one which id a lot cheaper … I think you need well-disposed family for all that (and they will all want to see the PoA document). Goodness knows how people without family cope.

Yes and no. A relative is in care and even with POA registered with their mobile operator the company still won't close the account that hasn't been used in months because the relative is unable to use a phone now. No idea why the company can't/won't end the contract when the relative has been out of contract for years!

MereDintofPandiculation

re your comment:
"To be fair, things have changed, at least in building societies, in the last 15 years, and it’s now possible to get a PoA registered with them without all those telephone calls to Head Office".

I hope that is the case but there are not all that many building societies left particularly on many High Streets (infact where I live now there is only one bank branch).

One more than I have, then

Why is it so difficult to register POA with a bank? I'm not in the UK, but it wasn't hard, and didn't take long, requiring only one visit to each bank. Neither visit took anything like three hours. Nor was any of the work involved being the POA that time consuming. I was working full time at the time, and managed it fine, including clearing out and selling a flat, with almost no help, and I don't drive.

From reading MN it seems many things in the UK appear to be unnecessarily complicated.

As for OP owing her parents nothing - will she be expecting to inherit?

I have PoA for a friend and have been able to use the online PoA service to generate a unique access code for each organisation with which I have needed to register the PoA. It was very straightforward. Having registered the PoA with them, I did need to make one visit to my friend's Bank, but that was for practical help when I was having trouble setting up the banking app for my friend's account on my phone.

A POA ends the minute the person dies.

I found HSBC terrible to deal with. After going in and registering the POA doc with them, every single time I went (6 times) they had no idea about it, claimed to have no record of it and I had to produce the original document again. They were completely incompetent, claimed they could not do anything about it the last time it happened and told me outright lies-
'the manager is not here at the moment,' I could see her in her office
'the manager does not have a phone'- there was one on her desk
'the branch does not have a phone'- ludicrous lie.
'the next available appointment is in 4 weeks time' - pathetic.

I stood in the bank and spoke to every customer who came in about the appalling service from the bank- the manager magically appeared, full of apologies, sorted out the problem immediately and gave me her direct line number for any further issues.

Meanwhile, so far Barclays - who I am fed up with for other reasons- have been excellent- registered the POA, sorted out a POA debit card for me and POA online banking, all in 30 minutes.

@IloveAslan I'm genuinely glad your registration was straight forward as that's how it should be. For as long as I have been on the Elderly Parent board, about eight years, there have been endless tales of POA presentation in the UK taking many visits.
Technically speaking my DSis and I were registering Guardianship. We has six visits but I didn't want to say that to OP in my first post as she needed support.

TBH I can't actually remember word-for-word the actual excuses so I've paraphrased them to give you a broad idea

• The 'person that does this' is not in today... 'they changed their day off after you made the appointment'
• I know we photocopied your passport last time, but we need to photocopy it again today and you should have brought it
• I'm sorry but our photocopier is broken
• Yes, we need a passport, a utility bill for both you and your DSis but we also need your account details too. We need to see actual proof that you have an account with us, so next time can you bring proof of your account ie a card or bank statement.
• We have a problem. Our legal team is based in England. They have to check that your Scottish Guardianship documentation is in order. They won't be able to do this while you wait. You'll have to come back.

I’m currently working at least one day a week on POA, sometimes 2. Luckily I work part time but it’s eating into my normal life. My house is much less clean and tidy than it used to be and filling up with my mother’s belongings. I’m currently mopping up the mess of 3 years of not having POA so it’s a huge backlog of paperwork that has been hidden in Mums house and I wasn’t able to access due to her paranoid behaviour. She is now in a care home. I’m finally accessing her pensions for her, all companies require different documents before they will talk to me. I have an admin system that is larger and more organised than anything I have worked on/created in actual employment. Still it’s staggering how crap some companies are, even with online codes they get they miss type them, or don’t bother to try and use them until after the access codes expire 4 weeks after I have told them. Some banks are fine and some are useless. I hope at some point the admin will level off a bit, but no sign yet. People keep saying it must be easier now she is in a home but it’s really just a different set of problems taking up the same amount of time as before.

No I’m not expecting to inherit anything from my parents and wouldn’t want their money anyway.

It's really variable because sometimes things like the online codes work fine and there's no need to go to the bank and the elderly person only has one bank account to deal with anyway.

Or you have elderly person with many many accounts, POA set up before the access codes existed so you have to go to the bank. All of them! And then they'll only deal with you if you have an appointment and they don't have many of those available - I recently had to wait seven weeks for an appointment at the bank. It would have been quicker if I could have gone on a weekday rather than waiting for a Saturday but a weekday would have meant using annual leave. Then you get to the appointment and the bank person is off sick, or hasn't been trained in xyz or hasn't got the right document.

Clearing and selling a property, again, huge difference in clearing a small flat for someone with minimalist tendencies vs a large detached house where they've lived for 60 years and have multiple rooms and outbuildings stuffed full!