Lasting Power of Attorney - 'Jointly & Severally' question

[Wellwellwellwhatsallthisthen]

Hi,

My Mum would like both healthcare and finance POA set up (as a precautionary measure), and for my brother and I to be her attorneys.

I understand that the decisions will either need to be made 'jointly', 'jointly & severally', or 'jointly for some decisions, and jointly and severally for others'.

My brother and I get on well & tend to agree on most things; I know the 'jointly and severally' option is the most common choice due to its flexibility & practicality.

My question is: with 'jointly & severally', if one of us made a big decision eg selling her home, and the other disagreed with this, does it mean the one who disagreed cannot contest this decision?

We're tempted by the 'jointly for some, jointly & severally for others' option, and listing the decisions that would have to be made together...but the downside is that if my brother or I died or refused to make the decision, then the POA stops working.

Interested to hear anyones thoughts.

Thanks 😊

If you thought it was being misused then you'd be able to appeal to the OPG eg if the sale of the house wasn't in the best interests of the person.

We had to go through a solicitor to get an LPA set up - my late Mother was on the 'edge' of Dementia - so we needed to make sure that we had an independent person to validate that the decisions she was making was in her best interest. We were advised to have a LPA 'jointly and severally' as if it is set for one person and that person died it would then end up under the OPG. Ours was set so the three siblings were 'jointly and severally'. It is my understanding that any one of the siblings could make decision and proceed without the need to agree with the others. In our case I run the LPA on a day to day basis and kept them in the loop. As Siblings we all got quite well so there was no issues. You do however have to keep accurate financial records so if there was an OPG investigation you can backup any financial tranasctions.

Hi myself and my sister do not get on,she is my mum's carer,my mum has vascular dementia and severe heart failure she is 89.My dad also loves at home he is 85 and has many health problems. Me and my sister have financial POA for my mum, as now she doesn't have mental capacity, she also has DNR in place. Back in 2018 my mum had DNR put in place and we had a family meeting to discuss the horrible conversation of mum and dad's funeral plans.My mum and my dad both agreed cremation.my dad set up funeral plans for them both, but last year my sister changed my mums funeral plan from cremation to burial, but not my dads.we have had endless arguments over my mums medication, and her care, but this needs to be dealt with. She has told my dad that he needs to talk to funeral plan company to make sure burial for my mum is in place, but this is since we argued she was going against my mums wishes.Also my mum has savings and my sister is saying it is for the burial etc but my mum and dad said it was to be for my dad and my mums kids and grandchildren,but my sister has manipulated my dad to believe it's for funeral.Is there anything I can do legally to stop her going against my mums wishes? Please can anyone advise thanks Kim

@Wellwellwellwhatsallthisthen I think it is always a good idea to go for jointly and severally. Yes it's true that one can act alone under j&s, but the convenience and functionality are soooo much better.

I'd like to know this. My brother and I are joint and several attorneys and he is refusing to discuss selling mum's empty house. I've told him several times it isn't in mum's best interests to keep the house as it's costing her a lot of money and she isn't ever going to be able to live independently again but he won't engage.