LPA at Utility companies?

[FiveFoxes]

I have registered my Mum's LPA at her banks - hurrah!

Do I also need to register it at her utility companies? For example, her gas and electricity supplier? I already have online access to it and it is set up as direct debit, but I am thinking about a scenario where there is an issue and I might need to contact them.

Is it normal to register LPAs at Utility companies? I can't find any information about it on their website (Octopus).

Is there anyone else I should register it with? Should I, for example, take her Health one to the dentist to register?

Have I got carried away with the admin?!

Thanks

Any company that you deal with on her behalf will need to see a copy of it yes

We only registered my mums LPAs as and when needed, she had Alzheimer’s and we had to support her quite a lot but it was a gradual process. So when she was starting to get in a muddle with her bank account and we needed to make sure she was not being scammed or taking out large sums of money, she approached the bank where she held her current account. We did not need to contact other savings or investments until she went into a care home and we had to sort out paying the fees.

Her doctor wanted to see the medical LPA in order to discuss her medical needs even though we took her to the doctors and were in the room for the appointments. We never needed to do anything with her dentist, they were happy to have my sisters contact details and alert her of appointments - but my sister was also registered with them. Same with hospital appointments, as my mum did not use a computer to receive emails, they just emailed me as I was always with her for hospital visits anyway.

I did contact her utility company fairly early on after a mix up with some repairs, her bills were paid by direct debits which was fine as we looked after her finances but the company ( gas, elect and phone combined) we’re not keen on talking to me until they had seen the LPA.

All this was done several years after the LPAs were set up, my mum did them before she had any memory problems. I have done my own LPAS but they are just sat in my safe waiting until needed, my children know where they are but hopefully they won’t be needed for many more years!

The legal bit is one has to have mental capacity to enter into a contract and be able to give permissions. So it depends if its a new or old contract and if mums permission is possible.

Most utiities allow the account holder to nominate a second point of contact. (Think of a company needing to add and change staff names) Thats not normally a letter signed by mum just done by phone with your mum confirming the data protection checks and agreeing that you can be added. Then you can housekeep eg change an email address which allows password changes and could be set-up with a different electronic ID if thats available its (usually not).

Bluntly You want the money due from any contract for her to fall within your mums estate when she dies.

Thats important if you are doing expensive stuff around care homes etc and make sure to read the text carefully so that your signature is not you accepting any joint liability.

So compay contract is in your name as the account holder and is owed 2k when she dies and the estate only had assets worth 1k.
the company will sue you for the 2k and you cant claim off the estate.
The will says split with you and cats home.
You get £500 and have to pay the cats home £500. This is important as some charities like family sue for the amounts

Joint liability would be the estate pays 1k to company cats home gets zero you pay 1k.

Doctors and hcp will depend on if they feel she has capacity to give permission. A signed letter can be enough for being included in information sharing. Once(if) you take over her decision making role they will likely ask for it.

Good luck
🌻

Thank you both! She sadly has Alzheimer's and was losing the ability to sign things, so I thought it was time to register the LPA with the banks. I did it with her savings too as I want to be able to manage the if needed to get the best interest rates.

I am worried about not registering it with the utility companies and finding out they won't talk to me (and Mum is starting to struggle to remember security details when put on the spot). Then there might be a disaster that I can't deal with! She does need a smart meter so maybe I will see what happens when I try and arrange that as a test...

I do note the warnings about things being in her name !

As I did when my Dad died, I am finding it so strange that companies seem so difficult to deal with - death and dementia aren't exactly uncommon!

Do you have a little old lady voice and know the data protection information?

Not saying you should 🙊

One thing to be aware of, my mum developed a habit of reading and re reading bills and statements which then got left around the house, hidden in drawers or books or even ripped up! We used to tidy away papers every time we went round but in the end my brother took her to a football match ( they both had season tickets to Manchester City and mum was able to go up to the time she went in a care home after a nasty fall) and I went through her wardrobe filing boxes and took photos of key documents or removed some if I thought she would not notice.

it made it much easier when we cleared her home and found very little paperwork, all my exam certificates, school reports and photos were missing yet my siblings were still there! Not sure what happened there!

If you want any advice on ways to keep your mum independent and living at home for as long as possible, just message me and I will tell you how we used technology to support mum. She did go into a care home eventually ( mainly due to the changes brought about by the first Covid lockdown which she could not cope with and was very frightened when life shut down) but I think we kept her independent for at least two more years.