Power of Attorney

[missb10]

What can I do if my mother does not want to donate Lasting Power of Attorney to me and is not capable of managing her own finances? She has dementia but is still able to make some decisions. However, she doesn't seem to be managing as I am finding unpaid bills around her house, whereas she always used to be very punctual about paying bills. She just says "your Dad used to do that". He died five years ago.

@missb10 would she talk to her solicitor about it?

Solicitor was very helpful (and worth the cost) as it was all explained to our father and solicitor certified the decision was made in full possession of the facts.

Capacity sounds like it’s still there to make the decision.

Agree with seeing if a solicitor or doctor can get her to reconsider. I always said to my mum that she would make the decisions and I would do the legwork. This had the advantage of being true.

For bank stuff, if she still won't consider PoA, would she consider making you a third party with access? I don't know the process for that, but someone will.

I think in the end you are going to end up applying for deputyship via the Court of Protection once she has deteriorated to the point where she very clearly doesn't have capacity, eg utilities being cut off, someone in authority noticing that she can't do this stuff. Ie you will have to spend months plus a lot of money to get a more onerous version of what the PoA would have given you anyway. Again, a thread asking about how people got to that stage might be useful.

Martin Lewis has a good 15 min video explaining it, if that would help her. Do you know what her objections are?

You could try the solicitor route, but she would have to agree to visit them in the first place. And it sounds as it's possible she would no longer be deemed to have capacity to do a POA.

If she no longer has capacity and you can't get POA, the alternative is to get a Deputyship via the Court of Protection. It is long-winded and a pain in the backside, but would allow you to control her finances.

https://www.gov.uk/become-deputy

I'm looking at deputyship (parent is way beyond capacity for POA) and its expensive. Not only is there a £421 fee (double that if you need both finance and health) but there could be an extra £200 if you need to go to court to have it granted and then there are annual fees when submitting the required returns... I haven't even looked at the application form yet and I'm exhausted.

And if it’s too complex and needs solicitor involvement it heads into the thousands.

You have my sympathies @SleepingisanArt
I found it hard enough doing it via LPA for my mother, I am very glad I didn't have to do a deputyship.

Each of the home nations do it a bit differently. I know the process was discussed at length in a thread six months ago . From memory it’s most expensive in NIreland followed by Scotland.
OP, I think the Martin Lewis video is worth a go.
But if she still says no, I’d ‘settle for’ DM putting you as a named person on her current account.
Essentially that lets you deal with most things assuming all her money goes into the one place and all her bills can be on standing order.
i had nine years of submissions to the OPG. I often thought that if I could have just accessed her bank account it would have saved so much of my time, DM”s money and I would have been less resentful about dealing with it.