LPA for parent where there is a 'difficult' sibling- pros and cons

[teaandbigsticks]

Just wondering if anyone has any practical advice on pros and cons of having LPA for a parent with dementia, where there is a 'difficult' sibling in the mix?

My situation is:
Elderly DM is in the early stages of what I think is very likely to be diagnosed as dementia. We have been discussing LPA for a while (she brought it up) and she has always said she wants finance LPA for me alone and health and wellbeing LPA for me and sibling. She has been putting off filling in the paperwork as she doesn't see it as urgent (always something to organise when she's done everything she thinks is more immediate) but I think if we're going to do them it needs to be done asap.
Sibling is involved in her care and she takes a lot of notice of their views. At present she does not want them to have finance LPA as the knows when the time comes to use it there will be a lot of work that she thinks will be too much for sibling. I have been helping DM deal with her finances/bills etc for a while now so I have already have a reasonable understanding of what's involved.
Sibling is also not very organised and she has previously indicated that she would be worried they wouldn't handle things properly (I share this concern) but she now seems to think they wonderful and would make a great job of anything but are just too busy.
Sibling and I are not on good terms and in my view sibling is burying their head in the sand about DM's condition. Sibling has made it clear they do not think we should even consider selling DM's home and moving her in to residential care no matter what her future needs. DM has said previously that she does not want to go in to a care home but I don't think she has ever really considered what the alternative is if she needs 24/7 care. There is not the money to pay live-in carers in her home. Sibling think we should become her carers, including 24 hour care if necessary, for as long as she is alive. I am simply not willing to do this and don't think it would be in anyone's best interests if/when she is no longer safe to live alone. My concern is that if I take steps to arrange a care home and sell DM's house (when she no longer has capacity) under the LPA sibling will challenge this. I have no idea whether that could leave me personally liable for anything.
Sibling has also recently started to suggest that I have been trying to take things that he considers valuable from DM's house. There are a few things that DM has given to me as she can no longer use them (eg kitchen gadgets) but none have any significant re-sale value and to be honest I don't even particularly want them but don't want to argue with DM who clearly thinks they are wonderful gifts. I worry that if I had LPA and needed to use it he would accuse me of mismanaging her finances. Clearly I will keep full records but I don't want to accusations, especially as I work with vulnerable people.
On the other hand, I think it's almost certain that (unless she develops a new and very serious physical illness) DM will lose capacity before she dies and if no-one has LPA dealing with her finances and care will be expensive, stressful and messy. If asked, I'm sure that sibling would refuse to take on LPA as they consider it unnecessary and/or they are too busy. There is no other family member or friend who could reasonably be asked to take it on (all DM's remaining friends/siblings etc are elderly and not in the best of health themselves).
Does anyone have any advice, ideas or suggestions of things to consider?

It feels very much like your sibling is protecting assets rather than your DM future best interests but if your DM wants the LPA’s set up that way go along with it. If your DM needs 24/7 care then there will be medical people involved, it’s likely that your sibling won’t be able to overide needs.

I was attorney for my dad. I have four siblings, and I think it was less stressful doing it alone. Could you push for this?

I wouldn't worry about accusations of dishonesty from your sibling. Keep everything transparent with all receipts and records of finances and what you spend, and you'll be fine.
As long as you act in the best interests of your parent, your sibling can't really challenge anything. Even selling the house for care home fees, this is necessary by law, so they wouldn't have anything to accuse you of.

I didn't find the financial admin too stressful really. And then when my dad was hospitalised and then later went to a care home, having LPA meant I could simplify his affairs and took some of the worry out of things.

Everything sorts itself out in the end OP, there's no point worrying about every scenario, it evolves. Sending best wishes x

I can't help suspecting your brother wants to keep your mum at home so he doesn’t lose his inheritance. Even if that is not his motivation he is seriously underestimating how long your mother is likely to live, and the amount and type of care she will need. My mother lived ten years after dementia diagnosis, much of that in a care home. For the last two years she was immobile, doubly incontinent and unable to feed herself.

Re the LPAs, I would not accept a joint LPA with him as he will disagree, undermine you and change decisions already made. But fortunately it sounds like he doesn’t want LPA himself anyway.

I wouldn’t think there will be too much detriment to you in having LPA on your own. Your brother sounds like he generates a lot of hot air (accusing you of taking items) but he is unlikely to get anywhere if you have LPA and have kept good records. If you don’t have LPA there will, as you already know, be serious issues once your mother cannot manage her own life any more.

I had LPA for my mother so could decide what type of care she received (fortunately she could self fund for several years). I am an only child so there was no one else to do it - and fortunately that also meant there no one to argue with me about it!

@catofglory I agree, easier on your own, and LPA is a godsend when a parent can't speak for themselves.

In your position I would try to get both LPAs done as a priority and I would ask to be the only one. I would discuss this with your Dm, explain it can’t be put off as once it’s too late, it’s too late. Also explain that you would take the opinion of your ds into account but don’t want arguments to prevent dm getting the care she needs.

I wonder what your siblings take on all this is?

S/he - as you admit - has been doing a lot of the care. Not all older people need nursing homes and it’s important to take your DM wishes in to consideration. If that time comes a social worker and medical professionals are likely to be involved too

I think you need to tell your DM you are only able to so it on the original condition that you are the sole person. It’s perhaps worth reassuring her that having the financial POA does not mean yours is the only opinion that would count as she could not be forced into a care home unless it is deemed that she no longer has capacity.

I would also try to make it clear to both DM and Dsis whilst DM still has capacity that whilst you love DM very much, you are not prepared to take on an active care role under any circumstances, so it makes sense to put your skill set to best use sorting out the finances so that everyone works to their strengths.

Thats the theory anyway. Sometimes I am glad I have no siblings and a helpful DH instead. Sometimes I am not. It’s a bit rubbish having to parent your DPs regardless of the circumstances.

You can have a poa that allows you to act jointly and severally, so you could make financial decisions without them. They would need to refer to the office of the public guardian of they thought you were behaving fraudulently. Does your mother still have enough capacity to make a poa?

Sibling's take on the situation is that family should look after DM and a care home should never be considered as an option. Sibling thinks we should commit to sharing DM's long term care and the fact that I am not prepared to do that means I don't care and am out for myself- hence the accusations. I have suggested we need to properly discuss options for future care as DM's needs are increasing and she currently does not feel comfortable living alone. I know from experience that dementia patients can often end up needing a level of care that is almost impossible to provide at home, particularly where the carers have other commitments. I also know that neither of us is in a position to give up work to care for DM but if I did agree to share long term care this is what would be expected I think it would be unfair to make promises that we can't keep. I'm not saying we should just agree to put her in a home and forget about her, but that if we can agree properly what is possible at home there would be time to make proper plans to choose a place that's right for her/look in to funding options etc in advance of arriving at a crisis. I suppose my concern is that sibling may seek to use a challenge to how I manage the finance LPA as a way to try to slow/prevent any move. I know a challenge is unlikely to be successful if we have others involved etc but he knows that the finger of suspicion would make life difficult and upsetting for me, and would probably hope that the threat would be enough to make me agree to do things as he wishes. I know this sounds rather dramatic but his standard approach to any disagreement is to threaten and bully. The saddest part of all of this is that if we could have a sensible discussion with DM now, whilst she still has a reasonable understanding of what's happening to her, without false promises and emotional outpourings from sibling, I'm fairly sure she'd agree that residential care is the best thing when it gets to that stage.

He's not being realistic

I’d pick an opportunity when your DM is totally lucid and tell her gently that you don’t trust your sibling to put her needs to the fore.
Before hand go on to ChatGPT and ask for some pointers on how to discuss it when you bring the subject up. You should be able to set the tone and work out the critical issues you want to cover before you have the chat.
Then press for both LPA s as solo.
My friend is having the most awful protracted issues with her brothers over shared attorney. The victim in all this is her mum.

I've also been dealing with a difficult sibling when caring for my elderly parent - I found this useful for dealing with my brothers: https://carents.co.uk/carent-support/what-to-do-when-siblings-won-t-help-care-for-elderly-parents/

And also this for trying to get things in order this year - it's a lot of information but really helped break it down for what to prioritise: https://carents.co.uk/carenting-guides/money-legal/legal-matters/2026-legal-reset-getting-your-affairs-and-theirs-in-order-for-the-year-ahead/

TBH, Carents has been a bit of a godsend these past couple of months.

Get the finance LPA set up first without sibling involve. Just do the forms with your Mum.

Then separately do the Health and Welfare.

Don’t borrow trouble. There is no one set pattern for dementia (IF that is what your Num has) . In our family 3 people who died with dementia all remained at home, none ever failed to know who anyone was. Though other functions and abilities disappeared.

If an acute need for care occurs your sibling will be looking at the problem afresh with a new perspective. Not the romantic ‘caring for Mum’ picture.

I reckon your sibling would soon change their mind when your mum sadly declines. I would just maintain your position - it is doing what’s best for your mum and yourself; there’s no shame in wanting a life for yourself and realising your own limitations.
My siblings changed their position when there was an emergency, respite care led to full time residential care.

He is not being at all realistic here.

FWIW my friends family looked after their late mother (diagnosed with both Lewy body dementia and Parkinson's disease) at home and doing so broke them as a family. The ramifications of that are still very much present now some years later.

Do not set yourself on fire to keep someone else ie your sibling warm.

DM and DB have now agreed that we should have a finance LPA in my name. As I thought, he has no interest in having to actually do anything relating to her finances/life admin but has given the caveat that his agreement is 'only if the money can only be spent as mum wants'. Which of course is always the case when she has capacity but I suspect this is supposed to make me think I need to consult him if she loses capacity.

The health and wellbeing LPA seems to be a bit more of an issue. I suspect they may well end up deciding they want DB to have sole health and wellbeing LPA. I don't think this is ideal, but I'm minded to let them get on with it. My concern is that if he has health and wellbeing LPA, would this make it harder to move her to residential care if the social care team think that's what she needs?

That setup could make it very hard for decisions about her care to be made. One of you controls the finances, and the other controls decisions about her care. Unless you agree with each other, you are at stalemate. He cannot arrange carers because he doesn't have access to money, you cannot arrange care without him agreeing what type.

If he was not acting in her best interests Social Services could arrange a best interests meeting and overrule his decision, but they like to keep people at home for as long as possible so they may agree with him.

Thanks @catofglory that's my concern. Part of me wants to tell them both that the LPAs need to both be in the sole name of the same person as far as I am concerned so they can choose who that is. But I've held off that so far because I know sibling wouldn't deal with finances properly and would expect me to be behind the scenes taking responsibility for reminding them what to do.

Can you petition your DM -when DB is not there - about the reasons why it would be better that you at least are on the other LPA as joint. Joint would be better than not at all. He might get fed up with the effort as things progress.

@teaandbigsticks I think you're right, it would be better if both LPAs were in your sole name. But at least if you had joint H&W with your brother you could take over when he lost interest. Putting both in his name sounds a poor idea because you already know he won't cope with it.

Has your mother ever said what she wants in terms of future care? Is she prepared to move to a care home or will she not talk about it?

@catofglory I think that sounds wise. It can't make any suggestion to DM that sibling might make things difficult/mess things up (DM has always been blinkered to siblings failings and now of course sibling is telling her what she wants to hear so this has doubled down) but I'm sure I can make her see that it is helpful for me to be on the H&W LPA if I need to be dealing with the financial aspects of any decisions.
Getting a proper idea of what DM wants is difficult as it depends on what's happened that day and who is around. Sibling always reminds her that she once said she'd rather die than go in to a home (I remember this, she was fit and well and had seen a lot in the news about poor care homes) and she agrees. Sometimes when sibling is not around DM tells me she just doesn't want to be alone and doesn't mind where she goes to achieve that. If I bring it up, with both of them sibling says 'we' will care for her and a home won't be necessary.

Your sibling sounds as if he talks a good game, but won't be able to back it up with actions.

I doubt he has any understanding of the extent of care needed in later stage dementia. She would need someone with her 24/7 and she is likely to become immobile and doubly incontinent. Would he really do that type of care, I doubt it - and I don't blame him because I didn't either. But unlike you he is not realistic about the options.

It's interesting your mum says she doesn't want to be alone. That was one of my mother's main fears too, people with dementia tend to become anxious when alone. She was actually very happy in the care home.

I hope you manage to get the best (least worst?) result with the LPAs.

I have been in exactly your position sibling is totally useless when it comes to all this type of thing, while family is aware and agreed id be better off doing everything re LPA (even though im not keen to do it, im also keen its done properly so that basically means i have too take responsibility). I have been NC with sibling due to their alcoholism fir 11 years and was told they wernt happy i had/was sole LPA so i said fine you want to do it? Here you go get on with it ans have fun.... suddenly when they were handed the tons of forms that needed completing they lost interest and said tbey would "let Tara do it". When DF passed away recently they didnt help with anything....

Even with a health/welfare LPA in place medical professionals & adult social careful only consult and get your views but ultimately, if the situation warrants it, they will make a best interests decision

Ask your brother how he feels about having to change your mother’s soiled nappy, about having to bathe her when she’s got faeces all over her bottom, about having to clean her teeth, dress her, feed her. About having to go out looking for her night after night when she wanders off? These are all too often the realities of later stage dementia.
My stepfather actually thrived when he moved into a care home as he was receiving good care, was well looked after, enjoyed all the activities they laid on, his meds were given on time and he was fed well. When he did move in it was expected that he’d live for a few months at best - he eventually lived for 2 1/2 years.
Get LPA for finance sorted for yourself only!