Selling home under LPA

[CandidLurker]

I hold LPA with another person for my uncle. We have been through all the stages- diagnosis of dementia at memory clinic, care needs assessment with adult social services. Uncle is now resident in a care home and we need to sell his property to continue to fund the fees. We checked with adult social services as to whether another capacity assessment is needed with them before we proceeded to sell the property and they said no.

Property has sold very quickly and solicitor is now saying we need a letter from the Doctor to confirm he has lost capacity. GP is saying this isn’t a service they
provide.

Has anyone else come across this or been asked for a Dr’s letter in this situation. In one sense I’m reluctant to put relative through yet another assessment as it could be stressful for him.

i have written to the solicitor to ask him to confirm why exactly such a letter is required when there is an NHS diagnosis on medical records etc. but he hasn’t replied as yet.

Has a doctor ever confirmed he has lost capacity.

A diagnosis of dementia doesn’t automatically mean lack of capacity which might be the problem here. Can the adult social services help as their assessment would be more recent?

Ok. Yes I see there could be a difference between the dementia diagnosis and loss of capacity. We will have to have the assessment done in any event. Solicitor said in his initial email that it can be done privately. We will just have to pursue that avenue. Just wondered whether anyone else had come across the requirement.

If it’s a LPA it can be used without the donor losing capacity. It is different from EPA where loss of capacity needs to be certified before the POA can be invoked.

my uncle’s house was sold by his PoA, they just produced the documents. He still technically had capacity but was very confused. The attorney dealt with everything and it was not questioned.

I sold a complicated property for an elderly relative I was POA for, and didn’t have to do anything like that. It was their solicitor we used for the sale though so they knew what the elderly persons situation was.
Is your Elderly capable of signing a letter saying they’re happy for it to be sold? Using POA doesn’t have to mean you have lost capacity, just that you’re happy for someone else to be dealing with your affairs. My relative handed over all banking/bill paying/life admin long before they lost their marbles as they just didn’t like dealing with paperwork.

Like @Usernamenotfound1 we used their solicitor (who had done the LPA) so I dreaded this question but didn’t actually have to deal with it. I’m sure the solicitor is trying to cover themselves if the sale is ever challenged by the LPA donor (your uncle).

Has there been a DoLS? The social worker who completed the Deprivation of Liberty Safeguarding clearly documented that our relative had no insight into his needs, fluctuating capacity but not in respect of where he needed to live to have the 24 hour care and support he needs.

I know it’s a very personal document but it was the best source of the facts - especially if your uncle would say he wants to go home if asked - which could be interpreted as objecting if he has ‘capacity’ but he cannot actually process the realities of leaving 24 hour care.

I have pOA for 2 people and recently sold both their houses. I was not asked for this. As long as the POA is registered, it can be used

I am in the process of selling a house using POA and have not been asked for this. I did have to provide ID docs for the elderly person, and show the POA doc obviously.

I absolutely agree with you about not causing distress by putting someone through an unnecessary assessment- I would be thinking the same.

I would ask the care home manager if they would do it, or the GP attached to the care home, they might charge.@

@FiniteSagacity the situation is exactly as you describe. We are also using the same solicitors who did the LPA’s to do the conveyancing. There is a DoLs in place. This was done straightaway. So thanks. It might be worth us looking at that.

@Marmaladegin the LPA’s are definitely registered.

As the GP practice is saying they don’t do it, I guess we need to look at a private provider in some form. Solicitor has already said it has to be a Doctor.

It’s the GP practice attached to the care home who have said “it’s not a service they provide”. Other LPA has spoken to care home manager who says the Dr is due to visit uncle in a week or so and she will ask him to do it when he visit. So we will see. I don’t mind paying the GP a fee. Solicitor said the private providers who do this work normally charge about £500.

Although I do think there should be checks around POA being able to do things like sell houses- they can actually be invoked now without the donor’s knowledge.

i recently saw a POA revoked (am social worker) as an attorney attempted to put the house up for sale without the donor’s consent. Fortunately another relative spotted what was going on and intervened.

Solicitor is chatting shit. Any competent adult with knowledge of what capacity assessment entails can do the assessment (I.e the solicitor can do it).

Do you have both lpa, the capacity test is needed for the health and welfare, you don't need it for the financial one unless the donor has specified,it in the paperwork, it can be used as soon as it's registered. Who agreed to the carehome placement if he is on a dols it might suggest he may not have capacity. Who signed the contract and got him moved there.

I know, so can the social worker or registered nurse

I would go ahead with a private assessment asap, the cost of which can be taken out of the proceeds of the house sale.

Surely someone carried out an assessment to apply for the dols

Yes we are going to have to do it I think. We will wait until the Doctor has visited the care home next week and see whether the GP says something different to the Care home manager than I’ve been told by the admin team at the practice (but suppose they must have checked with a Gp first before saying it’s not something they do). If not we will have to pursue the private route.

But yes it’s something that will need to be done relatively quickly

Sold my mother's house using POA, as she had gone into a rest home and needed the money from the sale to pay her fees. It was totally straightforward and I was not asked for such a letter. Registration of the POA was sufficient.

Our visiting GP charged £150 for the assessment

social services paid for a 4 week assessment in a care home (after relative came out of a long hospital stay) at the end of which it was decided residential care was in his best interests but he has to self fund. I believe the care home applied for the DoLs. There’s obviously a lot of issues and events that led up to this situation over probably the previous year

I may be wrong but a best interest meeting and decision is for people who lack capacity and if you have health lpa you should have been involved and able to make the decision of where he was moved to

It’s interesting that people have had different experiences. It’s probably useful for people to be aware that this may come up and be prepared if it does.

As far as I’m aware, with POA you can just sell. You don’t need an assessment.

Did your POA state the financial one is only if he lost capacity hence the question. It’s very limiting to set it up like this but a relative wanted me to be POA but only if he lost capacity but I refused,