POA and large sums of money

[AInightingale]

If you have POA for a parent (i.e. in this case, a person with dementia and two attorneys named on their bank account) and that person receives a large sum of money (in this case inherited from a deceased family member), am I right in thinking that solicitors MUST lodge that money in the person's account? Would it ever be sent to one of the attorneys, paid into a joint account they hold with a spouse (not an attorney), on the understanding that it will be passed on to the beneficiary? It all seems so highly irregular, yet that is what has happened!

IMO not the best practice, but provided the attorney can provide evidence of where the money is, or what it's been used for, I don't see it as a problem. Obviously if it's been used to pay off the attorney's mortgage that is not allowed, buying car with a wheelchair lift, so the parent can be taken out may well be ok. How large is a large sum? Are you attorneys jointly or severally? If you suspect the POA is being misused you need to report it to the OPG for them to investigate

Joint attorney with a sibling. I've no evidence it's been misused but can't understand why it wasn't directly forwarded to my parent's account as I thought POA rules were far stricter than that.

I would question the solicitor as to why it was paid to a third party and not the beneficiary.

Usually attorneys are appointed to act "jointly and severally", so one attorney can act without having to get agreement from the others, is this the case here? The reason for doing it, other than speeding everything up is that if they are appointed jointly and one attorney subsequently declines to act or dies, the POA is not useable. The simple solution is to ask your sibling why they have acted in this way.