Dad is scared to access Mam's money

[NorthEastNancy]

My parents have been married for 56 years but have separate money. House long paid off. Each have probably 100k savings. Not invested in don't think, just sat there

They've always gone halfers on holidays, big purchases, bills etc. Weird to me but that's what they've always done

Mam has dementia. Dad used her card to do the food shop every other week but otherwise he's scared to touch her money in case she has to go into a home and he gets judged for using her money.

He bought a car last week. They'd usually go half's but he is too worried to take her half out of the bank.

He has Lasting Power of Attorney. I do too

I think he's mad but he's certain he's not allowed to use her money. Any advice please?

But that doesn’t make sense because things like ISAs that give the best interest CANT be in joint names. So if we’re trying to maximise our interest the money will be in sole accounts even if we’ve both contributed to the saving of it and consider each other joint owners of said money

Quite honestly I dont think your Dad has anything to worry about.

I deal with public sector groups every day and they really arent going to delve into this sort of thing. Your Mum is benefitting from the car and of course with HER money she needs to support her living costs.

Try and get your dad to add his name to her bank accounts whilst she can still give consent. My FIL had a few separate accounts from MIL and when he died it just made things more complicated to sort out.

My mother died unexpectedly and my father was horrified that he wasn't automatically entitled to her savings . He wanted to pay her funeral expenses out of it . He did eventually get access as the will supported it . But it made him look at his finances and opened joint accounts with me on it .

You should contact Independent Age as they're experts in anything affecting older people, especially around money and care. I tried Age UK for advice and they said they couldn't help and gave me the Independent Age telephone number and they were brilliant.

I wasn’t saying money should be held jointly, just that that is how social care treat it, and that its reasonable for DM’s share to come from DM’s account.

I know this isn’t what you asked OP, but just advice based on our mistakes in the past. Your family is most likely doing all you can at this stage to help your mum stay at home independently, sometimes at great personal costs to yourself. Get social care involved early even if your mum has the funds to self-fund initially. If/when you get to crisis point Social Care will when involved, will want to see youve exhausted all their steps before agreeing to care - 1 a day visits at home, 2 a day, etc. This was our mistake, as we went from coping to crisis quickly. Even if you self fund before wanting them to take over funding when monet runs out they can say person in care home needs to come home for the assessment with home adaptations, AI help etc. I think most families (including ours) have no idea that home care doesnt need just to have failed, social care needs to have seen it to have failed. So get them involved early.

@Whereandwhen Social care where I live won’t come if you have funds. You have to pay privately. This is why op should have POA set up for the bank account with dad. Savings means you pay!

Threshold in England is if that if you have less than £23k social care can pay towards care, but only if you meet very high, and getting higher, criteria for them agreeing to care plan.

@Whereandwhen Yes. So if a parent has £100,000 they pay and you find the carers! SS won’t help and yes, it’s a nightmare to find anyone.

Yes it's strange isn't it! But married don't have the right to spend each other's money without consent. It's a shame that OP's parents didn't write the LPA to take account of their financial habits.

@dancingdeidre A LPA is a standard document. There would not be any need to get in touch with the bank if they had had a joint account but as they don’t, the LPA works perfectly. They just use it for her accounts. Go over to online banking and pay what’s required. Divorce simply requires that the money goes into a matrimonial pot for division. This couple didn’t share anything so that’s their way. Odd though it seems. There’s no division of assets needed.

So what happens if my husband dies or loses competency if all the money is in his accounts? I just can’t pay my bills etc?

Exactly. You wouldn't be able to access the funds after he died, until probate was completed. Which can take six months.

Please tell me that you don't, as a couple, have al your money in one account, in his name. Because that would be insane, and a complete nightmare should he die, or lose capacity without you having LPA.

You can say what you want to happen in the LPA, and it would have been better if OP's mum had said in hers that she wanted to continue to go halves with expenses that both of them currently shared, such as maintaining the car. Then OP's dad wouldn't have needed to worry about using her money for it.

@dancingdeidre I’ve got one and I don’t remember that at all! However if mum is getting value from the car, then helping to pay for a family car doesn’t seem wrong.

She could never go in it of course, as it’s purely his and they have his and hers everything! That’s madness isn’t it - but it shows the utter folly of this financial arrangement. How did they ever buy any big purchase they both used, like a new kitchen? Or a car in the past - assuming they didn’t have one each! There must have been shared expenditure. Plus LPAs are for the attorney to decide what’s reasonable. Yea you can pay attention to previous expenditure patterns but when someone needs care, flexibility, not rigidity, in expenditure is needed. Or life is harder than it needs to be for loved ones. Partly paying for a car for your husband to drive you about in is reasonable. So of course they csn use some of her money!

If the council need to do a financial assessment they will view the money as joint because your parents are married. As long as your Dad has LPOA for finance and writes down the rationale for big purchases he will be fine. If Mum previously went halves and will use the car then it is totally okay to to this. She may be eligible for a Blue Badge as well.

If they have always previously bought cars jointly and he is using the car to take her to places or to do the food shop etc then there's no issue with him using her account to pay for half of it.

Buying a car is fine, guessing Mum needs to leave the house.

Dad shouldn't be using her card though, that is fraud. When i was POA I formally registered it with the bank, they gave me a debit card for the current account and online banking access to transfer funds etc. You need to keep a good paper trail as well, e.g all receipts, I wrote everything in a notebook and stapled in the receipt with an explanatory note. Every debit in her bank account could be accounted for.

Absolutely not true in England. If you have funds over £23,250 then you have to find your own care but you are still entitled to a (free) social care assessment and the social worker who undertakes that also has a duty under the Care Act to give information and advice about care options and support.

In the LA I work for we will also arrange care packages for you if you want, but we do charge an admin fee for that service. Lots of older people ask us to do that so we deal with the care agencies, arrange the care, and then bill the person receiving care. Even with the admin fee it can work out cheaper than arranging it yourself.

I would strongly urge your dad to ask for a care assessment from his local authority. There may be lots of services he's unaware about. He's also entitled to a Carers Assessment in his own right.

@AnnaQuayRules Oh dear! You truly believe all councils do this do you? Entitlement goes out of the window when they know you have money and I know exactly how awful some councils are !!! They do not do this, and they certainly don’t arrange care packages! It’s a shit show here! You are very very lucky in your area. There’s very little on offer here. DM was 99 and frail and got nothing. NOTHING. No assessment and no package.

Council have a legal duty to assess care needs but like everything nowadays people’s experiences can vary.

Would it better to get a mobility car??

Assets held individually within a marriage belong to the individual and are not taken into account when assessing paying for care. I have much more in savings than my late DH did and researched this thoroughly, as at one point it looked as though DH might have to go into a home. They can't touch the house either, while he's living in it. It's only the assets of the individual and half their jointly held accounts.

My mother was in this situation recently, elderly father was being assessed for financial contributions to nursing care.One fairly minimal pension payment of his ie:less than £20 a month had always gone into her bank account.Proof of this payment was provided by the pension firm and my Mother showed proof of it going into her account.
Her bank contacted her to say the health trust were asking for the balance of her bank account, bank had declined and were simply informing her.The £20 had to be transferred to the trust every month but her finances were separate from his.