Does someone with LPA owe duty to will beneficiaries?

[OpheliaThrupps]

My partner is executor of a will. The affairs of the dead person were managed for the last few years by someone acting under power of attorney. The attorney made some decisions in the last year or two that have seriously reduced the size of the estate - fairly "stupid" investment decisions. We suspect that these decisions were made vindictively by the attorney to reduce the amount that would be left at the end for other people.

I know that attorneys owe a duty to the person who gives them the power. But that person is now dead, and the poor/vindictive decisions did not affect them. They had enough money to see them through. But it has significantly affected what was left for beneficiaries of the will.

The question is: can the attorney be held accountable by the executor or beneficiaries of the will for bad decisions that depleted the estate now that the testator is dead?

The attorney has not benefited themselves.

Sorry that this is worded very impersonally, I'm trying to keep emotions and outing details to myself!

I would have thought that any duty was to the now-deceased person and so it would be for the estate to pursue for any compensation. Which would mean it would be the executors duty to work out if legal action on behalf of the estate was a reasonable course of action. The beneficiaries themselves would not, I wouldn’t have thought, have a case against the LPA holder themselves.

But I’m not legally qualified and this response is mainly intended to bump, in the hope you’ll get a better response from someone who actually knows what they’re talking about.

Thanks @NumberTheory, your point sounds plausible, but I wonder if it's right. If legally the attorney was standing in the shoes of the (now) dead person, it would have been open to the dead person to have frittered their money away. So maybe it's also open to the attorney?

I think it's quite a complicated issue, going to need proper legal advice.

Is there any point...bluntly, sorry... However even if proved right would there be any chance of recovering money, of not is it not a waste of time and energy. I get that would be beyond frustrating but I cant see how it would be financially or mentally worth pursuing. Exception would be if they had 'invested' in something they directly benefitted from that still has value...

I'm not legally qualified either and from memory when my parent created their LPAs with my siblings and I, I do not recall anything more than the responsibility to carry out duties in a 'reasonable' manner within the paperwork signed (paraphrasing). So I tend to think more towards the situation of not being held accountable in the scenario you give, very sadly. Even if they were, litigation would be costly and the person may never be able to make good their mistakes in any case.

@OpheliaThrupps

Thanks *@NumberTheory*, your point sounds plausible, but I wonder if it's right. If legally the attorney was standing in the shoes of the (now) dead person, it would have been open to the dead person to have frittered their money away. So maybe it's also open to the attorney?

I think it's quite a complicated issue, going to need proper legal advice.

An LPA doesn’t just confer on the attorney the right to do whatever the subject of it could have done if they had capacity. By law, any act under an LPA must be done in the best interests of the subject. So I can’t see how frittering, unless it benefitted the subject, would be lawful.

But I don’t disagree that it’s complicated and you’ll need proper legal advice!