Mums bank account.

[Noidea2114]

Mum has always been very secretive about her money.
All the years since my dad died we thought she was managing
as she shops in the cheapest shops, clothes are all from charity shops.
My 2 brothers and I have financial and health power of attorney.
But have never looked at her accounts its her money her business.
Last November she was diagnosed with dementia and now cannot understand
about paying bills, getting money out of the cash machine etc.
After 6 months she has admitted that she needs help. She hates it that we now how much money she has.
So we have now got access to online banking to make sure her bills are paid and
my younger brother gets her £30 per week out of the ATM as she wants cash to go to the local
shop for bread. Other shopping is got by older brother. I don't live near her.
Now we can see her cheque account it's got over £60000 in.
Plus a lot of money in different accounts.
Her ISAs are not available to put more money in.
This takes it over the £85000 threshold.
We want to take some money into a savings account for her but as she is confused will we
be able to open a new account in another bank in her name.
Don't even know if we can get financial advise because of her dementia.

My mum has dementia and has previously been scammed by carers into withdrawing money so the bank helped us move her money into another account to which she has no access and we drop £50 a week into the old one, transferring it back when it reaches £500 so pre Covid she could still get cash but potential losses were minimised.

Mum doesn't have carers at the moment. We have taken her cards off her as she was going to the ATM forgetting what to do and asking someone to help her get money out.
Fortunately she lives in a small area and everyone knows her and has been honest.

Since you have power of attorney I'd just approach her bank and explain the problem. When this happened to my mother they were very good.

Could you buy £50K of premium bonds for her? Would potentially be easier than moving money between accounts, puts her money in a safe and secure place, plus she might get a little thrill when she gets a small win.

As you have powers of attorney, you can act as if you were your mum. You need to speak to any banks, financial advisors etc and they will ask for proof of who you are - passport/drivers licence/ birth certificate etc and they will also want to see the original POA. Do not let them keep this!! Some places ask to keep a certified copy, some are happy to just have a photocopy of the seen original. The probable we encountered, was that some places wanted to see mil initially. This may or may not be a problem depending on how mobile your mum is. We got around this by setting things up when she wasn’t too immobile. A financial advisor can come to her home with you present.
The £85k ‘limit’ is per financial institution, not a total amount across all institutions.
Basically, explain you have poa, and all relevant paperwork, explain her diagnosis, what you want to achieve, they will want to help.

Once you are registered with her bank etc. You can stop her card etc. So she doesn’t end up giving it to strangers to get money. My mil wanted a card, although she didn’t know how to use it, so we just let her carry a blocked card. As we did all her shopping and just gave her a cash allowance to fritter, it worked well.

You can get feed accounts. Money over a certain threshold goes direct into savings, under the threshold its transferred back. My threshold was £200 I think. Might that help?

Her ISAs are not available to put more money in.

What did you mean by this? Has she used up her £20k annual allowance since 6 April 2021? (seems unlikely from what you've said)
When I had power of attorney for my late dads affairs I found it easier to deal with banks and building societies where he already had accounts, rather than new ones. Could you not open a new ISA for this tax year at one of her existing institutions?

If you haven't already done so, take the POA into her bank, they'll take a photocopy and register you onto the account (other attorneys would have to go in with their own ID to be registered). You could then have a debit card for the account in your name which may help you keep an eye on things and like a previous poster said, perhaps just give your mum cash rather than keeping her card.
Thank goodness you'd organised the POA before the dementia started. We have both in place for my dad but really ought to do them for my mum now too while she's still sound of mind, just in case.

We have a relative who we are guardians for. The relative has a bank card so she can draw cash out and we ensure there is only a limited amount of cash in there at any one time. This is to ensure that she feels she has some independence. We make all of the investment decisions, pay all of the bills etc. The bank were very helpful when we had to set all of this up so would suggest speaking to them.