Is it common for only one sibling to hold parents' power of attorney?

[larkandowl]

We are a small family and we are close to my husband's parents and his only sibling, a sister.

She has, up until fairly recently, not been working, although a couple of years ago she took over some of her elderly father's bookkeeping for a small company he still was running (or rather, his staff was running). Still only a maximum of 1–2 days' work per week.

As such, she became the go-to person for their parents in terms of sorting admin out and taking them to medical appointments, although we have helped too. Me, as daughter-in-law, especially with some of the medical stuff, but also occasionally taking them to appointments. To add, my husband works incredibly long hours, so I'm his proxy, but I also have an elderly dad who needs a lot of support. In fact, probably more help over the last 10 years than my sister-in-law has had to provide to her parents until very recently.

Long story short-ish. My in-laws, in particular one, are getting more poorly. The wife has severe dementia and needs to go into a home, we think, soon. They probably need to downsize either way, and may look for 24-hour care at home for the wife.

Just found out that my sister-in-law has very recently also got POA for medical decisions (she had it for finance before). My husband is not on either.
We do trust each other and have always been close, but I would have thought it would be good to have a second person on the POA, in case something happens to the other?

My sister-in-law is keeping us informed about decisions and medical matters, but we have no idea how much money the parents have, as she is in the meetings with the financial adviser, so we can't help advise.

But is it quite common for one sibling to be the only POA named? We all live very close to each other.

@lizzyBennet08 of course, and can see how that can be but in families that get on, like in ours, it would just have been practical. We wouldn't bicker or interfere but it would mean someone can step in and do stuff when the other one can't or is away and would take the stress of the person doing most of the work.

Could your OH talk to his sister about adding him to the papers as a backup in case she becomes sick? That sounds like a neutral request that shouldn't anger anyone.

Since you all trust her, the setup is not very problematic, but there is a practical requirement for backup.

The only oddity is that this was not brought up during the first setup.

My PofA is connected to all three of my air conditioners.

My Mum had 5 daughters. She had PoA set up for my 2 sisters who lived very close to her and went to help her daily. I was the executor for her will though. That is also a tedious process but it has to be done and DH is an accountant and helped me to do it. You are so lucky your sil has stood up Ty o take on this responsibility.

What I hear from your first post is “SIL does everything, we barely do anything and here’s a list of reasons why…. and we want to get involved in money & healthcare in case we miss out/ she’s advantaged”

So yes, YABU

Why do you say 'the wife' rather than MIL, and 'the sister' rather than SIL? Sounds somewhat unpleasant.

It’s weird that you are so obsessed with being POA. Either way you can’t change it now he has no capacity and if anything happens to SIL then social services will do a best interests meeting and her care etc will be decided by professionals

Well the scenario is exactly why it's important that you have more than one person who is close to be on the POA.
As it happens my DH is actually a backup so all is good.

We are very grateful to SIL for helping. She and her parents have been very close, as I say, PIL did masses of childcare for her when they were fit and healthy, took her and kids on hols and are still supporting SIL's children so all is I think fairly balanced.

Lucky to have a close family in that sense. Both DH and I have been working so just were not in a position to help in the same way, although we do in others.

Op I don’t think there is a replacement poa- that would defeat the purpose of the person delegating in the first place. Only one of us was chosen as poa- there’s 4 of us. The rest of us just have to go with it. It’s not something you need to think about

From experience of working with critically ill and dying people for years - having more than one ‘decision maker’ can be an absolute disaster.

I’m the POA and enduring guardian for our remaining parent, as I’m the one providing the care.

I would say no, not common.
In fact I was told specifically for there to be more than one. Me and my sister are joint for my mum, with my dh as back up.
We can act separately in ours, and do.

My DB and I are jointly and severally named. In practice that has meant that I do everything and he does nothing. As our parents have a lot of different financial products, pensions etc it has meant a lot of work getting them all activated as every company seems to do it differently.

Ooh harsh, I might be a bit like that SIL. But I promise I have put in the hours as well including flying over on my own to spend 4 days helping my PIL move into their new house, when their own children and BIL couldn’t get the time off work. That was hard work as MIL was already quite far gone, and FIL was at decision overload.

And more recently I’ve suggested to DH that he and his sister need to get the finance POA properly registered with their dads bank rather than SIL just using his card and his online account / access - it’s to protect her more than anyone.

Yes, you can have a replacement POA. We have that situation with MIL: her husband was her POA, but their children were named as replacements in case her husband lost capacity or died. He did indeed develop dementia and then die, so DH and his sister are now POA, without having to draw up a new POA.

It's a way of ensuring a backup if you only initially want one POA, but you worry that they might die or become unable to act for you at a time when you yourself might have lost capacity to make a new POA.

@Wofflewaffleit definitely makes sense to get POA properly registered so that SIL isn’t making herself vulnerable to prosecution, but that’s nit what is happening here. It is more normal to have two people on as POA - for my DPs DH and I are on as independent POAs, but in reality I am the one who has registered it with the financial institutions and do the financial matters and DH prefers that to keep it clean. But if there is no suggestion of financial impropriety, then I can’t really understand what the problem is beyond hurt feelings. Chances of Dsil being incapacitated when something is required are very unlikely and like me if she is on holiday the benefit/curse of the internet and mobile phones means you are reachable 24/7 no matter where you are.

I wish my SIL could see your message!! When FIL was unwell, and my DH was less involved than she was due to work reasons (long shifts, night time, high stress - think along the lines of A&E doctor), she absolutely expected me to pick up the load on behalf of DH and do as much as she was, despite the fact that I am disabled and in and out of hospital for treatment, have three kids under 5, and have my own elderly mother with severe mental illness who I do as much care for as I can manage. Me and SIL are now totally non contact as a result of her behaviour towards me and I’m having therapy to try and get over it all.

You're right that it is sensible to have at least two attorneys. I spoke to a solicitor about this only yesterday and she said it was always best to have two attorneys in case something happens to one. If you only have one attorney, the whole legal process then has to be restarted (and, aside from the inconvenience and expense, it might then be too late ).

I have it for my dad, the reality is even now if he needs help with anything medical, financial or administrative is be that does it, that's not going to change as he gets older, my brother will go round and cut the grass or sort the boiler out but he isn't bothered at all that I have POA because I wouldn't screw him over and there's no point in him having it at he'll never use it. My mum hasn't sorted hers out which is fairly typical of her

Drip drip. We don't know anything about your situation apart from what you have told us. What you may find is that when there is money involved blood is always thicker than water.