How does power of attorney work?

[Boozy]

Hey!

We lost our Mum in March of this year and need to act as her power of attorney, mostly for my father who's now in our charge. I'm in the US and my sister is back home in the UK. We completed all the forms that were signed and sent I believe to the courts, over a year ago. I'm just not sure on what to do next? Ideally we'd like to sell the house that he's in and find a good care home for him as he can't be on his own.

Apologies if this is a stupid question.

[Rough101]

Is the power of attorney just signed up, or is it actually active?

Once someone is named and it s fully lodged with the public guardians office, you can start writing to banks, Dr s etc. To allow them to speak to you. Some will require sight of the original, so there is some boots on the ground action required, as I don t trust anyone to mail it back.

You can’t possibly act as you aren’t in the UK, it will need to be assigned you your sister and I’d suggest you need to resign.

[alscar]

Firstly condolences for your Mum.
A POA or more likely today a LPA can only be used when the individual donor is alive so in your Mums case it ceases to have any use.
Are you saying you have one already set up for your Father ?

[alscar]

And just to add in your Fathers case presumably both a Health and Welfare and Financial LPA have each both been set up and registered , both to be Joint and Several given you and sister are living in different Countries ?

[StevieBee]

Boozy said:

We lost our Mum in March of this year and need to act as her power of attorney, mostly for my father who's now in our charge.

Condolences for Mum.

Small but important point of order is that Lasting Power of Attorney expires on the death of the person you are acting for.

In order for you to act on behalf of your Father, a separate LPA needs to exist for him.

Apologies if you already know that but worth pointing out just in case.

Just as an aside, my view is that LPAs are as important as wills yet so few people know about them which needs to change IMO!

[dundarach]

You might also (although it's a pain and will require effort) contact his local social services in his Council area. They were very helpful to me, however took some nagging and effort from me.

Get on the phone, ask for the social work team for his area, talk to someone and ask what to do next.

Get in touch with his GP and ask for their help.

Also consider calling PALS in the Hospital nearest him and ask their advice.

I played one off against the other until I got the answers I needed.

Sorry to hear the news, remember to look after each other and your dad, it's hard and makes you feel rotten!!

[Actual]

Rough101 said:

Is the power of attorney just signed up, or is it actually active?

Once someone is named and it s fully lodged with the public guardians office, you can start writing to banks, Dr s etc. To allow them to speak to you. Some will require sight of the original, so there is some boots on the ground action required, as I don t trust anyone to mail it back.

You can t possibly act as you aren t in the UK, it will need to be assigned you your sister and I d suggest you need to resign.

I hope this info is useful to someone.

Each LPA for Health & Welfare and also Property & Financial Affairs are 15 pages and the originals from Office Public Guardian are stamped have the ID reference number perforated into each page. Institutions need the whole 15 pages.

It would be most undesirable to post out the original in case it got lost.

An LPA can be duplicated by the donor. The donor, if they have mental capacity, must write "I certify this is a true and complete copy of the corresponding page of the original lasting power of attorney" on each page of the copy, and "I certify this is a true and complete copy of the lasting power of attorney" on the final page. In many cases the donor might have mental capacity but writing all that would probably kill them.

Possibly solicitors can duplicate LPAs for a fee.

The Post Office Counter can duplicate an LPA for a fee and they stamp and sign each page of the copy. One drawback is that the copy is made out to the institution you want to send it to so once that institution has processed it and then sent it back it is possibly of no further use but I found many intuitions will still accept the copy. Getting an LPA duplicated using the Post Office inside WHSmith's works but you won't be popular with the queue behind.

When you have an LPA you also get the facility to use a key. Some institutions accept the LPA reference number and the key to allow the LPA to be registered.

And after all that a number of institutions including al least 1 bank are happy to accept a scanned copy of an LPA by email or upload.

Edited by Actual on Monday 2nd June 17:54

[alscar]

I’ve had to use LPA’s three times now for 3 different people over the last couple of years and each time I’ve used a local Solicitors to do a number of certified copies - they charged me £10 per copy.
I didn’t realise the PO did them but presume you have to also supply the copies and as Actual said they are not necessarily useful then for reuse.
I found Banks were happy enough to do their own copies if I went into a local branch.
Never send the original LPA out to anyone.
Most FI’s have POA / LPA departments - use these.
Some FI’s are happy to have a copy of the original scanned to them.
Sympathies if any NS&I accounts need work on - even with the correct documents I found them nearly as bad as HMRC who without doubt proved the worst by a mile.