Advice on LPA please.

[BoBo17]

My mum has problems with her memory. She's seen her doctor and is awaiting further tests. My brother who lives with mum thinks we one of us should do LPA . We have talked about it with mum and she agrees. I think it should be joint and he is adamant it should be him or me. His reason being we would never agree on anything. He does deal with a lot of us affairs as it is but I'm not sure about things. He reckons if it was joint he would have to run everything passed me if he needed to buy or use money. It's not that I don't trust him but I'm not comfortable with this and thought doing things together would be better for all of us in the sad and frightening future . Can he go ahead and get sole LPA without my agreement. I sort of said yes to him in front mum last week but since have thought more about it and have told him I'm not happy .I'm scared he might go ahead anyway. I don't want to upset mum. He isn't the easiest person to deal with.

Please can anyone help.

[Kati]

Re: Advice on LPA please.

[MENTION=85500]Peridot[/MENTION] may be able to tell you more (I've tagged her for you)

to LB by the way xx

[BoBo17]

Re: Advice on LPA please.

Thank you . How do I get in touch with her on here? Not used to all this!

[Kati]

Re: Advice on LPA please.

Thank you . How do I get in touch with her on here? Not used to all this!

I've tagged her on this thread so she will get a notification and pop along all you have to do is sit tight and wait for replies xx

[Peridot]

Re: Advice on LPA please.

Hi BoBo17,
Sorry for the delay, I have been off for a couple of days.
It is a really sensible idea to encourage your mother to create LPA(s) at this point. The decision of who should be your mother's attorney is hers and not for the potential attorney's to decide. This is not about what the attorneys or the family prefer, it is your mother's decision. I appreciate it can be difficult in these situations and that you are all just trying to do what is best for your mother but no-one should be making the decisions for her, if she has sufficient capacity to do so herself.

When creating an LPA your mother will not only have to decide who to appoint but also if she appoints 2 attorneys together, how they can act. She could decide they act 'jointly and severally' which means that each attorney can act independently of the other, you don't need 2 signatures on documents or to deal with banks etc. From a practical point this can be quite helpful particularly where both attorneys are not always located near by or close to hand all the time. It would of course be sensible for the attorney's to agree on an action before proceeding but one attorney can proceed without agreement if needs be. The other way to deal would be to say that all attorneys have to agree on a course of action or to separate out the sorts of decisions that may be required, for example only one attorney is needed to deal with day to day decisions, but if a property were to be sold then both attorneys would have to agree.

Although it is a reasonably straightforward process to prepare and register an LPA on-line, with the issues you appear to be flagging and the points that I have made above, I think it is important that your mother's capacity to enter into such an important document, is assessed and that she has the whole process and the options open to her explained by someone independent so that she can make her own decision on this. By approaching a lawyer it will ensure that the necessary capacity tests are carried out and they will also make sure your mother understands the power that she is passing to her attorney(s). They will also confirm that the attorney(s) appointed is the one or ones that she wishes to act on her behalf. If this is done, It would be more difficult to challenge the LPA at a later date.

I would also suggest that a substitute attorney be appointed to ensure that in the event the first attorney(s) is unable to act then there is another person appointed to take their place. If this is not done at the time of creating the LPA then if something happens to the appointed attorney(s) or they were to develop capacity issues themselves in the future and in addition your mother's capacity had deteriorated further, then she may not be able to give instructions for a new LPA to be created. This would then mean that a Court of Protection application would be required, which can be very costly.

Whoever is chosen as the attorney(s) has duties to act in the donor's (the person appointing them) best interest at all times and to also enable the donor to make their own decisions as far as they are able to. If there is any concern about the actions of an attorney then anyone can contact the Office of the Public Guardian (OPG) to voice their concerns. As I mentioned the attorney is expected to deal in the donor's best interest at all times. They are also expected to keep accurate financial records which should be available if requested by the OPG or the Court of Protection for example.

It may be helpful to read this information about what the attorney's must do once appointed: https://www.gov.uk/make-decisions-fo...king-decisions Ultimately this is your mother's decision.

[BoBo17]

Re: Advice on LPA please.

Thank you for your advice , you've been a great help.