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Post by moonraker on Jul 13, 2021 8:47:40 GMT
Earlier this year I arranged financial and health & welfare Lasting Powers of Attorney to be held by two cousins, neither of whom has much experience of financial matters.
Both have set up accounts with the Office of the Public Guardian though which they can give organisations access to online summaries. However, the OPG bumf warns that written instructions are not shown online and that "organisations might ask to see them" - presumably in paper form. Elsewhere OPG advises: "Before you can manage the donor’s account, you must show the bank the original registered lasting power of attorney (LPA) or a copy of it signed on every page by the donor, a solicitor or notary."
(GROAN: I may have previously moaned about how in 2005 my bank managed to lose a certified copy of my father's two-page Enduring Power when they took it away to photocopy after I'd taken it in personally.)
I imagine that with access to passwords (which some of us have just discussed in a post mortem context) the attorneys could administer accounts without going through this palaver, though I suspect this may not be legal.
A substantial part of my investments are with Hargreaves Lansdown, which offers the facility of a linked account. (This does appear just a little too simple.) But I wouldn't want my attorneys to tinker around much with these investments, preferring them to draw on my cash accounts with banks etc, which in any case would need to be managed as term deposits mature.
In such cases I wonder whether they could use my existing passwords etc or would they be required to set up their own?
Organisations do not have the best reputation for dealing with powers of attorney and I suspect that any expertise there may be lies with a very small team, not with the people (and bots) who respond to initial enquiries. (I'll be contacting two or three of my banks to see what they say.)
Your comments and experiences would be of interest, please.
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keitha
Member of DD Central
2024, hopefully the year I get out of P2P
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Post by keitha on Jul 13, 2021 14:31:26 GMT
Some years ago I went into the Local Branch of a large UK Bank beginning with a "B",
I had an appointment to speak to a member of staff about my mother's accounts and was armed with a fully registered or whatever it's called power of attorney. The staff member point blank refused to discuss my mother's account as she wasn't present !
I had to demand to see a manager, before I got anywhere. It did all get sorted but the banks made it much harder than it needed to be.
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adrianc
Member of DD Central
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Post by adrianc on Jul 13, 2021 18:07:56 GMT
Some years ago I went into the Local Branch of a large UK Bank beginning with a "B", I had an appointment to speak to a member of staff about my mother's accounts and was armed with a fully registered or whatever it's called power of attorney. The staff member point blank refused to discuss my mother's account as she wasn't present ! I had to demand to see a manager, before I got anywhere. It did all get sorted but the banks made it much harder than it needed to be. <sigh> Banks... When FiL died, we needed to escalate it to the CEO's office, after they lost four death certificates. When we had PoA for MiL, a different bank were quite happy for several years, then suddenly swore blind they'd never had it. It's almost as if these are rare occurrences...
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Post by moonraker on Jul 14, 2021 10:04:09 GMT
In response to my query, HL sent me a prompt and useful reply that included this:
"The Office of Public Guardian has recently updated the process of verifying an LPOA online. This update means that if you’ve registered an LPOA on or after 1 September 2019 within England or Wales we no longer require you to send in the physical documents. We can verify the LPOA via the Gov.co.uk website. You can find guidance on how to do this towards the end of this email."
If you have registered for a LPOA prior to 1 September 2019 or outside of England and Wales then you will need to send this to us via the post.
I also asked about an attorney being able to link accounts with me. HL commented that an account would need to be set up by one or both of my attorneys so that they could link their account(s) to yours online. The linking of accounts does not mean that they would receive any statements, however, they would be able to view and potentially trade on the account online if you permit trading access to your account. (Which rather assumes that I'm not too incapacitated.)
National Savings & Investments have a useful page
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