Banks & legal power of attorney

Remember I've got legal power of attorney to run my aunt's affairs.

Aunty's bank has stopped me using her debit card, which means I can't pay for her services by card until they send me a new one. I did not ask the bank to stop it. We even had a discussion about aunt's card and the card I use. I rang and checked with the bank and they said the card was working at the beginning of the month, but now they've stopped it. The first I knew was when people started to ring me to ask for cheques because the card wouldn't go through. So now I have to write letters to the bank to get the card sorted again. Otherwise I'll have to write at least five cheques a month, and envelopes to go with them and cover notes to identify the invoice that the cheques are paying.

It really is a pain working with these banks - they don't understand Power of Attorney

Aunt's affairs, LPA and my NI

When I took out Legal Power of Attorney for my aged aunt, the process required my witnessed signature along with the witnessed signature of at least two other people, which is important because it's a legal document.

Taking over my aunt’s affairs has elicited a bit of bureaucracy from some banks, and councils. However, the Pension Service is bureaucratic par excellence, because before accepting the registered power of attorney the Pension Service insisted it required my National Insurance number.

I can’t understand why the Service needs my NI number, when it's got the witnessed LPA and because there’s nothing to stop the LPA being held by someone who doesn’t work or live in England, or it could be held by a professional, such as a lawyer working for a large organisation.

Sadly, the Pension Service has already proved its intrusion into my affairs by now writing to me, not under the name in which I registered the LPA and that I use for almost all my affairs, and the name I used when I wrote to the service but under my married name. This proves the Pension Service has accessed information about me when it should be concerned only with information about my aunt.

Joined up government might be a worthy aspiration but this is inappropriate, intrusive joined up government that implies spying and surveillance of its citizens.

Pension credit

If you get pension credit, you don't have to pay rent for your sheltered housing. But the council first thought that aunty did have to pay her rent, so I set up a standing order to pay it. Then the assessment officer rang me, and said that she was getting credit, so she didn't have to pay the rent, The estates manager also wrote and told me to stop the standing order, and she'll send a cheque to pay back what was overpaid.

So now I've written to the bank again (I still can't ring them because they haven't set up the telephone account) to tell them to stop the standing order.

This is so confusing that it is no wonder aunty is confused.

Banking idiots

Aunty's bank has registered the Legal Power of Attorney, so wrote to me telling me I could now start telephoning banking. I rang them up. They didn't ask for aunty's details but asked for my password.

But I don't have a password yet.
The computer in front of me is asking for a password.
How can it be doing that?
Do you have an account with us?
No I closed it in 2002.
I think they haven't closed down the old telephone password. I'll have to speak to my manager.

How awful is that! What security of information is that! And doesn't it break the 1998 Data Protection Act that says data should be

• Adequate, relevant and not excessive
• Accurate and up to date
• Not kept for longer than is necessary?
  

The bank is going to send me a new form to complete again, now they've deleted the old password. But it's horribly bad service, and it's as well that I closed the account with them years ago.

Legalities and paperwork

Daughter and I are spending a few days with parents in Yorkshire. They're encouraging and helping me to sort out legal power of attorney for someone. Do you realise what a pain this legal procedure now is! There's a twenty six page document to complete with signatures from at least three different people. No wonder the radio had a File on Four enquiry about it a few weeks ago. It's almost more trouble than it's worth because the people who most need to set one up have trouble accessing, reading and absorbing all the information that they have to know in order to protect themselves.

You can find out about it from the Office of the Public Guardian.

Elderly

We know a lovely old lady, mother of several daughters and lots of grandchildren. Her husband died some years ago, an intelligent and interesting man who contributed much to the community and was a great support for her in every way. Now widowed and alone, she's so old that she forgets things. She knows people and places but forgets what she was doing and if she ate what she ate. So for some months she stayed with one of her daughters. Now she's home again but worrying and tearful and not eating. And her daughters are just as worried because they can't help her until she agrees to accept help.

Tomorrow I'm seeing an elderly relative who has her own problems, so I've looked up the Lasting Power of Attorney forms from the government web site. They are horrendously long and complicated, twenty plus pages to fill in, sign by the correct people and pay over a hundred pounds. Still, that is cheaper than renewing an attorney every year. But I don't live near enough to my relatives to help. I'll have to depend on the NHS. But news like this doesn't inspire me with confidence.