Power of attorney

I first thought about getting power of attorney some time ago, but every conversation with people professionally concerned about Dad had given the same advice: don't hang about, get on with it.

I am not one of life's getters on with it, but this was different.  Even so, I managed to put it off for a respectable length of time.  My first thought was to arrange it myself.  In theory this is not difficult.  You can print all the official forms off the internet and get them witnessed.  I tried to do this and was well on with sorting out lasting power of attorney for health and welfare.  Then I had another conversation with a legal eagle who said: don't bother with that one.  By the time your dad loses his capacity to make decisions about his care arrangements, you will be brought into the planning as next of kin anyway.  The one to bother about concerns property and financial affairs.

At this point I had a mild panic.  It's not that I don't understand money in principle, I do; what fazes me are the little details.  I think I'm mildly innumerate, e.g. if I'm adding up a column of figures it will take me five or six goes to get the same total twice running - and that's with a calculator.  If I were to draw up the documentation for lasting power of attorney for property and financial affairs, and get one detail wrong, it could invalidate the whole process.

In Dad's case, the process would be simple enough; he wouldn't be making any exemptions or involving anyone else, and although he's not short of a few bob he's no millionaire and there's nothing particularly exotic about how he's arranged his savings.  A couple of years ago you can be sure everything would be arranged meticulously.  But the chances of me not getting a little detail wrong are pretty remote.  So I decided to use a solicitor.  Dad's got a solicitor, hasn't he?

Well, he must have had one, to draw up his will for a start (which he will have altered when the grandchildren came alone).  But he can't remember who it was.  Nor can he remember where his will is: he produced an envelope for me to look at, labelled "will", and while it contained other relevant documents such as his birth certificate, the one thing it didn't contain was ... Anyway he's now found an item on his bank account which tells him that he's paying a small monthly amount for document storage in the bank's safe, so I think we now know where the will is.  What we don't know is who drew it up.

I decided to ask June for the details of her solicitor, so we finished up going down town, struggling up the not exactly DDA compliant stairs and spending 45 minutes in an office getting the documentation drawn up.  Sorted.  Expensive, but sorted.

A week later the papers come me for me to sign.  I have to get a witness.  The accompanying notes say this can be another attorney, someone to be told when the power of attorney is activated, or a certificate provider (i.e. the solicitor).  The first two categories point in my case to the same person, i.e. my son, who is the back-up attorney if anything happens to me while my dad is still alive so that I can't carry out the duties, but also the person who will be notified when the power is registered.  He lives some distance away, as of course does the solicitor, down in Grottsville.  I'm perturbed and ring up the solicitor, who tells me that just because the witness can be any of these individuals that's not to say it can't be anyone else; it can be any independent person.  Well why didn't you say.

Another brick in the wall.  Whenever Dad loses his competence to manage his financial affairs, I get to manage them for him.  Always of course acting in his best interests, as if I'd do anything else;  but as with many other aspects of elderly care, there is always the potential for abuse.

What I really ought to do - what everyone above a certain age ought to do - is sort power of attorney out for myself.   So that if ever I go doolally, which could happen at any moment if I had a stroke, say, there's someone on hand who can make the decisions I am no longer capable of making for myself. The legal eagles advise this, and while I'm tempted to say they would, wouldn't they (more nice juicy fees for doing not a right lot) I think a] they're right and b] other people would have the confidence to draw up the documentation themselves so they needn't be faced with huge solicitors' bills.

I also think c] this is much less of a priority than sorting out my dad's affairs so I can comfortably put this one off, if nothing else ....