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Appointee bank account - which one allows the highest balance?

Gemm_a

Hello!

As the title says, I am looking for the bank which will allow the most money to be in an appointee bank account. I have looked around and it looks like £5,000 is the usual amount which seems odd seeing as for benefits I believe the amount before any deductions is £6,000.

The alternative to an appointee bank account is opening another current account in my name and then transferring my Adult Daughter's benefits over, ( currently her money is paid into my account). I think I might struggle with this because my annual income is around £7,000 being my Daughter's full time carer. She lacks capacity so can't have her own bank account.

All help gratefully received!

Thank you.

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poppy123456

There’s no such thing as an appointee bank account. An appointee applies to benefits only.

Has she been assessed as lacking capacity?

I’m not aware of any bank account only allowing a maximum amount of money.

KCLondon

https://forum.scope.org.uk/discussion/comment/912802#Comment_912802

There certainly is such a thing and it does have limits. I manage two Appointee bank accounts for each of my children and the upper limit is £5k as Gemm states. An Appointee is able to manage the bank account on behalf of someone who lacks capacity to maange their own money and is not an unusual thing.

In answer to Gemm, I don't think there is an alternative any more due to Disabled Persons Trusts now being limited to be offered by all but two banks who have stringent requirements to open it including a minimum balance requirement £20k by one of them and whilst the other doesnt have that, the costs for drawing up a Trust are huge. The DWP can now also view as the opening of a DPT as a "deliberate deprivation of capital" since late last year, making it even less favourable as an option on top of all that.

Opening an Appointee bank acount effectively not only protects the person in receipt of the benefits being paid in from financial abuse (in theory anyway) and at least makes it clear to the DWP and HMRC that the funds within it are not yours but the person without capacity, however it is true the ceiling is so low that its almost impossible to build and keep even a small amount of savings on top of the benefits going in. Personally, I am unaware of an alternative option myself however.

anisty

I have never heard of an appointee bank account either.

What I did is to open a joint bank account in the name of my son and myself (i am my son's appointee) it is just a current account.

All his benefits go into there and any money coming out of there is directly for his needs.

That keeps it all separate from our household spends.

The account we have was opened when he was 18 before he had had his capacity formally assessed.

When he was 24, he was put under a legal guardianship as he does lack capacity but we are still ok with this bank account.

If your daughter lacks capacity to grant POA, and you have financial powers, i would have thought you could set up something similar.

Or - just a new current account in your own name specifically for your daughter's benefits.

anisty

Ah - just googled

Turns out there ARE specific appointee bank accounts! Who knew! And they look pretty helpful too, by the looks of things.

Might need to check them out myself

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