POA question

lindor
lindor Online Community Member Posts: 1 Listener
in Families and carers

Hi. My cousin has currently POA for my elderly uncle . (Scotland). Approximately nine months ago my uncle requested to add me as a second POA. There is apparently a backlog and this has not been signed off yet by the public guardians office although everything was sent off at the time. My uncle now has dementia and my cousin is attempting to put him in a care home against his wishes. Is this a case I could use to have my uncles POA wishes for me expedited in order to look after his interests.

Comments

  • MW123
    MW123 Scope Member Posts: 1,487 Championing

    @lindor

    This sounds like a really difficult situation. You can ask the Office of the Public Guardian to expedite the registration, especially if your uncle signed everything while he still had capacity and decisions are now being made that go against his wishes.

    It is also important to check exactly what powers your cousin’s Power of Attorney includes. In Scotland, welfare powers are not automatic. They have to be specifically included at the time the Power of Attorney is created. A lot of people assume PoA covers everything, but if the welfare part was not clearly granted and registered, then your cousin would not have the legal authority to decide where your uncle lives or what care he receives.

    If no welfare Power of Attorney exists, those decisions fall to professionals such as social workers, doctors, or the local authority. They are required to act in the person’s best interests and involve family where possible.

    You can contact the Office of the Public Guardian yourself to explain the situation and ask about expediting the registration. It is also a good idea to get legal advice to make sure everything is being handled properly and your uncle’s rights are protected.

  • Kimi87
    Kimi87 Online Community Member Posts: 6,949 Championing

    A POA means you have to act in the person's best interests.

    Even though it's against his wishes, it still may be in his best interests to go into a care home.

  • Albus_Scope
    Albus_Scope Posts: 11,120 Scope Online Community Coordinator

    Hey there @lindor and a warm welcome to the community.

    I can see you're already receiving some top support and I don't want to get in the way. I just wanted to say hi. 😁 I hope you can get this situation remedied for your uncle quickly.

  • forgoodnesssake
    forgoodnesssake Online Community Member Posts: 526 Empowering

    I would definitely contact the Scottish Office of Public Guardian asap. However I have to agree that, unfortunately, your uncle may not now be in a position to make suitable decisions for himself and so his unwillingness to move into a home MAY have to be over-ruled. Very difficult and sensitive situation though.

    It can be very unclear, in Scotland anyway, at what point the welfare POA can be used. My father's LPA document gives my brother and I both finance and welfare powers and I have been using the finance part for about 10 year now as he gets increasingly affected by a dementia type condition.

    However the welfare bit was much harder to ascertain when it could be used as there was, amazingly, no definition of who could "sign it off"!

    It is worded very vaguely as "in the event of my being incapable in terms of the Act to decisions (sic) about my personal welfare, or in the event that my attorney reasonably believes that that is the case, then my attorney may make decisions on my behalf in relation to my personal welfare. I have considered how my incapacity will be determined" but then there is nothing at all about how it will be determined or by whom!

    I queried this with 2 different (Scottish) solicitors a couple of years ago as it seemed incredible to me and they confirmed that whilst it would be better to have some concrete criteria or process specified, it was quite common not to! In the end my dad was quite co-operative, luckily but it took ages for social workers to accept that he did not have the capacity to make decisions and that much of what he told them was invented or at least concocted from what he thought might have happened. GP was not much use until a new one came onboard and eventually put in writing that he did not have capacity but even the the care home he had to move into a couple of years ago needed written "proof" that I could act as attorney and had to ask the GP attached to the care home to write something again.

    (The POA was done by a solicitor and had quite a few mistakes that we needed to correct and even now it's grammar and spelling leaves a lot to be desired but my dad went ahead and did it rather than doing it online and paying a lot less!)

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