Enduring Power of Attorney Confusion

P

PCTool

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Does anyone know the exact order, in detail, of registering an EPA? My widowed parent has dementia and made an EPA. I am one of three attorneys. My impression from reading about it is that the very first step is that the attorneys have a meeting with my parent's solicitor. Then a medical report on mental capacity is done and then the attorneys sign a notice of intention to register an EPA. Are there any other documents needed to apply for registration? There is then 5 weeks notice given to the notice parties. Does the 5 weeks start when this notice is signed or when the document is registered in the Court? What should be done first, the medical report on the donor's capacity or the signing of the notice of intention to register the EPA?
 
You need the medical report first; it should clearly state that your parent no longer has the capacity to manage their own affairs.

Update to add: make sure the report is absolutely clear and no ambiguity.

On one occasion I had an officious solicitor who thought they knew better than my relatives medical professionals; and delayed the entire process for weeks whilst yet more tests and assessments were done & causing an immense amount of upset to the very person who should have been given the greatest care.

You are effectively already in crisis mode, this is the last thing you want.
 
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I agree with you and thanks for your advice. Do you know when the 5 weeks start? I'm finding it hard to figure that out.
 
I've not operated under the new system since it was brought in, so things may have changed.

My memory is that the notice parties are advised that the EPOA is being registered and they have x number of weeks (? is it five?) to make any representation.

Don't expect any of this to be fast, there's a lot of to-ing and fro-ing.

Again, from memory you can take on some medical decisions prior to the EPOA being registered, e.g. if you need to hire carers or look for residential care.
 

Again, thanks for this, much appreciated.
 
"Again, from memory you can take on some medical decisions prior to the EPOA being registered, e.g. if you need to hire carers or look for residential care".

I'm just wondering; during this 5 weeks prior to EPOA being registered, are decisions made jointly (in the case of joint attorneys), for example regarding residential care?
MHoran379 said:
Was the EPA made prior to or post April 23
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Yes, it was.
 
If I were in your shoes, I would respect your parents wishes.

If three people are nominated, then all three should contribute to your parents care.
 
PCTool said:
I'm just wondering; during this 5 weeks prior to EPOA being registered, are decisions made jointly (in the case of joint attorneys), for example regarding residential care?
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If it's an emergency, you do the best you can to meet needs as they arise. That's the priority.

But, if at all possible, keep all three attorneys in the loop and make decisions jointly. All other issues aside, it makes a falling-out between the attorneys much less likely, and a falling-out between the attorneys risks very grave harm to the interests of the person in need of protection.
 
DannyBoyD said:
OP replied in post #7
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Yes, he said that the PoA was made either prior to or post April '23, which isn't especially helpful.

Was it made before April '23, or was it made after April '23? It must be one or the other, not both. The rules and procedures for activating a PoA are quite different for pre-April '23 PoAs and post-April '23 PoAs.
 
Ok, well then the system is that you first obtain a medical cert. There's a high court practice direction on what needs to be included in this, your solicitor will give it to you. Then you need to serve notice of intention to register on your parent, on the notice parties to the original EPA and on the REgistrar of the wards of court office. You have to wait 5 weeks after this for any objections. Then you serve a form 1 ( application exhibiting various docs) on the same notice parties and your parent again, and lodge all with the wards of court office along with a grounding affidavit, affidavits of service in relation to the original epa, the original epa itself and I think four certified copies and all the above notices. It's highly administrative, everything should be in blue biro, everything served by registered post etc. And then you wait....there's a backlog
 
I tried to get my Solicitor to manage this and she flat out refused citing new system which is cumbersome, very few Solicitors seemingly want to engage with this.

It's terribly frustrating as may have needed this earlier in the year.
 
If you do a google search in your locality on enduring powers of attorney/wardship/ assisted decision making...you should find a few hits on solicitors websites that offer this service. Many solicitors have indeed decided not to do EPAs at all at present, but there are still plenty that do. It's not a problem to ring solicitors and ask if they are doing these, many have continued to do EPAs pre April 23, post April 23 manually and now online.
 
Thank you very much for this, I really appreciate it. Highly administrative it certainly is.
 
Persia said:
I tried to get my Solicitor to manage this and she flat out refused citing new system which is cumbersome, very few Solicitors seemingly want to engage with this.

It's terribly frustrating as may have needed this earlier in the year.
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We've tried many solicitors. Hopefully have one now who will assist us to set up Decision making representative (DMR) for a family member. They don't want to touch it with a bargepole... a previous EPOA which we set up for another family member prior to the new system was a walk in the park to set up and register compared to new system...
 
Yes meet with Solicitor when Donor has lost capacity. One of the first steps is serving the Notice of Intention on the Donor, Notice Party's and Wards of Court Office. Then you wait 5 weeks before you can service the Application for Registration (aka Form 1). The Form 1 must be served by personal service on the Donor. As far as I know,in terms of the 5 weeks, they look at the time between served dates. I think it's to give time if someone wishes to object? But I'm not 100% on that one.

In terms of the Medical Cert, after you send the Notice of Intention, the Wards of court office will post out a checklist of docs and Practice Directions for the Medical report. You would be better off waiting for that as they can be strict about what's in the report - if it doesn't meet the requirements they'll sent it back and request a new one be done. Don't get caught out like I did - got the medical report done before we got the Practice Direction and it wasn't detailed enough so we had to get a new one!
 
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