Enduring Power of Attorney - Registering it

Dear All,

My mother and father set up enduring power of attorney for each, probably around ten years ago.

At the time nobody thought there would be a need for anything like this.

My father passed away five years ago.

My mother who is now 94, has been falling a lot around the home and been in & out of hospital quite a few times she has also become extremely forgetful.

She insists on living at home - alone

As a family - three siblings, after much, much discussion all feel that our mum would be safer in a nursing home.

The solicitors that was used to setup everything at the time has changed hands & their person handling EPOA's is on maternity leave.....

I have made contact with them & one of her colleagues mentioned a six month process as it was one of the older types of EPOA's

Is this called registering it?

Would it typically take six months? I am concerned about this timeline to register the EPA, as this timeframe would seem to defeat the purpose of the EPA in Mums case. Since she is 94 years old & moving to a Nursing home???

Any advice please

Cashman

Yes, that's correct. It is currently taking about that long. You can only register if your mother has lost capacity to make decisions for her self.

I asked my solicitor about this a couple of years ago.
Yes the second step is registering the POA. He told me there were significant admin delays and it could take 6-9 months. However he also suggested that a nursing home would act on initiating this process and so you would not have to wait for the process to complete. However , our personal circumstance changed and we did not need to take this route.

You haven't mentioned it - but you're probably aware that your mum's doctor will need to confirm that she doesn't have capacity to make decisions.

I've been looking to get this set up for last few years, the Solicitor I normally use won't go near it as new system is too complex and not worth engaging in.....2 sets of Doctors competency letters later nothing has changed.

It's an absolute dogs dinner.

Knuttell, that's in relation to creating a new EPA, not registering an existing one made under the pre 2023 changes