If you nominate your solicitor(s) to be your Attorney and he/she dies before you then you will be left with no one having Power of Attorney fo Care or Finances.
In the POW ‘scheme’ it is not the Solicitors Firm that holds the power, it is individually named solicitors.
(Different with Wills - the Firm will look after your interests.)
I didn’t know that. It doesn’t make any sense to me either.
It is because the Attorney must be a named person.
Anyone doing an Enduring/Lasting Power of Attorney should note that these are in two parts:
It is the second one that catches people out.
If you lose the mental capacity to manage your own affairs, and Social Services want to put you into a residential home, and the family want you in your own house - SS win.
If the members of your family are named as Attorneys for Social care - the family win.
Think about it.
Geoff
the important thing is that the Attorneys must not pre-decease you.
I have POA 3 of them, 2 daughters and a friend, that way i should be covered. Once the person though dies the POA goes with it.
[quote=“Crazy Chick”]
I have POA 3 of them, 2 daughters and a friend, that way i should be covered. Once the person though dies the POA goes with it.
[/quote] No, you shouldn’t have a problem. What many people don’t realise is that if they appoint solicitors as their POA’s and those solicitors die or move away they ‘take the POA with them.’ POA is never managed by a firm of solicitors like a will.
I think krakowian, you were advised by a duff solicitor. One of the first questions they ask, when nominating the named person for POA is, who do you want as secondary? And it does not HAVE to be solicitor.
Are you in the UK? i ask cuz mainly we in the UK say solicitor and not attorney?
i had a crap experience with my mother. She made a will years ago. The solicitors went bust, and then the firm that took them over also went bust. After some chasing, it appears the original will was held in storage in god knows where. At that point we said finito and got her to make NEW will and ditto POA. Thankfully all ironed out BEFORE she passed away.
We say solicitor, but when it comes to a POA, the person concerned is an named as your attorney. Bizarre.
[quote=“reddivine”]
I think krakowian, you were advised by a duff solicitor. One of the first questions they ask, when nominating the named person for POA is, who do you want as secondary? And it does not HAVE to be solicitor.
Are you in the UK? i ask cuz mainly we in the UK say solicitor and not attorney?
i had a crap experience with my mother. She made a will years ago. The solicitors went bust, and then the firm that took them over also went bust. After some chasing, it appears the original will was held in storage in god knows where. At that point we said finito and got her to make NEW will and ditto POA. Thankfully all ironed out BEFORE she passed away.
[/quote] My cousin, unmarried and no children decided to put her affairs in order and went to the Solicitors to make a will and do the Power of Attorney business. The solicitor offered to be POA and suggested her colleague be the secondary POA. Doing that cost my cousin a lot of money. What she wasn’t told and what she hadn’t realised was that if the solicitors died or moved away and were uncontactable there was no one who had POA over her affairs. Many people assume that if solicitors take on POA the responsibility passes to the actual Law Firm if the solicitors die or are unavailable. That doesn’t happen.
Regarding wills, you can store your will with the Probate Service if you live in England or Wales. It costs £20 and the will is released free of charge to your executors when you die. £20 sounds like a small price to pay to ensure that your will is available when you die. (It’s £20 every time you change your will and submit a new one for storage, btw.)
I don’t know of any way round the PoA problem.
Yes i have mine in storage i pay 16.00 a year for it, and 18.00 for changes. My executor of my will has all the details of where the storage is. Isnt that what an executor is for? I think its safer to keep in storage as if people move Wills can go missing lol.
A solicitor always keeps the original will, same with a POA, but you DO get a copy. So if, 5 or 10 year down the line you can make an adjustment. And your family or whoever will know where to go after your death.