My Dad has long talked about completing the forms to assign power of attorneys on medical and financial matters should the time come where he is unable to make those decisions.
His first call to me claimed he could only choose one, which I immediately said was incorrect.
He called the other day to say he had sent the forms to my sister who would send on to me for signing and that she was going to be sole power of attorney as "it was easier" that way and I would be a stand by.
I wasn't in the mood for an argument so left it.
The forms have since arrived and now I am fuming as it feels like an admission of favouritism or a question of my character.
Should I be as pissed off as I am? And was I right to sign it from Santa Claus and send it back to him?
Perhaps your dad has got some incorrect advice and just thought it would be easier this way.
Try not to get angry about it and perhaps speak to your sister about why it would be better to have your name on it so you can both speak to him together and explain why it is best you are both named.
What I would strongly advise is that you do not put off getting it sorted one way or another as you really don’t know how quickly their health can change and then you could be left in a really difficult situation.
Sadly you can find yourself making some pretty horrendous decisions which even if you are not named, if I was your sister I would certainly want to consult you on.
To strengthen your point when discussing your concern with your sister, one such recent example of a decision we have had to make in regards to my dad who has final stage Parkinsons (swallowing becomes difficult) is whether to allow him to continue to eat soft food which is his only enjoyment left in life but have the high risk of choking to death or have a tube fitted to feed him through.
There is a lot more to sort out than you could imagine. When sadly the time comes to use it, having more than one person takes some of that strain away so you can all help out dealing with different agencies who will not speak to you unless have power of attorney. If your sister goes on holiday and she is the only one named if it is something urgent (for example a financial issue to resolve) she will have to sort it and interrupt her holiday.
One thing that I found completely bizarre once you start using the power of attorney is that you log on to a government system to get a code to issue to companies to prove you have power of attorney and they are forced to use the codes, however HMRC will not accept the codes as they are not set up to do so even though they are both essentially government systems.
I hope everything resolves itself, don’t let this cause a family dispute, just put your point across with some examples. I don’t think people ever truly imagine there will come a time it is needed and therefore it seems a bit trivial at the time of sorting it. Perhaps your dad genuinely thinks it is easier to just have had one person whereas it is pretty much the same amount of work as you just need to fill in and sign an extra box for each power of attorney.
