Summary: FIL died June 2017. Delay with Estate due to contention between 3 siblings, all of whom are Executors. Contentious Lawyers finally appointed to deal with Estate. MIL has Alzheimer’s & in a care home. She lacks capacity. The firm of Solicitors were engaged on the basis that not only do they handle late FILs Estate BUT were also engaged to act as MIL Financial Deputy as agreed by all 3 Executors. 1 of the Executors has now ‘changed her mind’. This particular Executor has been difficult since my FIL died. Her brother (my husband) had to see a Solicitor to get things moving in the first place regarding his Fathers’ Estate. His sister said she was not going to do anything! It is a large and complex Estate. She initially wanted to do probate, not use a Solicitor & asked her 2 brothers to ‘stand down’. The other brother does not want her to be Financial Deputy & neither does my husband due to her behaviour. They were happy for her to be their mothers’ Welfare Deputy. Surely, the sister cannot be allowed to keep delaying matters although it seems she can, whatever her reasons are. This must have happened to someone out there and it would be interesting to hear what the outcome was.

My Mum In Law is in a local care home and today I received a letter from the home asking for a copy of the Power Of Attorney for her, which we do not have. The same letter also stated that if we do not have Power Of Attorney for her, the home would look into appointing an Advocate or Welfare Deputy through the Court of Protection. Can anyone please advise what this is at all? I do not want to visit the home to talk about the letter without first being at least aware of what it all means. Any help or advice would be greatly appreciated.

Over 5 years ago my mother suffered a brain injury which rendered her unable to manage her own affairs. As you can imagine this was a very traumatic and heartbreaking time for us. As there was no Power of Attorney in place (we were due to put this in place and had discussed it with my mother), I was appointed as a Deputy by the Court of Protection to look after my mother's financial affairs. All very stressful and could have been avoided. My mother has a number of accounts with several different banks and building societies. Whilst it was an onerous task, most banks were helpful and sympathetic although admittedly many were ignorant of my role and what it was supposed to empower me to do. Santander have consistently been a nightmare to deal with, the type of issues I have faced: 1. Having to go into branch(es) to undertake simple tasks. 2. Having to be treated like a fraudster every time I try to undertake a simple task. 3. Having to explain what a Deputy is, only for the staff to look at me as if I am trying to defraud them and being humiliated and having requests refused. 4. Having internet banking disabled surreptitiously by a branch manager who thought I was a fraudster because they did not understand my role. 5. Spending hours on the telephone to undertake simple tasks (changing standing orders etc) because no one could authorise the actions I wanted to undertake (and am legally permitted to undertake). 6. Having online transactions blocked and cards disabled regularly. 7. Receiving letters addressed to my mother each time we tried to do an online transaction for her - asking if the transactions were legitimate. 8. Having to constantly re-explain my role and why it was not appropriate for them to keep trying to contact my mother etc etc... just so we could change her care home fee contribution! This is just a small sample of what has been a longstanding nightmare. It got to the stage that we avoided dealing with Santander because it was too time consuming and stressful. Ultimately I ended up paying for things myself as I was constantly worried that they would again stop a card or disable access or cause other issues. After the most recent problems, I again made a complaint and it appears now that they have resolved some of the problems (I now have internet banking back after 3 years without it, I now have a cheque book, I also have a debit card that works at the moment). The misinformation continues (the cheque book was supposed to be in my name as Deputy for, but came in my mother's name. I have been told to sign cheques in a few different styles. I am yet to test a cheque). I have received an apology letter from Santander and have been offered a small financial gesture from Santander for the 5 years of grief. I don't know whether to accept the gesture or, pass the complaint to the ombudsman. Has anyone else had issues of this nature? I'd appreciate any opinions on this. Thank you.