This is my first post.
Today, I am frustrated and quite angry. It has taken hundreds of pounds and months of irritating bureaucracy in order to obtain a lasting power of attorney to deal with my mother's financial and property affairs. It took four months to have the POA registered with Santander due to their complete ineptitude both in branch and at head office.
My mum has Alzheimer's and since my dad died last year, she has really gone downhill. For the past month, she has been in hospital with a fractured hip, but is soon to return home. The day after she went into hospital, it was discovered by my brother that her handbag was missing from the house and so I cancelled her current account debit card.
There are three children. Two get on and one doesnt get on with the other two. She is in financial difficulty with her husband. They have made horrendous financial decisions in the past and are heavily in debt. Her husband is the main problem. Before she met him, she owned her house outright. Now, they are mortgaged up to the eyeballs. I feel this man has taken her for all she's worth and now has designs on my mother's assets. After my dad died, I realised I would have to act fast to secure mum's money because I didnt trust her or more accurately, her husband and went to a solicitor and got power of attorney with my brother. There has been nothing but trouble ever since. They went ballistic to put it mildly. I was accused by her husband of being devious and underhanded.
She lives around the corner from mum and neither my brother or I are nearby. I live some 120 miles away. My sister is hugely resentful, as she feels lumbered with looking after mum and feels that as she takes my mother shopping etc, she should have been an attorney too. Quite frankly, I would rather stick pins in my eyes before I'd agree to that.
When mum's bag went missing, I asked that any replacement card was held at her local branch, as I was told that the pin had to go to her house. Today, I was informed that my sister had got my mum to sign a letter giving her permission to collect the card! Now she has both the card and the pin. I telephoned the branch to check if this had indeed happened and it was confirmed that it had. When I asked how the hell this was possible considering there was a POA on the account and she was not an attorney AND my mother has dementia, I was told that they have a lot of elderly customers and if they treated everything as black and white, they could not operate!!!! I am furious. What is the point of everything I have gone through if she can just waltz in and get away with it???
Luckily, today I was in my local branch and opened a savings account and put a rather large sum of money from the current account in there to saveguard it. She doesnt spend a lot and with her pension, pension credit and other benefits, this is mounting up considerably. Also, I went to the post office and redirected all her mail as my sister recently found out how much there was and has been trying to get access to the money with all kinds of ridiculous excuses.
She is threatening to report me to the OPG/police because she thinks I am stealing money or whatever the latest thing is, but I am not really worried about that as I know I have receipts for everything and all is in order.
This has been something of a rant and I apologise, but don't really know how to deal with this situation. If I complain officially to Santander, I am worried they will cancel the card and mum wont have access to her account, especially as the two attorneys are not local to her.
