The very sad tale of a WW2 veteran, who lost all his money after setting up an old style LPA called an enduring power of attorney (EPA) with an unscrupulous neighbour, shows how important it is that an EPA / LPA is taken out with due care and attention.
An LPA is a legal document that allows someone to make financial decisions for an individual when they can no longer do so. In this case, Mr Frank Willett, who was in his 80s and suffering from dementia, was separated by hundreds of miles from his daughter, Lesley, who trusted her father’s neighbour a Mr Colin Blake.
However, back in 2003, Mr Colin Blake started withdrawing large sums of money from Frank’s bank account within weeks of the EPA document being signed, He took almost £9,000 within one week alone. Meanwhile, although Mr Frank Willet had been a customer at the bank for years and had regular, small outgoings, because the EPA had been signed, the bank did not bring the new transactions to his daughter Lesley’s attention.
Eventually, when Mr Frank Willett had to move to a care home in 2004 because of ill health, Mr Colin Blake then registered the EPA with the Court of Protection, which allowed him to sell Frank’s home. By the time his daughter Lesley challenged the EPA, she could not prove that Mr Colin Blake was unfit to be her father’s attorney. She tried to bring the discrepancies in her father’s accounts to the attention of the Office of Public Guardianship and the Court of Protection, which oversees all EPA, LPA and attorneyship / Guardianship, but was told that everything was “satisfactory”.
By the time Mr Colin Blake had sold his own home in 2007 and moved to France, Mr Frank Willett care home bills were now in arrears, all his WW2 medals had been sold and even his mothers wedding ring and family photographs had all disappeared. Mr Colin Blake even tried to get what was left of Mr Frank Willett’s estate after his death in 2009 and his daughter had to go to court to try to overturn a will he had influenced before his move.
When the police finally investigated Mr Colin Blake, tracked him down in France and took him to court, he pleaded guilty to theft and was sentenced to a prison term of four-and-a-half years. However, that will not get any of the money or family memories back for his daughter Leslie.
Lesley is now at trying to warn others of the dangers of setting up an EPA / LPA without due care.
It is now far simpler to register an Lasting Power of Attorney and relatives of the individual are not necessarily contacted. But with stricter rules around Lasting Power of Attorneys It is therefore vital that care is taken when drawing one up.
If you are in Essex, Brentwood, Billericay, Ingatestone, Shenfield, Chelmsford, Harlow, Colchester, Basildon, Southend, Wickford, then contact keily.legal