‘It caused a terrible rift’: What every family should know about power of attorney

When her mother began showing signs of memory loss, Madeleine*, 62, stepped in to help her with daily tasks, chores, and admin. She had watched her grandmother live with dementia, and knew the signs to watch out for. After her mother was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s in 2022, at 84 years old, Madeline lined up NHS and private carers for her, but she refused to let any of them into her home. “She was so furious about having anyone in the house, and her loss of independence,” says Madeleine, who lives in West Sussex, and works as an admissions officer at a higher education college. “It was such a tough time.” “My siblings [a younger brother and younger sister] didn’t really get involved in the day-to-day of it,” she says. “They’d pop in to say hello, but they weren’t facing the tough stuff head on. When they did occasionally help, I was never really off duty. I don’t like the word ‘duty’ as it’s my mum and I love her, but it was gruelling at times, and it affected my mental health, my job, my marriage and everything else, really.” After a year of this, Madeleine managed to convince her mum to attend a day centre – it went well, and allowed them to start talking about residential care. “I got her home situation assessed and it became clear that she wasn’t safe living there anymore. I found a residential home which seemed just right. It was really tough for me to admit that this was the right path to take, but my siblings didn’t want to discuss the idea. They both kept saying she didn’t need to be in a home, and then my sister all of a sudden said that Mum should go and live with her.” Shorts Madeleine didn’t feel her sister’s proposition had been properly thought through, and worried she was being “naive” about the level of care someone with dementia actually needs. “My sister is quite an unreliable, unpredictable person, and has considerable challenges in life,” says Madeleine, “and I knew this just wouldn’t work out.” The siblings both pushed harder against the care home, but Madeline had the final say. “I had lasting power of attorney [LPA] for my mum, which she’d granted me in her early 50s, and so there was nothing my siblings could do to stop me. I didn’t want to have to mention that aspect, I hoped we’d all agree without any legal trump cards, but in the end, that was the reality.” Social services also agreed that a residential home would be the best course of action. Within a few months, Madeline’s mother had settled in to the home, and seemed less angry and frustrated. She was calmer, and the care seemed good. “I have no doubt that the care home was the right path to help our mum with the immense difficulty of a dementia diagnosis, but it seems to have cost me my relationship with my brother and sister. For a year or so, neither spoke to me at all. Now my brother and I are on decent terms again, but my sister has almost nothing to do with me. She is still very angry with me, and with the fact that I called the shots in the end. I only did what I felt was best, but she won’t recognise that, and I’m not sure what I can do to change her mind.” Disagreements between siblings over the care of an older relative are far more common than people might imagine, says Jane Connery, the director and founder of Care Campaign for the Vulnerable. “Caring for somebody you love can bring enormous pressure,” she says, “and existing family dynamics can very quickly come to the surface when difficult decisions have to be made.” A key factor in such situations is who holds lasting power of attorney. An LPA is a legal document that lets you appoint someone to make decisions on your behalf if you lose mental capacity to do so, or you need help managing your affairs. There are LPAs for property and financial affairs, and LPAs for health and care decisions – the same person can be appointed for both, or you can have multiple attorneys to take care of different aspects of your life. How to organise your power of attorney To nominate someone as your power of attorney, they must be over 18 and have the mental capacity to make their own decisions. They cannot be bankrupt or subject to a debt relief order, but they do not have to live in the UK or be a British citizen. You can appoint more than one attorney, and should make clear in advance whether they will act together and separately, or only together. You can also appoint replacement attorneys to step in if your nominated person is unable to fulfil the role. You can apply for lasting power of attorney (LPA) using online or paper forms. The original forms (not copies) must be signed in ink by the attorneys, witnesses, and a certificate provider, who confirms you are acting by fully informed choice. The Office of the Public Guardian can help if you lack a computer or printer, or need help with the online forms. Before registering, you must send a form to notify relevant people. Registration costs £92, unless you qualify for a reduction or exemption (for example, if you earn less than £12,000). Registration takes eight to ten weeks once the Office of the Public Guardian has a correctly completed LPA. If an attorney dies, or you or an attorney change name or address, you must apply for an amendment. Attorneys can also be removed. “There can be disagreements about finances, the choice of care home, medical treatment, visiting, whether that vulnerable relative needs more support at home, and even about how much risk the relative should be allowed to take at home.” One thing that frequently arises, as in Madeleine’s case, is that one sibling might provide most of the day-to-day support, while another lives further away or is less involved. “Their experience of the parent’s needs can therefore be completely different,” says Connery. What happens to a parent or relative’s money is a major flashpoint: complaints and concerns regarding alleged financial misconduct or misuse of an LPA reached a record 11,910 this year. If these choices can be tough enough in nuclear families, then they can be all the more thorny in blended families. “This is particularly the case where there are second marriages, stepchildren, or different people holding lasting powers of attorney [LPA]”, says Connery. “I’ve encountered families where disagreements about who should make decisions have become almost as significant as the original care issue.” This appears to be the case for the family of Sir Ranulph Fiennes, the British explorer, who has not been seen in public for two years. Sir Ranulph, who has Parkinson’s disease, is in the care of his second wife Louise Millington-Cotes, who has power of attorney. Questions have been raised about his welfare by his relatives. His cousin, the actor Joseph Fiennes, wrote in January to the Office of the Public Guardian [the agency which looks after LPAs], setting out concerns about Ranulph being cut off from his friends and family. Millington-Cotes has been accused by Ranulph’s family and friends of moving him between different care homes, under pseudonyms, and restricting visitation. Relatives and friends of Sir Ranulph Fiennes, the explorer and adventurer, have accused his wife of restricting visitation (Photo: David Levenson/Getty Images) Cheshire police issued a statement on Monday in which they said they did not have “safeguarding concerns” regarding the 82-year-old. It said officers were “satisfied that Sir Ranulph Fiennes is living in an appropriate setting with suitable care and professional oversight”. Yet, Alexander Millington-Cotes – who is estranged from his mother, Louise, Sir Ranulph’s wife – said a wide group of friends were concerned the police did not have the full picture. Evonne Cheffings, from Town & Country Law, specialises in will writing and LPAs, says: “The risk of massive disagreement over the power of attorney is lower in a nuclear family,” she says, “as people are more likely to be on similar wavelengths. Conflict more often happens in families where someone has remarried, and they only appoint their new partner as their power of attorney instead of a child from their first marriage. A power of attorney can give that sole person access to bank accounts, every aspect of a person’s life, and it can run the risk of depleting funds within the account that the child from the first marriage might potentially inherit.” There have been instances of the misuse and abuse of an LPA. “It’s not unheard of,” says Cheffings, “that someone with power of attorney has taken money out of bank accounts from an elderly, vulnerable person. But this tends to happen if someone appoints a power of attorney once they’re at crisis point, rather than many years beforehand. If done properly, well ahead of when it might be needed, then they’ll be far more sure they’re picking the right person, who they trust explicitly with all their affairs, from health and welfare to property and financial.” It has been reported that the Office of the Public Guardian has faced severe strain due to an unprecedented surge in LPA applications, which have grown from 700,000 in 2020–21 to 1.6 million a year. The agency holds power of attorney records for more than eight million people in England and Wales, but in 2024 it investigated fewer than one per cent of the cases brought to its attention. In 2025, the story of John Willcox illustrated how, in handing over responsibility for their financial assets, vulnerable people can sometimes be put at risk by their own relatives. Willcox’s family said that his eldest granddaughter, Amy, had taken control over his life. She stopped any contact between Willcox and the rest of his family, including Barbara, his wife of many years. With his granddaughter’s help, Willcox had altered his will, giving her power of attorney, and then had been left to live by himself, confused, isolated, and suffering from dementia. He was eventually reunited with his family, and was able to get the power of attorney and the new will cast aside, before dying peacefully at home. Experts, however, advise that having an LPA in place is absolutely the best way to safeguard yourself, your health and your future. Without it, loved ones have no automatic legal right to access your bank accounts, pay your bills, or make medical and care decisions if you lose mental capacity. TV presenter Kate Garraway faced severe legal and financial difficulties during her late husband Derek Draper’s COVID-19 illness and subsequent complications and care needs, because he had not set up an LPA. She spoke out about how she was unable to access funds to manage her husband’s care or refinance her mortgage. She didn’t even have the legal right to see his medical notes. Being married was not enough. In her experience with the legal fallout of not having an LPA, Cheffings advises that everyone set one up before they hit “crisis point”. She recommends facing the issue head on, even if it seems morbid. “Get it in place as soon as possible, while you have full mental capacity,” she says. Connery advises thinking carefully about who you appoint as your attorneys. “Talk openly with them about your wishes,” she says, “and record important preferences about future care. An LPA should not simply be viewed as paperwork for old age. Done properly, it is an opportunity to make your voice clearer if there comes a time when you cannot easily speak for yourself.” If a family is in disagreement over the best care for an elderly, or vulnerable, relative, Connery recommends moving the conversation away from “what do I want?” and back to “what does mum or dad want, and what is in their best interests?”. Where the person still has capacity to make the particular decision, their wishes are central, even if relatives disagree with them. “Where capacity has been lost,” she says, “families should look carefully at the person’s previously expressed wishes and feelings, beliefs and values, alongside their current needs and safety.” None of this means that a family will agree on care, or avoid conflict, but it might help relatives focus on the most important issue; their elderly or vulnerable loved one’s welfare. “After many years supporting families,” she says, “one thing I would encourage everyone to do is have these conversations while you still have the luxury of time.”