Looking after other people’s money

This page covers:

  • Why family or friends became involved with managing someone else’s money,
  • Examples of what people did to manage money and spending.

When older relatives started to need help at home or to pay for care, family members often became more aware of their relatives’ finances and how well they were managing them. This helped with managing paying for care but also helped in other areas as well, such as getting better deals on utility bills and spotting possible scams.

Getting the best returns on money

Some older people had quite large sums of money in the bank. For example, when people moved to a care home and sold their house, there could be significant sums of money to deal with. Families were often responsible for finding the best place for the money to give good returns to help pay for care.

Hannah explains that it is important not to have too much money in one account.

Age at interview 53

Gender Female

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If there is a large sum of money; so people need to protect themselves with regards to their funding, so if the, if savings are over £85,000 then you need to find a bank account that you’re getting a savings rate on for every £85,000 tranche that you’ve got. That means presenting your Power of Attorneys, every time you have to go and spend time sitting in front of a bank clerk, because they’re all things that just cannot be done online. National Savings is good, but again you have to send off all the paperwork. So it would be helpful to know that, you know, go to one of the websites, moneysupermarket.com, etc to know that they’re there to help you, but it’s a case of actually trawling the high street banks because they’re the easiest ones to open the accounts with.

And so, and then you also mentioned a threshold of £85,000 as a sort of a pocket of savings; could you just explain to me a little bit more about that?

So that’s to do with the finance; so after the economic crash in 2007 there was something called the Financial Services Compensation and therefore the first £85,000 of savings for any individual is protected in banks, but if you have over £85,000 and that bank was to go bust you would not receive the residual amount. So it’s quite important to look at if you are self-funding and definitely from a parent that’s in the southeast, yeah.

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Some older people recognised that they were struggling to manage their money and asked their partner, children, or someone else they trust to help out. When people started to look after their loved ones’ affairs, they were often shocked to find things had been neglected for a while. Sometimes people were paying much more than they should for goods and services. When family members started to look after their accounts they were able to get better deals on utility bills, insurance and other household spending. This could all help with paying for care.

Tracey’s mum had been managing the joint account but Tracey realised things were slipping.

Age at interview 59

Gender Female

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They’d always had joint accounts, because mum did the money really, so that was fine. But then it sort of became apparent that mum wasn’t quite on top of things and I think dad was, he was at home, before he was declining. And then I realised that things were slipping at home with him too, as in things weren’t getting opened and – he was always fastidious and things – and then it… I realised that they hadn’t got their car MOT’ed and things, and then I had to arrange that from afar, you know, and no insurance on it; and just found out that by accident, you know? So that’s when it star-, that’s when we started to realise that we were going to have to take things over for them, when dad was in decline, yeah.

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If family lived a long way away, they found it particularly difficult helping parents with their household and care management, including paying care bills. It helped to have a trusted local person to keep an eye on things.

Tracey found ways of managing her mum’s post to help her keep on top of bills.

Age at interview 59

Gender Female

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She’d forgotten when she was paying the next bill… Well in the end I had to have the bills come here because she wasn’t paying them. So I had to do – by that time we’d got Power of Attorney, and – yeah, so it’s all, you know, it’s all there…

So you just gradually took over?

Yeah, gradually took over and then that’s when her cleaner opened her post and send me pictures of things she thought was urgent and things [ laughs] and maybe sent some stuff down and; so that worked really well, yeah, that did, yeah. I don’t know how, I don’t think we could have done that without her really, I would have had to do something, because I wouldn’t have wanted to, the carers to open up her post.

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Preventing unwise spending and scams

Family members were also worried about their older relatives being scammed or over-spending. Having Lasting Power of Attorney for finances was helpful and it could also be re-assuring for the older person to know that a family member was checking their accounts.

Jennifer’s son keeps an eye on all her banking.

Gender Female

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But they have given, I mean they have Power of Attorney, all of them and my eldest son is in charge of my finances anyway and the bank knows, you know, so I don’t have, I can’t spend my money irresponsibly because they will contact him [laughs].

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How paying for care affects families

This page covers: Worries about inheritance, Discussions with family about money and care, Getting a balance between providing care and paying for care. Many older...

Lasting Powers of Attorney

This page covers: What is meant by Lasting Power of Attorney, Setting up Lasting Powers of Attorney and getting the timing right, Benefits of a...