LPA jointly and severally dispute!

All about caring
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I am joint and severally LPA for health and finances with my sister for my father who has dementia. The time has come for him to be assessed for residential and or nursing care. His mental capacity for making this decision himself or deciding where he would like to live is very much day to day and compromised at best. My sister has already started making plans to get him in a care home right where she lives. My father currently lives in the next street to me where he has spent the last 50 years of this life.

Sister wants him next to her so she and his grandson “can visit him every day”. She doesn’t think it’s important that some of his local friends might not be able to visit him as often as they might if he didn’t move away from his local area, not to mention my thoughts on it as the main carer and Next of kin.

I believe that if he had capacity he may well to prefer to stay more local to his own area.

Where do i stand if she starts making moves to get him placed somewhere I have not agreed with? I know with jointly and severely each party can act independently. If she states a case it’s in his “best interests” am I powerless to try and negotiate he is placed somewhere at least halfway between her and me/his local area?

Thanks

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Hi @AJ2024

All I can suggest is sit down with your sister and talk it through. Talk about his friends. How many of his friends visit him regularly? How would the move make things difficult for them to visit, and how would it affect him? Why is location important? A big move to a new area can be very difficult for someone with dementia to cope with.

My understanding is that if the LPA is set up as “jointly and severally” there is very little you can do about it without going through the Court of Protection to get your sister removed as attorney. That’s an extreme step and only likely to cause problems rather than solve them - not least as it would take a good deal of evidence to prove that your sister is not working in your dad’s best interests.

Far better to resolve things amicably.

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