My Brother and Mum (she has Dementia so is muddled but she does still have capacity) agreed that I can be paid for caring for my Mum.
I had to give up work as I couldn’t manage working and caring for my Mum. My brother tries to help by visiting once a week or so, my sister does nothing to help and rarely visits. I stay at my Mum’s house 5 times a week as she gets worried sleeping in the house on her own on her own and I am with her most of the day. I take her out and to her groups/activities, take her food shopping, do the washing, prompt personal care, cook meals, take her to the hairdressers and to visit her brother and I do her cleaning and finances/paperwork and look after her house and take her on holiday etc. I take her to all her hospital & doctors appointments, do her medications and she has 3 operations that I have looked after through. So basically I look after her all the time, I have done this for 5 years but I can not longer manage to work as well, it has all got too much. My Mum is absolutely lovely and I want to look after her.
So I have given up working 3 months ago and have looked after my Mum for but my brother hasn’t paid me anything and now says he isn’t, he says he needs to make sure that Mum doesn’t spend more than her income. However my Mum has got almost £1million pounds in savings so paying me £500 a week (fulltime minimum wage) wont even put a dent in that and if we got private carers in to do what I do it would cost £4000 a week.
What can I do to resolve this situation please? Many thanks
Does brother have Power of Attorney?
My brother and my sister and myself have power of attorney
Have a look at the Court of Protection website, where it says you can be paid for looking after mum, and lays down the way to manage this. If your brother does not accept this, he’s not acting properly and may have his POA revoked. I would argue that mum has MORE help, from outside carers as well, so you can have a break, especially a sleep in carer.
Thank you for your advise, I really appreciate it, I will have a look at the Court of Protection Website, I think that i need some more help with Mum also, many thanks
I would suggest that you find three local care homes of very good quality (as mum can afford whatever she likes, find out, in writing, what the weekly fees are, and send copies to your brother. In my area, 10 years ago, they were around £1,000 a week, so will have risen substantially since then! Even with POA, the money is mum’s and should only be spent on her well being. Do you and your brother both have access to her bank accounts?
Thank you, that is a good idea, I will get quotes off the more luxurious care homes and also I will get quotes from care agencies coming in and sleeping here etc, that will cost even more as she wants taking out a lot etc. She has the money so can pay for whatever she likes. I have just spoken to my Mum and she says she is ringing my brother tonight about the money he owes me and she is telling him she wants me and not carers/strangers coming into the house. He wont be able to argue with that.
Mum has 2 bank accounts, but one with her state pension that has built up in over the years as she doesn’t need it, my brother set that up as an internet account, my money would come from there. I am not sure if Mum could ring up and ask for a bank account or not, but what she could do is ring the stock broker and ask him to pay me out of that money as she knows him well, she has mentioned him this morning.
Thank you for your advice
If you also have POA, just send a certified copy to the bank and stockbroker, and ask for copies of everything. As you have POA it means that everyone mum has dealings with must treat you as if you were mum herself, once they have a copy of the POA. Sometimes staff don’t realise this. Once you start asking for someone senior and request compensation for poor service appropriate notes are applied to the file!