Alex RKIn this shedinar, recorded in August 2023, I explain how the MCA applies when thinking about people’s money, property and affairs.
The slides are here.
The MOJ toolkit I talk about called is Making finance decisions for young people: parent and carer toolkit, and can be found here.
Necessary caveat: nothing in this constitutes legal advice.
Hi Alex, great shedinar as always. One issue that comes up a lot, typically with people with advanced dementia or a person who has suddenly suffered a traumatic event and is unable to make decisions about their care/residence, is when the person is moving from their home or rental accommodation to a residential care setting and we need to take steps to decide what will be done with their possessions (no LPA or Deputy for property and affairs). In the really challenging situations the person is not able to indicate what they would like to be done with these possessions – so what to keep, what to sell, what to give to charity, what to put into storage etc, and this is made even more complicated when the person concerned has no friends or family to consult. When thinking of dealing with a persons personal possessions at what point would the protection of Section 5 not be there and we would need to make an application to CoP for a property and affairs deputy? I note that the Code of Practice states: ‘Actions that might be covered by section 5 include […] helping someone to move home (including moving property and clearing the former home)’. By way of a personal analogy, my mother collects pottery, to the untrained eye some of it would look worthless, if we (imagining she had no friends and family and a social worker is having to decide) give some of the possessions to charity she has not received any value and I am not sure that selling the pottery would be covered by section 5 and that we would need to apply to CoP for deputy P&A. Any thoughts?
Dear Alex, I might of answered part of my own question (through a bit of extra reading) and i think the answer is housed in https://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/2014/23/section/47 (Care Act 2014), in particular subsections 1 to 4. However, this authority does not seem to extend to selling the persons possessions (big or small) merely to take steps ‘for preventing or mitigating loss or damage’. My assumption is therefore if the local authority thought that some of the P’s possessions should be sold, given to charity or skipped then the only way to do this would be either (a) with the persons consent (b) should P be unable to make the decision and someone holds valid legal authority (LPA or Deputy P&A) they can make the decision that doing so would be in P’s best interests or (c) if neither (a) or (b) apply we would need to apply to CoP for deputyship and during this period take steps ‘for preventing or mitigating loss or damage’ to their possessions.
Is this a fair summary?