Mother as appointee/lasting POA for UC claim

Hi everyone

Saw a client this week who has DWP appointee-ship for her son.  Her son has severe mental health issues and refuses to engage with anyone and there is no way that he would be able to attend any interviews or assessments even if they were conducted at home (refuses to leave his room). 

With regards to his UC, can his mother attend on his behalf?  If she had POA would this make a difference?  Her son has £16K in a bond so can only claim New Style ESA to get his credits.  They are in a full service area. 

For the future when the bond matures she is going to put this in a trust but in the meantime she wants to protect his future pension.

Any ideas? UC guidance mentions “reasonable adjustments”...

Thanks

He sounds as though he may not be able to give her power of attorney ie he may not have the mental capacity to do so. He may not sufficiently understand what he is doing to be able to legally do it.

She may not be able to put the £16,000 in a trust without this counting as intentional deprivation of capital. It would be more straightforward to spend some of it on him and then claim income-related benefit (sadly presumably UC). There would be deemed income but he would build up NI credits as well as having some income left.

Sally may well be right, in which case there may be questions as to whether there should be a CoP deputy….

For more on LPA’s and deputyship under the Court of Protection (the latter of which I agree does sound more likely as an avenue), see our factsheet Arranging for someone to take decisions on your behalf

For benefits at least, I’m not sure why the appointeeship that is already in place wouldn’t be sufficient? Transferring the claimant’s capital around for him would be another matter of course.

Previously: https://www.rightsnet.org.uk/forums/viewthread/5246/
See in particular the info linked by Daphne and hkrishna.

There are various different sorts of interview that may be required for UC, which might have different rules. Hopefully verification could just be achieved online. Part 5 of the guidance seems to imply that an appointee can attend a medical assessment, but both claimant and appointee would be needed at jobseeker interviews - whether that carries through for the claimant commitment, I don’t know. That guidance probably pre-dates UC, but I’m not aware of any updated info about those sort of details.