Become a co signature on an existing credit union account

Berberis

Hi folks, looking for a bit of advice.
Wife's elderly uncle with dementia recently moved to long term nursing home under fair deal.
Going to credit union on Monday to organise for his contribution to nursing home payment to be paid from his credit union account by standing order.
Going to organise with the nursing home to look after his old age pension and for them to put aside his 20%of his pension to be kept in the nursing home patients account for his own use in nursing home.

We are his only family so have been looking after him for number of years now, but not as official carers, so to speak. We don't have any power of attorney or anything like that, so we are happy to try and sort out his nursing home payments as described above.

However his old cottage is next to us and it will still have electricity bills and I'm sure it will need a few repairs now and then as it's quite old and open to the elements.

We were wondering how we will go about paying for these and were thinking that if the credit union would allow for wife's uncle to agree to her withdrawing money from his account when needed to pay for anything needed to keep the house in good repair. Obviously we would keep receipts and record's etc of any withdrawals and payments etc.

Is there a facility in credit union for this, or will we have to think of something else

Mrs OBumble

You need to see a solicitor.

Unless you or your wife is already a co-signer for the account, the credit union should refuse to even speak to you.

Jim2007

Unfortunately it’s a bit too late at this stage for an easy solution since the person already has dementia.

The uncle will need to add your wife to the credit union account and give you permission to act on his behalf in maintaining his property etc - you cannot go in someone’s property and start working on it.

You need the advice of a solicitor to have the relevant documents drafted and signed by the uncle and it will need to be done at a point in time where it is clear the uncle understands what is going on. The solicitor will advise you on this.

Berberis

Cheers for replys folks.
Will have to look in to things a bit further so.