Someone in my family is having all sorts of problems with power of attorney with legacy banking because their systems simply can’t handle it.
NS&I simply merged the accounts which is obviously problematic.
The bank did some sort of weird bodge too, which has (because the family member has an overseas mailing address for part of the year) meant they have frozen all the savings accounts because they think the owner is no longer in the UK (they are) and have also messed up with the inland revenue who now think they are the same person and therefore under declaring income
I’m very much hoping that Monzo will have a sensible way of handling this whereby the account in question correctly retains all the details of the owner whilst seperately knowing there is a power of attorney, and allowing them to manage the account easily?
My advice currently, would be to stick with the legacy bank for this.
Yes the process is a nightmare, but book an appointment and go and sort it all out.
I honestly can’t see Monzo handling this smoothly (currently)
It’s a complicated process to keep your family members funds safe from harm.
I’ve seen it go wrong and it’s devistating.
By all means, somebody from Monzo please correct me if I’m wrong, but at the moment. I don’t think they have a strict process in place for this sort of thing.
I would echo @jdon.xyz’s comments. Given that Monzo consider simple Joint Accounts as so complicated that they need to be postponed, I wouldn’t put much trust in their ability to deal with matters such as these, which even “legacy” banks struggle with.
I might be wrong, of course (and I’d be happy if I was!), but I’d be very very weary…
It’s not just about when someone dies though. It’s about when you are given financial power of attorney for someone.
As far as I know this isn’t something that Monzo can just not do, if there is a power of attorney in place Monzo would have to give the person with POA access to the other person’s account.
Hopefully in a more competent way than legacy banks seem to.
Coincidently, I was speaking with someone about this earlier today. Their advise was:
In terms of how this will look for you when managing their accounts, it’s not as straightforward as we’d like.
For you to run two or more accounts from your phone you’ll need to keep logging in and out of the app which will also involve logging into the separate email accounts you have for each card.
Similarly you cannot run 2 cards through the same app so will need to explore other options such as carrying another smartphone to monitor someone else’s expenditure. In your case Adam, this would mean a different phone for each account.
Issue being when I login with their email address, it would log them out which isn’t ideal for anyone.
For the current time, I’ll leave their accounts with NatWest as I can see do act on their accounts when I login to mine (only reason why I’m keeping my account).
I’m Dan, I’m a specialist at Monzo, and this is one of the areas I work on.
We want to make this process as simple and useful as possible. It’s naturally a tough thing to have to do, and taking the stress out of things like this is one of the reasons we exist!
We can help you set up Power of Attorney accounts. In some circumstances this can be a great way to help someone manage their finances as you can limit funds available on the card (e.g. to protect from scams) and live updates mean that you can keep track of any unusual spending.
But unfortunately there are some major limitations currently which make it so this isn’t possible/practical for many people. For example, as was already mentioned above:
You can only be logged into one Monzo account at a time on your device.
You cannot be logged into Monzo on 2 separate devices at any one time.
So this means you wouldn’t be able to have a Monzo account yourself as logging in and out of both accounts would be super annoying. Likewise, the person you have power of attorney over would have no oversight of their finances as they can’t log in at the same time as you.
So while it is possible, it does depend on the way the power of attorney has been set up and what kind of arrangement you’d like. So we’d need to have a private conversation to figure things out.
Would you like to speak over DM? Alternatively, you or the family members you mentioned could speak to us over the in-app chat about this if you like - whatever’s easiest!
Currently for me the solution is to keep with NatWest as I am able manage their accounts with a single login.
The issue about multiple cards for a single account is not one for myself as I’ve never had to use my card on their accounts in the 4/5 years I’ve had LPA.
Once the situation changes with I’ll have another look.
Whilst this is not currently something I require, when I did previously, the two main things that were necessary were:
Being able to view/download statements for the other person’s account, whilst allowing them to do the same.
Being able to manage their account (transfer money, set up standing orders, cancel direct debits), whilst allowing them to do the same.
I think ultimately this is where Monzo should aim to be as the current situation (needing two phones, one person logging in kicking the other out) would be difficult to manage in the situation I was in.
Hopefully a Power of Attorney solution will emerge once Monzo finally get around to bringing out a Joint Account as some of the issues are similar for both scenarios.
as an aside to the discussion if you have signed a power of attorney since I think 2013 the person paying for it could be due a refund - My mum got a £45 refund from HMG
Hello! First time on the forums - exciting!
as I am able manage their accounts with a single login.
I’ll have another look.
