Delays and misinformation resulted in a lost opportunity to investigate the actions of attorneys

What happened

Mrs R's father made an Enduring Power of Attorney (a legal document that appoints a person to make decisions on another person's behalf if they can't make decisions at the time they need to be made) in spring 2003. He appointed Mrs R, her stepmother and her stepbrother as his attorneys. The Office of the Public Guardian received an application to register (place on record) the Enduring Power of Attorney in summer 2011. Mrs R applied to the Court of Protection to object to the registration. In spring 2012, the Court of Protection dismissed her objections and asked the Office of the Public Guardian to register the Enduring Power of Attorney. It was registered in early summer 2012. The Court of Protection ordered that Mrs R would have no further participation in the management of her father's affairs, but that the remaining attorneys were to keep proper accounts and records of all transactions involving her father's estate. The Court of Protection ordered the attorneys to give Mrs R a copy of the annual accounts.

Between spring and late summer 2013, Mrs R contacted HM Courts & Tribunals Service (HMCTS) about her concerns that the attorneys were not giving her the information she was entitled to. This correspondence was eventually sent to the Court of Protection, which is part of HMCTS. It replied in late summer and advised Mrs R to contact the Office of the Public Guardian.

Mrs R then contacted the Office of the Public Guardian. At first it told her that it could not investigate her concerns. Mrs R's father died in early autumn. Soon after, the Office of the Public Guardian decided that it could investigate; however, it was now unable to do so as its jurisdiction, and that of the Court of Protection, had ended when Mrs R's father died.

HMCTS accepted that there had been delay in dealing with Mrs R's correspondence and that it should have told her to contact the Office of the Public Guardian sooner. It offered her £100. The Office of the Public Guardian accepted that it had not handled Mrs R's correspondence correctly and apologised for the frustration this had caused her.

What we found

We partly upheld this complaint. As a result of failings by both organisations, Mrs R was denied the opportunity to have her concerns about the actions of the attorneys properly investigated.

We could not say with any degree of certainty what the outcome of an investigation by the Office of the Public Guardian would have been. This is due to the limited time that was available to the Office of the Public Guardian to conduct an investigation before Mrs R's father died. HMCTS's delays limited this time.

However, our investigation clarified that the Office of the Public Guardian would have investigated Mrs R's concerns if there had been time to do so before her father's death, and that a probable outcome of that investigation would have been an application to the court to enforce the Court of Protection's spring 2012 order.

Putting it right

While we could not identify a tangible loss to Mrs R as a result of the failings by both organisations, we felt that the actions of HMCTS in particular had led to a loss of opportunity, and that both organisations should offer some financial remedy for their failings.

We felt that the impact of the Office of the Public Guardian's failing was relatively small and that a payment of £100 was sufficient. In terms of HMCTS, the impact of its failings was greater and we recommended that HMCTS increase its offer to Mrs R from £100 to £400. This gave Mrs R total financial redress of £500, which we considered, together with the apologies and explanations already given, to be a suitable outcome to her justified complaint.

Both HMCTS and the Office of the Public Guardian accepted our recommendations in full.