Office of Public Guardian did not supervise appointed deputy for estate

What happened

Mrs B's step–mother's financial affairs were controlled by a deputy after she lost her mental capacity. Mrs B complained to the OPG that the deputy gave away increasingly large amounts of her step–mother's money as gifts in an attempt to interfere with an existing will and deprive her of her inheritance. The existing estate was due to go to Mrs B and her sister following their stepmother's death.

Despite annual reports on his decisions (this is to make sure client's funds are being used in their best interests), it took four years before the OPG identified that the deputy's actions may have been inappropriate and beyond the remit of the court order.

The OPG asked the deputy to apply to the court for approval of the gifts. However, Mrs B's step–mother unfortunately died before the application was complete. As such, the OPG took steps to call in the security bond (insurance that protects the assets of the person whose affairs and property the deputy is managing) to recover the money for the estate. It asked the Court of Protection (the Court) to look at the final three years of gifting, but did not include the first two years or money claimed by the deputy for expenses. The Court found that the deputy was entitled to give some gifts. However, it called in over £40,000 from the security bond to reimburse the estate for excessive gifting.

Mrs B remained unhappy that the security bond had not been called in for the full amount spent, and felt she had still lost out on over £30,000.

What we found

We partly upheld this complaint. The OPG had offered reasonable explanations for why it had not included the first two years of gifting or the deputy's expenses in its court application. Also, it was open to Mrs B to pursue this during the proceedings to call in the security bond and this would have been the most appropriate way for the financial loss to have been addressed. We noted that the Court was aware of the outstanding gifts and could have chosen to include it in the application if the judge had wished.

We found that the OPG could have acted sooner and should have supervised the deputy better. However, we were satisfied that any financial loss arising from the deputy's actions over the last three years had been rectified by the Court.

In addition, we found that Mrs B had suffered stress because there were times when the OPG appeared to have brushed off her concerns and this had not been remedied by the Court. The OPG could have handled her correspondence better and it had also failed to notice that the deputy had not reimbursed the estate in full in relation to inappropriate expenses.

Putting it right

The OPG reimbursed £300 underpaid by the deputy for wrongly claimed expenses, paid Mrs B £200 for stress, apologised to her and explained how its supervision practices had been improved.