M
y mother is 97 and lives in a care home, so I have power of attorney to manage her finances. She has been a Santander customer for decades and has about £300,000 in a fixed-term bond. This was due to mature in May, so in April I called the bank to instruct it to send £100,000 to her nominated bank account, and move the remaining amount into a new one-year savings bond paying 4.05 per cent interest.
To my surprise, Santander said it could not accept my instruction because I was not recorded as having power of attorney. Given that I registered as her attorney in 2015 and had set up this bond on her behalf last year, I said this didn’t make any sense but the bank refused to speak to me about her account.
I raised a complaint and expected this error to be resolved quickly. But the bank still wouldn’t take my instructions when I called two weeks later. At that point I started to get concerned because we need that £100,000 to pay my mother’s care home fees in August. This is very alarming indeed.
In the meantime, her bond has matured and the £300,000 has automatically rolled into an account paying just 1 per cent interest. Essentially Santander ignored my instructions, leaving my mother missing out on hundreds of pounds of interest and unable to access her own cash.
