Managing a parent's money after a dementia diagnosis

Sort the Lasting Power of Attorney first — everything else in dementia money admin is a workaround for not having one. A diagnosis does not remove capacity, so your parent can almost certainly still make an LPA now. Then put the day-to-day protections in place while they can be involved in the decisions: dementia-friendly banking support, direct debits, scam defences and, when the time comes, formal help with benefits.

Money is usually where dementia first shows up in practical life — an unpaid bill, a confusing phone call, a bank card that will not behave. The goal in the early stage is not to take over. It is to build a safety net around your parent’s independence, with their involvement, so that control passes gradually and by their choice rather than suddenly and by crisis. This guide is part of our dementia diagnosis admin roadmap.

This guide is general information, not financial or legal advice. For advice about your own situation, speak to a regulated professional, or a free service such as Citizens Advice or Age UK.

Why is the LPA the foundation?

Because every other tool on this page is partial. A third-party mandate helps with one account. An appointee handles benefits only. The bank’s support team can smooth things but cannot decide anything. Only a Lasting Power of Attorney for property and financial affairs gives the people your parent chooses the legal authority to manage all of it — accounts, bills, pensions, and property if it ever comes to that.

And it has a deadline no one can see: an LPA can only be made while your parent has mental capacity. The reassuring fact is that a dementia diagnosis does not remove capacity — capacity is decision-specific, and most people can still validly make an LPA soon after diagnosis, often long after. But the window will not stay open forever, which is why this is the first job. Registration costs £92 per document in England and Wales, and most families manage it without a solicitor. The full process — both types, the choices, the costs — is in our Power of Attorney guide.

An important reframe for the conversation with your parent: an LPA is not handing over control. It changes nothing today. It is insurance — their chosen people, ready, for a day that may be years away.

How do you handle day-to-day banking while capacity remains?

With small, reversible supports rather than big changes:

• Tell the bank. Many UK banks have dementia-friendly or vulnerable customer teams. What they offer varies — extra checks, flexible ID arrangements, patient telephone support — so ask your parent’s bank directly, with your parent on the call.
• Move regular bills to direct debit. Rent or ground rent, energy, water, council tax, insurance. Unopened post then stops meaning missed payments.
• Consider a third-party mandate — a form the bank provides that lets a named person help with a specific account while your parent still runs it. Useful as a stopgap; not a substitute for the LPA.
• If chip-and-pin becomes hard, ask the bank about alternatives — banks can often provide different ways to pay or withdraw, and the Post Office also offers card-based ways to handle everyday cash for many banks’ customers. The details vary, so ask what fits your parent.

The pattern in all of this: your parent stays the decision-maker, with friction removed and a trusted person able to see problems early.

How do you protect against scams?

Calmly and early, because the targeting is real. Fraudsters deliberately seek out older people with memory problems — a person who is trusting, confused by official-sounding calls, or unable to remember yesterday’s conversation is exactly who scam scripts are written for. This is not a reflection on your parent; it is an industry, and the defence is practical:

• A call blocker on the landline, which stops most cold calls reaching them at all — some models allow only known numbers through.
• The bank’s own protections. Ask about fraud alerts and any extra checks the bank can add for unusual payments — offerings vary, so ask.
• The Mail Preference Service to cut scam-adjacent junk mail, and a “no cold callers” notice for the door.
• A standing family rule, agreed with your parent: no decisions about money on the phone or the doorstep, ever — “I always talk to my daughter first” is a polite, unarguable exit line.

If money has already been taken, the bank’s fraud team and Action Fraud are the first calls — and it is worth knowing that this happens to careful families all the time, so treat it as a system failure to fix, not a shameful secret.

What must you do once you’re acting as attorney?

When the LPA is eventually registered and in use, being an attorney comes with real legal duties, in one paragraph: act in your parent’s best interests and involve them in decisions as far as they are able; keep records of significant decisions and spending; and never mix their money with yours — separate accounts, always, however convenient a shared pot would be. Attorneys are also very limited in what they may give away as gifts from your parent’s money. The detail — what you can and cannot do, and how attorneys get into trouble — is covered in the Power of Attorney guide.

Who manages benefits when they can’t?

Benefits have their own, simpler route: the DWP appointee system. If your parent can no longer manage their benefit claims — forms, reporting changes, receiving payments — a family member can apply to become their appointee, and the DWP will usually visit briefly to check it is appropriate. An appointee handles benefits only, so it works alongside an LPA rather than instead of one, and it is often the practical answer for Attendance Allowance and Pension Credit admin. The route is explained in what to do when a parent loses mental capacity.

What if capacity has already gone and there’s no LPA?

Then the workaround is a Court of Protection deputyship: a family member (usually) applies to be appointed deputy for property and financial affairs. It reaches the same destination as an LPA — legal authority to manage your parent’s money — but the journey is slower, costs more, and comes with annual supervision and reporting. It is entirely doable, and thousands of families do it every year; it is simply the harder road, which is why this guide keeps pointing at the LPA. The full deputyship process is in what to do when a parent loses mental capacity.

Should you move money around to protect it from care fees?

Pause before you do anything here. After a diagnosis, many families feel an urge to start gifting money or transferring the house “before the council takes it”. The rules are ahead of you: if a council later decides that assets were given away with reducing care fees as a significant motive, it can treat your parent as still owning them — the deprivation of assets rules — and there is no time limit on how far back a council can look. A dementia diagnosis on the record makes later scrutiny more likely, not less. That does not mean nothing can ever be done, but it does mean nothing should be done casually: read our guide to gifting money and deprivation of assets first, and take regulated financial or legal advice before moving anything significant.

Where do you start?

This week: the LPA conversation, and a call to your parent’s bank about its dementia support. This month: direct debits, a call blocker, and the scam ground rules agreed together over a cup of tea. The rest of the roadmap — benefits, council tax, driving, care planning — is in dementia diagnosis: what to do first.

And since money admin and benefits admin are two halves of the same job, run the free benefits check — Attendance Allowance and Pension Credit are the fastest way to make your parent’s money position stronger, and the check takes minutes.