Protecting the wellbeing of the elderly has come into sharp relief this year, with wealth managers playing an even more vigilant role.

Kelly Greig, head of later life practice at Irwin Mitchell, said that her firm saw “huge rises” in people scrambling to make wills and powers of attorney earlier in the year as the two most important determinations of "who is going to look after you in life and what’s going to happen after your death," she said.

The NHS began the surge, encouraging all of its frontline staff to get their affairs in order, followed by a second wave of furloughed workers with sudden time on their hands, Greig told this service in a call about how legal firms and wealth managers have been working more closely in a crisis year.

After issuing forbearance in the early months of disruptions, the to develop communication skills in the advisory community, some of it directed at those working with dementia clients.

Understanding a person's ability to make financial decisions is another piece of the advisory armoury being tested this year.

It is not black or white, I am capable or incapable, Irwin Mitchell's Greig says. The test of whether a person has the capacity to take action for themselves depends on the action. Clients may be capable of managing small amounts of money but not capable of understanding or making big investment decisions.

“The Mental Capacity Act is very clear that the client should be involved in the process as far as they are able. And even if you are not capable of making the decision, if you are able to participate, you should,” she said.

Wealth managers need to do all they can to understand their client’s level of capacity "and not just accept instructions from an attorney or deputy or a third party without involving the actual individual in the process if they are able to be involved.”

The five principles of the 2005 Mental Capacity Act state: Always assume capacity; provide reasonable support; accept that the customer can make unwise decisions; act in the customer’s best interest; and take the least restrictive option.

Greig has seen deterioration among some of her own clients from prolonged spells shielding but says there is no easy way currently to build a national picture of how the pandemic is worsening the decline.

“It is simple things like, it is not easy to get an actual doctor’s appointment where capacity deterioration might have been picked up in a face-to-face appointment, and people are not seeing individuals or friends as much.”

Besides ensuring that every client has an up-to-date will in place, and powers of attorney for both health and welfare and property and affairs, Greig urges advisors working with vulnerable clients to have a case synopsis on file about family relationships. “If there is anyone in the family who presents as being suspect, just some information about the family on file can help.”

Most important is knowing what acting deputies "can and can’t do and watch for any changes in instructions or anything that doesn’t smell right.”

“I’ve had conversations with wealth managers before who’ve said, ‘Well, of course I paid that sum to Joe Blogs because the attorney said we were making a gift.’ But the attorney does not have authority to make a gift unless you have a court order and a wealth manager hasn’t known that.”

Another example is you can’t invest in a portfolio if the instruction is from an attorney who is also a beneficiary, not without a court order, she explained.

“In training recently with a group of national financial advisory firms, I’ve had to say, ‘Guess what, if you do that I am going to sue you for professional negligence. You are in breach of your duties.’ Suddenly they realise that they do need some education on this.”