On 19/12/2017 16:50, Mark Allread wrote:

Santander were particularly bad at the time and said they could not act
on any instructions until the person for whom I was Attorney came into
branch and countersigned in front of them.

Understandable though as the signature is ultimate authority and needs
to be witnessed by the bank as it's them who were entrusted with account
holders financial security.

Until you have to go through the daily challenges you don't appreciate
how essential is is to have everything in place before it's actually needed.