As I posted. I am not sure if this site is the best place for this sort of thing, but I am hoping to find out more about this so as to try to negate what I strongly suspect will be a contentious time when my mother dies.

I live abroad and visited my mother in the UK when she turned 99 last month, as I have done for the last 9 or 10 years. She was pretty healthy last year but has begun to show her great age this year. Although still fairly compos mentis, she has become quite deaf and started to become more forgetful and confused. She can still get about somewhat but is now also very slow and needs help.

Due to her confusion, she has invoked a pre-2007 Power of Attorney she made in 1992 so that my younger brother will be taking over her financial affairs, and I have some concerns about that, but I am 6,000 miles away and he is 10 miles from her, so it is reasonable that he takes over - with some scrutiny.

However, it is his impulsive and thoughtless nature (and other issues) that he has displayed for years that concerns me and his conduct after she dies. He finds her an irritation and has voiced many times that once she dies, he will just 'go in with a skip and chuck the lot and be done with it'.

As we are joint executors, we have a duty to do things properly and realise what we can for her estate (which won't be a lot) but he has refused point blank to make any contingency plans for when she does die, despite me suggesting it a number of times. Nor will he discuss anything and just shuts down, even switching off the phone mid-conversation. He just says 'I'm not doing anything and I'll deal with it all when the time comes'. He forgets there are two of us involved.

This is all to do with deliberate stubbornness and not emotion about her impending death (which will be within 18 months, I suspect). As he has said many times, he would like her out of the way as he sees her an encumbrance.

I'd like to be able to be prepared for any future problems, so if there is a way of discussing them on here, or a more appropriate site, perhaps other members could point me in the right direction.

Thanks for reading.

Not sure there is a forum on funerals or specific to this situation.

All i can comment on is from personal experience with a elderly aunt in this situation. My aunts Solicitors had drawn up a power of attorney ready to be activated when she could no longer look after her own financial affairs. Before it was activated a Solicitor and Doctor confirmed that it could be activated as my aunt could not look after her own affairs. The Solicitors explained to my aunt that my sister would look after her finances e.g care home fees, any bills related to a property she owned.

My Sister had to register the power of attorney with all interested parties e.g aunts Bank, any investment companies, the care home my aunt lived at, local authority etc. My Sister also had to set up her own spreadsheet account showing my aunts finances and anything she had to pay out of my aunts money. This account was sent to the Solicitors regularly ( every quarter) so they had record of the money going out of my aunts account. With care home fees of over £30,000 a year, any savings were quickly being reduced.

So there is already quite a bit of administration already needed in dealing with a power of attorney in dealing with someone elses affairs. Your brother is likely to have had to deal with everything financial that your mother would have come into contact with, as well as his own personal affairs. I should imagine being asked by his brother living 6,000 miles away to start to deal with other aspects such as funeral arrangements, house clearance etc, would be very annoying. Most people in this situation would say that they can't do anything other than deal with current issues. I know with my aunt, that we did not do anything with funeral arrangements and house clearance until after she had died. If it had been necessary we would have sold my aunts property to fund care home fees.

The power of attorney is only for your brother to assist your mother with her finances while she is still alive. When your mother dies, then both of you as executors have responsibility. You can't really start making too many plans, as you don't know exactly when they will need to be put into action. If you tried to make funeral arrangements with a local company, they may want a deposit upfront and be sat on it for 5 years.

It really depends on the situation. My aunts property contents were of quite low value i.e no Ming vases or other antiques. You have to be careful with house clearance companies as they won't often tell you about anything that is more valuable than you think. And they will charge you for clearance, as commercial disposal of rubbish incurs fees. With my aunts prpoperty contents, a local auction house provided house clearance and the value basically covered the disposal costs. We had already thrown out very poor quality contents and given stuff to local charities.

My advice for what it is worth is not to lecture your brother from 6,000 miles away about what he should be doing, as i should imagine that he would be getting fed up with it. You have already suggested some things which might be helpful and i would leave it at that. Given that you will have to work together as executors in the next few years, perhaps it is best to leave it until you need to come over to the UK.

moved to general legal

Not sure there is a forum on funerals or specific to this situation.

That's a shame. I had thought probably not, but it was worth a shot. I am sure I will find something somewhere.

All i can comment on is from personal experience with a elderly aunt in this situation. My aunts Solicitors had drawn up a power of attorney ready to be activated when she could no longer look after her own financial affairs. Before it was activated a Solicitor and Doctor confirmed that it could be activated as my aunt could not look after her own affairs. The Solicitors explained to my aunt that my sister would look after her finances e.g care home fees, any bills related to a property she owned.

 

My Sister had to register the power of attorney with all interested parties e.g aunts Bank, any investment companies, the care home my aunt lived at, local authority etc. My Sister also had to set up her own spreadsheet account showing my aunts finances and anything she had to pay out of my aunts money. This account was sent to the Solicitors regularly ( every quarter) so they had record of the money going out of my aunts account. With care home fees of over £30,000 a year, any savings were quickly being reduced.

I'm aware of the paperwork surrounding PoA. My mother signed one 25 years ago in 1992, as I said in my OP, and my brother has been helping her since then. Now that she can no longer sign cheques (due to bad trembling, not true mental incapacity) and has some confusion due to forgetfulness, she has asked that the PoA be activated.

I have had the required letter with form EP1PG stating that this is being done, and also saying that letters being sent to my eldest son and his eldest son. I was informed by my mother that she was going to do this (activate the PoA) when I was in the UK 3 weeks ago for her 99th birthday.

So there is already quite a bit of administration already needed in dealing with a power of attorney in dealing with someone elses affairs. Your brother is likely to have had to deal with everything financial that your mother would have come into contact with, as well as his own personal affairs. I should imagine being asked by his brother living 6,000 miles away to start to deal with other aspects such as funeral arrangements, house clearance etc, would be very annoying.

Yes, and that is what it is - your imagination. I didn’t ‘ask him to start to deal with other aspects’ as you say – I made a suggestion as I had once before the previous year.

You actually have no knowledge of me, my brother, the family other than what you have imagined or attempted to deduce from the little bit of information I have provided.. As I said above, he has been doing this since 1992 on and off, and more so in recent years, so it is nothing new to him. The only new thing is to apply to activate the PoA and have the ability to sign cheques. That is all and is hardly onerous.

Most people in this situation would say that they can't do anything other than deal with current issues. I know with my aunt, that we did not do anything with funeral arrangements and house clearance until after she had died. If it had been necessary we would have sold my aunts property to fund care home fees.

I am not so sure about your assertion that 'MOST people' would not be able to think ahead. They may not WANT to, but that is not the same thing at all. Anyone with some forethought would be able to make a rough inventory of household items and other possessions, although sorting out finances can't be easily done in advance. Saying that, she has very little money to our knowledge so that won’t be hard to do.

However, she already has a funeral plan which no-one knows the contents of, and as he will soon have power over her finances and papers, he can soon easily see just what it entails and if all costs will be covered. The father of a friend of mine over here died last October. The funeral eventually cost £4,200 (and that was very basic) but his paid-for-years-previously plan only realised just over £1,500. Luckily, his sister and brother are a dentist and a heart surgeon respectively and they were able to cover the cost until the money had been sorted out. We don’t have spare money like that; we’d have to borrow.

The power of attorney is only for your brother to assist your mother with her finances while she is still alive. When your mother dies, then both of you as executors have responsibility. You can't really start making too many plans, as you don't know exactly when they will need to be put into action. If you tried to make funeral arrangements with a local company, they may want a deposit upfront and be sat on it for 5 years.

As I said above, I am well aware of what a PoA is and what it entails, and also that it ceases to exist at the moment of her death. I also know that at that instant, we both become joint executors of her will, and that is the problem that you also allude to below but did not answer - whether he is capable of fulfilling those duties when she is not about.

See also my comment above that it IS perfectly possible to make broad plans if someone wants to. and can do it. My brother is the world's worst planner, lurching from crisis to crisis because of it. That is why I am concerned.

I did not make this suggestion willy-nilly. I have a paralegal friend who suggested we start making broad plans and getting our ducks in a row NOW, because many people who don’t end up having long drawn out problems later. I don't like to presume on my friend too much as he is very busy, so I thought I would ask where to get more information from on here.

It really depends on the situation. My aunts property contents were of quite low value i.e no Ming vases or other antiques. You have to be careful with house clearance companies as they won't often tell you about anything that is more valuable than you think. And they will charge you for clearance, as commercial disposal of rubbish incurs fees. With my aunts prpoperty contents, a local auction house provided house clearance and the value basically covered the disposal costs. We had already thrown out very poor quality contents and given stuff to local charities.

I am also well aware that house clearance people will basically rip you off. The intention is not to use one if at all possible, but to try to get charities and other organisations to collect things if possible. I am well aware that she has a lot of junk which can be binned, but not before a proper check has been made.

My advice for what it is worth is not to lecture your brother from 6,000 miles away about what he should be doing, as i should imagine that he would be getting fed up with it. You have already suggested some things which might be helpful and i would leave it at that. Given that you will have to work together as executors in the next few years, perhaps it is best to leave it until you need to come over to the UK.

As above, you IMAGINE again. You don’t KNOW. I have already stated that I made a short remark, nothing more, which caused him to blow up as he always does when confronted with anything new.

If you seriously believe that making a short remark in a phone call along the lines that we should start thinking about a rough inventory and finding out the contents of her funeral plan is ‘lecturing’ than you are very much mistaken. I am astonished at your response, to be honest.

You do seem to have missed the point that I was asking about in my OP – that I am worried that while I am travelling back after her death, he will just get in a skip, throw everything out without a proper check and inventory and basically do what he always has done for all his life – go off at half-cock and mess things up. I was NOT asking for advice on what you imagine I was asking. I was asking advice as to the most appropriate place to air my concerns and THEN get advice.

I’m sorry that I may come over as exasperated (at the very least), but I had expected not to have such judgemental and prescriptive remarks as I have just read in a reply to a request asking if there was a forum for my kind of question.

You actually have no knowledge of me, my brother, the family other than what you have imagined or attempted to deduce from the little bit of information I have provided..

 

......

 

As I said above, I am well aware of what a PoA is and what it entails, and also that it ceases to exist at the moment of her death.

 

.......

 

 

As above, you IMAGINE again. You don’t KNOW. I have already stated that I made a short remark, nothing more, which caused him to blow up as he always does when confronted with anything new.

If you seriously believe that making a short remark in a phone call along the lines that we should start thinking about a rough inventory and finding out the contents of her funeral plan is ‘lecturing’ than you are very much mistaken. I am astonished at your response, to be honest.

.........

 

I was NOT asking for advice on what you imagine I was asking. I was asking advice as to the most appropriate place to air my concerns and THEN get advice.

 

I’m sorry that I may come over as exasperated (at the very least), but I had expected not to have such judgemental and prescriptive remarks as I have just read in a reply to a request asking if there was a forum for my kind of question.

I can't see how your brother could come to the cinclusuon that you are being difficult, and erroneously conclude that you want to control the situation from 6,000 miles away but leave him to do all the grunt work.

UB should consider their response, and feel suitably chastised for daring to express their opinion (which I don't feel was inappropriate: if you didn't post enough detail, that's hardly UB's fault).

No doubt potential respondents will be queuing up for their share of your scorn, encouraged by your response to UB.

Good luck.

HA! Well, congratulations on being the first to respond exactly as I thought some might.

Obviously another one with poor critical thinking abilities.

No-one so far has actually addressed the points in my OP, so well done.

I am unsure how you can draw the conclusion that I am 'trying to control the situation from 6,000 miles away' on the basis of me twice making a remark about some slight forward planning by making a rough inventory and getting info on a funeral plan.

The first time (well before the present PoA) was deliberately in front of his wife in case he blew his top (which he predictably did) and she ticked him off, later apologising for his obduracy.

The last time was a gentle remark last week with the same result. No-one seems to have read the part about his impulsiveness and lack of self-control when faces wit anything new.

As to your remark about 'leaving him to do all the 'grunt work' - well that is just facile and the result of no thought whatsoever..

I have been abroad for 15 years and he knows very well that I will be back within 24 hours when I get a call to say she has died or it is imminent.

You should be ashamed of yourself for saying as daft as that.

Did you even think before you typed?

I am concerned about his threat (made many times) to throw everything out as soon as our mother has died, and not fulfil his duties as a joint executor. No=-one has responded to how that might be obviated.

As to not posting enough detail in the OP, a summary is quite common - no-one ever gives chapter and verse in an OP. It would be far too long for anyone to bother reading, so be self-defeating. In fact what happened was that UB (if I can be familiar) read far too much into the post from his own imaginings - a lot of what he said can only be based on what he THOUGHT I wrote, and not what I actually wrote.

Now then, I don't have time to mess about with people who can't actually get the meaning from a post and have injected their own imaginings, nor can I be bothered to get into a troll-fest so admin, please, can you delete this thread?

No need for admin to delete the thread.

It should stand so people can make up their own minds.

OP, you can block me, UB, or anyone else whose posts you don't want to see.

You can also remove this from being a thread you are subscribed to, and then if you never click on it, it will never bother you.

Ta da! Sorted.

I am not sure what responses you were expecting on an online forum. Actually i thought offering personal experience was helpful, because it made the point that there are pros/cons of forward planning.

If you knew the company/policy type of funeral plan, that might help you look up basic details. If it were a Coop funeral plan for example, then if it was fully paid up, it might well cover the full cost of the funeral your Mum said she wanted.

If there are other concerns e.g legal, be specific about what your exact concern is. People on a forum don't know your Brother and whether your concerns are fair or not. It is not really their business.

I find that if you want specific info on an intermet forum, it is best to ask a specific question, providing all relevant info. I made the mistake of asking a general question on a plumbing forum, with a mixture of responses, some of which were very rude.

so admin, please, can you delete this thread?

Hello there. We don't normally delete threads unless there are legal reasons to do so.

If you don't like the advice given by two respected members of CAG, maybe your best option would be to consult a solicitor in the UK?

HB

so admin, please, can you delete this thread?

 

Hello there. We don't normally delete threads unless there are legal reasons to do so.

 

If you don't like the advice given by two respected members of CAG, maybe your best option would be to consult a solicitor in the UK?

 

HB

I would think that a family Solicitors have been involved at some stage given the POA being drawn up and recently activated. If this is the case perhaps the OP as an executor can consult the Solicitor who knows the family and may have relevant information e.g funeral plan. If it does not require much work, they might not even charge.

What the Solicitors won't want to get involved in is a famiily argument.

There are two completely separate issues - the PoA and the will with named executors. They don't run in parallel and one doesn't affect the other.

Couple of links for you:

Office of the Public Guardian (England & Wales Only):

https://www.gov.uk/government/organisations/office-of-the-public-guardian

Make, register or end a lasting power of attorney:

https://www.gov.uk/power-of-attorney/overview

Use or cancel an enduring power of attorney:

https://www.gov.uk/use-or-cancel-an-enduring-power-of-attorney