Great 'Unpleasant issues of age chat' Hunt

cashferret · 15 September 2010 at 10:55AM

And another thing! I drew my will up last year via Will Aid. In November, participating solicitors will draw up your will for you and donate the whole fee to Will Aid which distributes it to their nine participating charities which include Save the Children, Age UK, Sightsavers, etc.

You go to the site, put in your postcode, and it comes up with a list of which solicitors are taking part. It says on the site:

Solicitors around the UK donate their time to support the Will Aid charities.
Instead of paying them a fee for writing your basic Will, you are invited to make a donation to the Will Aid charities.
Suggested minimum donations are £40 for a codicil, £75 for a single Will or £110 for a pair of mirror Wills.

I suggest contacting them any time from now on and booking an appointment for November.

pollypenny · 15 September 2010 at 11:07AM

OH and I have made wills, set up POA and created a trust, although we are not wealthy ( even less so now that the value of our house has gone down).

I we, or one of us should need care later in life we will pay for it. Blow leaving money to the kids and expecting the rest of the country (ie tax-payers) to keep us. We seem to have lots of threads on this at the moment.

Another point to think about is having a clear out! OH will not throw anything away and our garage is full of old tools and junk. He will leave an enormous task for anyone.

meerkat2007 · 15 September 2010 at 11:19AM

SuzySF wrote: »

WombleKelly....I tried to get POA for my mother (father died some years ago) after she was seriously ill. I deal with all her financial affaris and keep her bank statemensts etc.

I was quoted almost £200 for POA via local solicitors (the quotes were all between £150 and 200) Can i do this without the massive cost - i think its a bit excessive.......

SuzySF, you can fill in and submit the POA forms yourself, and the only cost will be the fees for the Office of the Public Guardian. If the donor has a limited income, they may be able to pay a reduced fee or no fee at all, depending on their circumstances.

You can download the forms from the website for the OPG, and you just follow the instructions - just make sure you do everything in the right order. You can do it without the assistance or input of solicitors or doctors (this is in England - I think it may be different in Scotland).

To give you an idea, my mother was diagnosed with dementia in early 2009. In November, I downloaded and printed the forms, then we took them over the road to a neighbour, who has known my mother for over 70 years - he agreed to be the certificate provider and witness. We filled the ofrms in then, and I held onto them until February of this year, when I felt that it was the right time to register them. I sent them to the OPG, and a few weeks later, they arrived back, duly rubber-stamped and registered, with no problems whatsoever. And as my mother has a very limited income, there were no fees to pay either.

Hope this helps.

zantos · 15 September 2010 at 11:55AM

Pollypenny although I am the major beneficiary of my mothers will I hope you didn't misunderstand my comments - I would far rather that she had spent her money on herself, she is of Austrian descentand was always saying shewould like to visit there again. Despite trying to encourage her to do this she never has - now she has terminal throat cancer, has suffered two hip replacements and currently has a fracture pelvis and has no way of making this fairwell trip. I would gladly have given any money due from her to enable her to achieve her wish short of hiring a private charter plane this would not be possible and even then she has problems with her legs which could give rise to blood clots). The problem I was trying to highlight was that people of her generation seemed to have this almost obsession about leaving something behind and having lived their lives saving for this now found they weren't able to fulfil their wishes which seems to have almost made their whole reason for living worthless (please don't take that the wrong way, it seems their parental instincts made them behave like this). I agree that the tax payer should not support old age care BUT until a fair means of introducing the costs for this where only those with good advice escape payment I think everyone should be made aware of the position. I agree with previous comments where "wealth" should be distributed as a percentage rather than fixed amounts as I as one of the executors of her will now have to deal with any problems caused by her will upon her death.I think she should have been better advised by a solicitor who should have been aware of these situations arising and maybe even questioned why/whether she had not considered spending any of this money on herself. As agreed by the poster above people of this generation considered a will a "legal document" that once written could not be changed and also protected any monies mentioned in it from being accessed by anyone in a similar manner to a trust fund.

cliveoram · 15 September 2010 at 12:08PM

As a professional Lifetime Planning Consultant I deal with these issues on a daily basis. For most people putting their affairs in order is a regular event, but often I see people who have never made a Will and are reluctant to think about the fact that one day they will die, and it is mostly these people who are also reluctant to give Lasting Powers of Attorney (LPA) to someone so that their affairs can be dealt with should they lose capacity. With these people I simply ask them to think about what would be happening NOW if they had died/lost mental capacity last week. I then keep quiet so that they can begin to realise just how difficult it would be for their loved ones who would be unable to ask "Where did you put...?" or "What do want us to do with...?"
Stories like that of Heather Bateman whose husband Michael was left in a coma following a road accident really make people realise just how difficult, distressing and expensive life can be when arrangements are not put in place to deal with life's tragedies. Putting your affairs in order not only makes it easier for your loved ones when you are not there but actually helps you to plan ahead with confidence and with better information about your financial status.
Finally, a phrase we put on all our literature is "Show those you love that you really care" That, we think, sums it up.:)

cliveoram · 15 September 2010 at 12:16PM

SuzySF wrote: »

WombleKelly....I tried to get POA for my mother (father died some years ago) after she was seriously ill. I deal with all her financial affaris and keep her bank statemensts etc.

I was quoted almost £200 for POA via local solicitors (the quotes were all between £150 and 200) Can i do this without the massive cost - i think its a bit excessive.......

This is not expensive! The forms are complex and if rejected will inevitably cost many hundreds or thousands of pounds.
Professional people like myself charge between £150 to £300 depending on whether other work is being done at the same time or not. Our insurance premiums, (for £2m of cover), makes these charges necessary.

cliveoram · 15 September 2010 at 12:31PM

:eek:As a professional I am totally against the annual charade of "Free Will Week" A Will is the most important document you will ever write and needs careful consideration and advice. In my experience the "free" Will is a simple document that only contains what are known as "Absolute gifts" and very few people would actually choose to do this if they are advised as to the various options available.
Good, relevant advice with a properly drafted and witnessed Will amounts to about 10 hours work, add to this the necessity to provide advice for the Trustees when the time comes, (this cost should be built into a Trust Will), and it is easy to see that a Will cannot be drafted for "Free" any more than servicing a car or central heating system is "Free". Someone, somewhere and at sometime has to pay - it will either be you or your beneficiaries - show them that you really cared!

Errata · 15 September 2010 at 12:42PM

Free Will Week is a a useful alternative for those who own nothing other than the contents of their house, the clothes they stand up in and only a few thousand pounds in savings.

chinup_3 · 15 September 2010 at 12:59PM

suzysf- I would find a local will-writer instead of a solicitor, who as usual charge £ multiples for a simple task than can often be done elsewhere. we tend to be brainwashed into thinking only solicitors can do anything remotely ''legal'' !

mary-op · 15 September 2010 at 6:48PM

My father died in 2000 and mum was always healthy and active till she had a stroke 5 years ago which left her paralised. Once she had come to terms with her situation and was living in a care home she re-did her will and took out a funeral plan -everything was covered including the hymns she wanted making it a lot easier for me and my brother to deal with when the time came.
I live some hundred or so miles from both my sons but got together with them shortly after mum died. It had brought home to both me and my husband that things needed to be 'tidied up' and made my two sons much more aware of what needs to be done this sort of thing happens. Had we left it then it would have been one of those things that never got discussed.
Cancer Research funded the cost of our mirror wills all done through out solicitor and we included a former foster daughter along with my two sons as power of attorney. She lives close by and they don't.
We chose what kind of burial we wanted (the 'green' kind) and visited a local site we both liked.
Then the problem came of whether to pay for the plot there and then or wait. There may be the need for us to move away from the area we are in now as the years progress so we decided to wait. There's no point in paying for a plot and then being 200 miles away at the time.
So thats as far as we've got along with ordering an Ageuk life book. Valuable thing to have I think.....not only because if my husband was the one left behind he wouldn't cope very well with dealing with finances let along know where things are kept, and also for poa's to be able to find things without hassle.

I think we've covered everything but I bet theres something we've missed

Great 'Unpleasant issues of age chat' Hunt

Comments

Categories

Get our FREE Weekly email full of deals & guides - and it’s spam-free