Unpaid Nursing Home fees after death - who is liable?

ratty67

Thank you Errata!

For the record, I haven't reported anyone or anyone's posts either. I was enjoying the discussion!

margaretclare

From what I've read, the lady should have been advised to mention them all by name, state that she was disinheriting them and then write a letter to accompany the Will stating her reasons as to why she had taken that course of action. That alone should have made it watertight.

Yes, that's exactly what we've been told, and what we've done.

I realise this is your thread, Ratty, but to explain the sentence above: it need not even be a question of 'disinheriting' someone, just that we felt that those in the generation following ours were doing well on their own and we decided to leave to the next generation - the grandchildren - which could be construed as 'disinheriting' the children. We were also advised to name them, to ensure no possible doubt.

ratty67

Right, update time.

In post #121 I mentioned the different solicitors that have been embroilled in this matter in the past. To recap - Solicitor A has monies from an ISA, Solicitor B did work on the husbands estate and Solicitor C drew up the Will for the lady.

On Friday DH received a letter from Solicitor A. He also dealt with the fact the daughter made an application to the Court of Protection for Receivership. His letter clearly states the daughter DID NOT GET receivership and goes on to say that they heard nothing back from the CoP whatsoever. He describes it as a 'great mystery' as they wrote many letters to chase the matter up.

Question - Is it conceivable or even possible that the daughter, without the knowledge of the solicitor cancelled the application? Maybe she learned that she would effectively lose all control over her Mother's accounts and thought better of it? Can this happen? Or, is the CoP just plain useless?!

The solicitor enclosed a copy of the quite weighty 'Court of Protection Statement of Client's Assets and Income' which makes for entertaining reading but some parts have saddened and disgusted me. The daughter signed it during December 2005.

Section 5 asks if the client has made a Will. The yes box is ticked. Royal London could well be interested in that

Assets and income - regarding the ISA the daughter can't remember how much was there when her Dad passed away but knows that at the point of application there was a shade under £4,000 in it. We can prove £6,000 was paid into it and find it very suspicious the daughter cannot provide proof of what it contained at the point her Dad died. Hmmmmmmmmm, there goes another £2,000 at a guess.

Regarding the bank account the lady inherited via sucession the daughter can remember the account contained £8,500 when her Dad died. She just neglects to mention it under the section regarding money belonging to the client. If she had of done, she would have had to declare that it then contained a mere £800. Bare in mind that during 2005 around £10,000 went into that account :eek: I think I need to recalculate the loss on that account.

The daughter also mentions on this form her Mum's Building Society account. This is the account she failed to mention to the LA, presumably because it would have taken the total of assets over the permitted level before you have to start self-funding.

She does declare that the lady's state pension was being claimed by her. Black and white proof I believe that the daughter will have to pay the outstanding care bill.

The most sickening thing we have read on this form is the section that covers personal possessions. The lady went into hospital on Oct 10th and from there to a nursing home on Nov 15th. The daughter then clearly applied immediately for Receivership and signed the forms during the second week of Dec. She declares her Mum's possessions to total a mere £500 and wishes to dispose of most of them. So, in a very short period of time she's reduced the contents of a two bedromm home to £500 worth of stuff and then wants to reduce it even further.

I'm not so daft as not to realise that admission into a Nursing Home means that things have to be either stored or disposed of. But the speed in which she has done this not to mention the fact that nothing appears to be left turns my stomach. She states her Mother to be 'confused for most of the time'. I'm not flipping surprised. I would be too, wondering not only where I was but where the heck my stuff had gone.

On a brighter note, we have agreement from the LA that we will be having a face to face meeting with them to thrash out this confounded bill. They are very interested in any proof we can bring to them regarding where the money was going as the legal team will need it to put together a water-tight case. They are thinking along the lines of taking legal action and thankfully not looking at the estate!

Unfortunately the meeting cannot happen until after June 9th as the various people are on holiday. An end may be in sight with this particular fiasco so fingers crossed!

Regarding the Royal London, they are investigating and will get back to DH in 'around a week'. DH says they're probably 'investigating' ways they don't have to pay out again...

Question - Does anyone know what should happen? Are they obliged to pay out again and sue the daughter for it or will they pass the back to DH? The amount isn't huge, around £1,500

Errata

I think the common sense answer is: If the lady drew up her will whilst she was in sound mind, it will stand unless she herself destroys or loses it whatever her state of mind was at the time of destruction or loss. A previous will will then stand, if it exists.
Royal London would find themselves in a sticky situation if it can be proved they have been defrauded and refuse to make amends to the estate. Whether they would seek redress from the defrauder would depend on whether they felt it was worth spending their time and money on it.
I'm sure the LA will be interested in any information which will show the figures given when their financial assessment was done were false. You have time before the meeting to organise and double check all the paperwork and prepare your arguements. The LA doesn't have much flexibility about the way it acts on this, as it is accountable to the taxpayer and the rules and regs are both clear and detailed about courses of action it should take.
HTH

ETA You might find something here on fraud of interest http://www.addleshawgoddard.com/www/view.asp?content_id=2448&parent_id=2439

ratty67

Thank you Errata. Most helpful.

I forgot to mention that the CoP paperwork also states the ladys husband did indeed have a Will and that a copy was enclosed when sent to the CoP. That'll be the Will this branch of solicitors has already sent doesn't exist. Sometimes DH gets the feeling he's running round in circles and on this one I don't blame him!

Something else is bugging me. Solicitor's B and C work for the same firm, just in different offices. The lady is alleged to have used solicitor B to start to deal with her late husband's estate and then a few months later uses Solicitor C to re-write her Will.

This doesn't make logical sense to me. Why not just use the same person for both tasks? Apparently, the lady went in too see Soli B once to start the ball rolling with his estate and then didn't respond to any further correspondance with them. This doesn't add up as she was most definately of sound mind when she wrote her Will out and wanted her late husbands estate dealing with to protect it from her daughter.

I've also taken a look at the NatWest website and seen how very easy it is to begin the process of internet banking with them. This would explain their insistance that the lady 'must have requested it'. You don't have to go near a branch to set this up, you do it online!! Enter name, DOB, postcode and debit card number and that's pretty much it. A few clicks and the daughter would have been in and turning off paper statements. I suspect the application to make the daughters single account into a joint one with her Mother wasn't done at the branch either. Come to think of it, that was one question DH asked them that they didn't answer.

Now at least DH can write to the fraud dept fully armed with exactly what we think has happened so they can investigate. We're also combing through the statements again to pick out which cheques we'd like copies of so they can be used to support our arguement.

Errata

Something else is bugging me. Solicitor's B and C work for the same firm, just in different offices. The lady is alleged to have used solicitor B to start to deal with her late husband's estate and then a few months later uses Solicitor C to re-write her Will.

Might have been something as simple as sickness absence or the most appropriate one at the time.

ratty67

I have come up with those explainations myself and there probably is a very 'normal' explaination but this whole thing is making me suspicious of everything!

Solicitor B will be back from his holiday tomorrow so DH will be phoning him to ask A) exactly what work was done on the husband's estate (as it clearly wasn't finished) and what address were they sending correspondance to.

Hopefully that should clear the matter up.

paddy's_mum

I can't tell you just how much I wish it were possible to name this delightful daughter .. if only so that I could twice daily stick pins into an effigy of her!!!!

sloughflint

ratty67 wrote: »

On the face of it, the Will DH is administering is I believe contestable and it shouldn't be. The lady has disinherited not only her daughter but also the daughters three children. Without mentioning them by name in the Will they could argue that they have been 'missed out' and claim monies. The daughter would certainly be a 'permitted' heir. From what I've read, the lady should have been advised to mention them all by name, state that she was disinheriting them and then write a letter to accompany the Will stating her reasons as to why she had taken that course of action. That alone should have made it watertight.

I'm no expert Ratty but I too have read about the need for letters accompanying Wills for situations like this.

However, you mentioned that the daughter took the lady back to the solicitor two months after the Will was drafted and the solicitor was satisfied that the lady knew what she was doing.

I would hope that if not before, the alarm bells would have rung and she would have satisfied herself that the Will was watertight since it was on the cards that a dispute might well occur.

Having said that you didn't seem too confident in this solicitor early on in the thread. Your only option really is to discuss this directly with her.

But don't forget this woman is going to have an awful lot to worry about very shortly so I should imagine the idea of contesting the Will may soon be the least of her concerns.

ratty67 wrote: »

Could we all now get along? Please!

Ordinarily yes and I won't mention the matter again, but I think it's only fair to comment if I don't like what I see (or not). I can't be the only person to have noticed the disappearance of three further posts since I last posted.I find it remarkable that these forthright but innocuous posts were removed and yet an emotional off topic post with incendiary edit still remains.

Someone is clearly still complaining and I distinctly recall seeing the question 'why am I being singled out?' being posed which has conveniently been removed and unanswered. Not overly impressed.

ratty67

Of course it goes without question that if anyone sees something they don't agree with they should speak up, that is, after all the only way to have a true discussion or debate which is whole point of this exercise is it not?! I would just like everyone to do so in an appropriate manner

I have no idea who is complaining but there are now sections of this saga that make no sense with various posts removed whilst the one you mention remains.

Maybe someone can come along and explain things?