What to do when a partner/spouse dies.

JeannieBeannie

seroxat_chick wrote: »

I see that lots of people are advocating getting a Will drawn up. As my husband is a Probate manager, I'd like to offer the following advice:

Don't appoint a solicitor as an executor. To them you are just a name. Appoint somebody who knows you personally and they will (hopefully) attend to things with some degree of urgency. To a solicitor, time is money and proceedings do seem to take a lot longer when a solicitor is dealing with an estate.

A list of the Probate Registries can be found here

http://www.probate1.com/office.html

I am sorry to see you advocating not using a solicitor. Please reconsider. A solicitor is well trained and will do the job professionally and is very heavily regulated and insured and if he or she is negligent, you will be covered. Solicitors often have to sort out the mess unqualified or inexperienced amatuers make of these matters, which means of course that it will cost you more in the end. False economy. Use a professional!

JeannieBeannie

The best advice would be go and see a solicitor! Whilst you may be charged £100 or so for a profesionally drawn will it is money well spent. The solicitor has to consider all your circumstances including your tax position as a beneficiary. Also your solicitor is heavily regulated by the Solicitors Regulation Authority and is heavily insured in the event of his or her negligence. Your beneficiaries are better protected by using a solicitor. The old adage is true "you get what you pay for"

klairbear

have just found this thread - it is good to know that there is always somewhere to go and turn to in times of need, and that this is such a friendly place with lots of people to talk to..

i wish i had known about this place a few months ago, thats for sure!

i don't want to have a monopoly on grief and i am in noway saying my experiences are worse than anyone elses - just that i have had a rotten 10 years.

the first bereavement i experienced that i had full understanding off was my grandma in nov 1998. it wasn't sudden but it was overwhelming that she was there and then she wasn't. the following august an auntie died, very suddenly, two days before i was due to go on holiday to stay with her. then close to the anniversary of my grans death a friend of mine died very suddenly of a brain annurisym. i was devastated, as she was only young (22 years) and had survived a heart condition.

if this wasn't enough another auntie died in the august, folowing a long term illness.

my family went to an 88th birthday a year later, at the begining of august and everyone was saying that the august curse was going to hit and watch out for the birthday 'girl' who although was 88 had been very poorly.

on the 8th august, i got home from work and found out my family had being trying to find me. my dad had been rushed to hospital. i kept it together, told myself it would be ok, but on my own (on the loo of all things) i knew. my auntie came and told us that he had died. to say it was sudden was an understatement - he had been at the doctors the day before for a medical for his psv licence and had been told he was perfectlty healthy. he was 51.

since then i have been to 8 more funerals, some expected some not, and one of a friend who died in a freak accident. three people died in the space of two weekd last year.

so having rambled on - anyone still reading this deseve a medal - at least typing it has got out some of the feeling!

i sometimes thing i am unlucky to have experienced all this -especially as i am only 26. and i have wanted to hurt myself in the past, just so i don't have to feel. but i got through it, some days are worse than others but i have found strengh somewhere in me to deal with it, and i'm sure that anyone else can do the same - just don't suffer on your own

wheeew!

take care everyone xxxx

shaznstubs

JoBridger wrote: »

When you Mum remarries, her current Will will be invalid. She must make a new Will once she is married. If you talk to her about this you will probably find that she wishes for you to receive the bungalow on her death so her new Will can be written to reflect this.

thanks jo
my worry really, is she is very influenced by others and one minute she wants to sell her bungalow,and move into her husband to be's council house!?!?!?! then that would be her security gone if they were to seperate of if he passed away,the next she wants to rent it out,
i am going to try to talk to her about this without it coming accross that im thinking of my inheritence,unfortunatley it wouldnt take an awful lot for her to cut ties with me as she now has her new little family and doesnt need me now :O(
thankyou for your advice x

epsilondraconis

I haven't got anything money saving related but just felt I had to post something.

My dad has been ill for a while and we've now found out he has some form of cancer. He first went to see his GP over 6 months ago and after being passed around several departments in our local hospital, he was finally given a CT scan that showed up the cancer. They had been looking in the wrong place for the 6 months. Once they discovered the tumour they said that we should go to a hospital over 100 miles away because they will be able to give specialist help. Well they confirmed he has cancer and over the last 5 weeks they have done a biopsy and are still unable to tell us what form of cancer it is. They thought initially it was a GIST but are now unsure. Unfortunately the hospital over 100 miles away is sending him back to our local hospital because they say they are unable to treat him because they don't know exactly what it is.
Every day that goes by my dad (who is 63) grows weaker and weaker and now just looks like an empty shell. To cap it all off, we were told there would be a delay in getting his notes sent from the current hospital to his local hospital because they are currently being typed up in India using dictated notes made by the specialist.
In the last 6 months my dad has been prescribed no tablets to help his condition because they didn't know it was cancer. Now they say it is cancer, they don't know what tablets to give him because they don't know what cancer it is.
I've no idea why I'm posting here - perhaps I'm hoping that someone on here will be able to provide some hope that we haven't just wasted the last 6 or 7 months and that something can be done. The consultant in the hospital 100 miles away said that if he operated on dad, he would have to remove all of his spleen, some of his intestines, some of his stomach, some of his pancreas and some of his liver (as the cancer has now spread to his liver). It seems that now the consultant has decided not to operate and instead refer him back to our local hospital.
What a nightmare.
Seeing the person you love slowly die is just awful and we all feel so helpless. Surely its not meant to be like this. I know everyone in the NHS does their best but at times you just think it would have been better to have gone elsewhere.
The problem is that there is no one to complain about because he has previously been seen by so many people and because they were all specialists in certain areas, they didn't pick up on the possibility that it was cancer.
I guess its just hard when you have a conversation with your dad and he is saying things like "when its your time its your time" and "I've had a good life".
If I read this post 12 months ago I would have thought that it is sad etc. Its not until you have to go through something like this, do you realise how bl**dy awful it all is and how helpless you feel. You also feel guilty that we should have done something sooner and not just rely on the hospitals.
To cap it all, my wife and I were told early this year that we're extremely unlikely to ever have kids (it was the IVF people that told us).

Life can be great, but it can also be a nightmare. I guess you've just got to enjoy it the best you can whilst you can.

consultant31

Epsilondraconis, I'm so sorry for the things that are happening around you at this tme. It certainly does leave you with the thought that some of the Health Service professionals are just hopeless, but the majority of them really do care, it's just that, sometimes mistakes happen!

Way back somewhere in this thread I posted about my lovely Dad who went through a very similar thing to your Dad. His own GP was annoyed that he had to come to the house to see Dad and told him that there was nothing wrong with him, it was all in his mind, even though he had lost almost 3 stones in weight in a matter of weeks.......my Dad died 5 weeks later with bone and stomach cancer.

Mum thought for a long time about making an official complaint against the Doctor, but it would have meant her having to leave the practice and the next nearest is quite far away and she's old and not well, and it wouldn't have brought Dad back.

My advice, for what it's worth, is to do as much for and with your Dad while you can, make sure you tell him often how much you love him.

My eldest daughter and her husband had been trying for ages to have a baby and have just got a gorgeous son who, we are all convinced, has come to them courtesy of Dad...............you never know!!

I'll be thinking of you all (((hugs)))

epsilondraconis

Thanks for the kind words Consultant31 - I completely agree with what you say. One of the worst things is that when I am sitting talking to dad, I suddenly find my mind wandering, thinking about what is going to happen and I find myself welling up and trying not to cry.

Saying that, it was nice just over a week ago, I had gone to my dad's with my brother and his family to cut the grass etc. Part way through we went into the house and dad started telling stories that we had never heard of when he was a kid. My brother was sitting on the floor in front of dads chair and I was in the chair next to dad. Somehow it just felt right. The problem is that you never want those moments to end.

When we were driving back from his last hospital visit, we were on the motorway and it was getting late (~8pm or so) and we were approaching the junction for our town. It meant there was only about 5 minutes left of the journey before we arrived at his house. I was having a nice conversation with him about when I was young etc and I remember thinking how I wished I could stop time and so the journey would go on forever. Thus meaning that he wouldn't get any worse and wouldn't die.

All of the other problems that we have, money, jobs, kids etc didn't matter. It was just me and my dad...

consultant31

I hope it continues for as long as possible. You're making memories which, once the first shock and pain has passed, will keep you going for years.

My Mum is convinced Dad is still in the house and talks to him all the time. Me.......well, I talk to him in his precious garage, lol. Every time I go through the door I can hear him telling me not to jumble up his tools. If there's anything I can't find, I just ask him where it is and, daft as it may sem to some people, next place I look I find the elusive item.

When you know you love and are loved, I don't believe you're ever apart. You just have to close your eyes and there they are - beyond physical reach, but there nontheless.

epsilondraconis

Thanks consultant31, your kind words mean a lot.

CompletelyLost

I'm just wondering how exactly you go about making a will? What do you need to take with you to a solicitor and how much does it cost. also, what happens if you don't have a will? Sorry I haven't read through the entire thread so if it's already been answered then I apologise.

I know these are morbid questions but we are finding it difficult to approach an elderly relative about making a will... but we have heard that if you have made one then it saves a lot of extra time and heartache when the inevitable happens.