My Dad has a terminal illness, what should I be thinking about?

Giddytimes

3v3 wrote: »

Yes.

Loving him; spending every spare moment you have with him; recalling and sharing fond memories with him. Asking him what he would most like (eat, do, remember etc., ). Laughing with him, letting him know how much he means to you.

Of course I am doing all of the above. I am spending as much time with him as I can and treasuring every moment. It is difficult as he wants to just continue as normally as possible, he doesn't want to do anything he wouldn't have done on a normal day otherwise. Where as of course I would like him to do everything he wishes he'd done and to help him try and make it happen, but I have to respect his wishes.

I just wanted to be sure my Mum wasn't going to be left with a pile of paperwork to sort out after the day if I could take care of any of this side of it for her now.

My Dad is not financially minded, for the last few years I have taken care of things like selling his business and his private pension arrangements.

Yes he has a will, I don't think he has nominated an executor though, I hadn't thought about that. It shouldn't be too hard, I suspect everything will pass to my Mum.

PasturesNew

Where I live, the end choice is a nursing home, or at home.... so if you can't cope with him at home (we couldn't have), then get the official list from the Council and then go round to the local nursing homes and check out which one you'd want him to go to. It was impossible to get this information in our case, I was given a list - most of them were mental nursing homes.... it turned out there was only two in our town which could potentially take him, so I then had to go and look and find out if they even had any vacancies potentially. Our Hospice isn't somewhere people go to die, it's just a stabilisation unit before people are packed off home/for nursing again. In our case, he died before we had to move him. So find out what the score is in your area.

CompBunny

Sending love to you and your family. Its so tough to be practical at times like this, and I hope that you have someone looking after YOU whilst you focus on your parents. I'm sorry you are having to think about these things, but you have been given some very good advice here so far and you sound so in control under the circumstances! Take care, and sorry I have nothing else to add. Just didn't want to read and run x

Mojisola

PasturesNew wrote: »

Where I live, the end choice is a nursing home, or at home. So find out what the score is in your area.

We've got a wonderful hospice. Don't you have one in your area?

Newly_retired

Your dad may even have a life insurance policy tucked away somewhere which will come in handy. Mine did - nobody knew anything about it till we went through his papers.

Savvy_Sue

If all the bills are paid from the joint account, then that's easy to deal with after death, because that automatically passes to your mum, and nothing will change (except there may be less money going into it.)

If she's going to need the money from Dad's single account, that's where it will become problematic.

Torry_Quine

Mojisola wrote: »

We've got a wonderful hospice. Don't you have one in your area?

I thought that as well. The hospice here is great .

torbrex

My mum did not have too many problems sorting finances when dad passed but from what I remember, switching the utilities into her name took some extra paperwork, sending of death certificate copies etc, and the one that took the longest was dads share holdings, he did not have many, mostly deregulation shares and bank takeovers but it seemed to take endless letters and phone calls to get things sorted with them.

Worried_Mum_to_Two

Can I say how sorry I am to hear about your dad. There is a sticky at the top of the forum about what to do if someone passes. Perhaps if you can bear to have a look in there, you will be able to see what things you can do in advance.

Pollycat

Firstly, so sorry to hear about your Dad.

As Savvy_Sue says, your Mum won't be able to access the money in your Dad's account until Probate is obtained so it's a good idea to think about how she will manage short-term.

My Dad died recently and current account & savings were in joint names.

Current account easy - showed them the death cert and they just made it in Mum's sole name.

Similar with savings - they just need to see the death cert plus various ID for Mum.

So, even though Dad left a will (leaving everything to Mum) we didn't need to get Probate - but there was no property involved.


When we went to register the death, I picked up a couple of booklets:

• When someone dies - a step-by-step guide by AgeUK
• What to do after a Death by JobCentrePlus

Both are excellent and give lists of who to advise.
I wouldn't even have thought about the TV Licensing people!
You might want to consider your Mum's likely financial situation e.g. will she qualify for Pension Credit or other benefits etc.

I didn't have any problems in having the utility bills transferred to Mum's name, they didn't even ask to see the death cert.

Don't worry about your Mum having to deal with all the paperwork - I did everything on her behalf.
As someone else has said, I found it cathartic to start ringing round all the necessary places after he'd died.
I was often tearful when someone on the other end of the phone offered their condolences, but it had to be done.

I actually started a spreadsheet (I'm a bit anal ) and listed everything that needed to be done and ticked it off after.
I've still (after almost 4 weeks) got a few things outstanding, such as dealing with our local council about council tax as their bills are totally incomprehensible.

Good luck, make the most of the time you have left with your Dad and support your Mum when she needs it.

The Over 50s board is really nice, I had a lot of great advice and help on there, especially about care homes & funding.

If you do post on the Benefits board do word your post very carefully as I find there are some people on there who automatically assume you're wanting to cheat the system or commit benefit fraud and sometimes this derails your original thread.