Making Wills - Accounts detail

sleepymans

Newly_retired wrote: »

...............So I don't see why yours has any need to know your financial details, and personally, I would not be supplying them

Thanks for your reply. Yes, having thought about it we have decided NOT to give specific information on thee questionnaire. At the meeting we will give some ball park figures on which the solicitor can base any relevant advice.


We know for sure a few "life changes" will take place in the next couple of years which will alter our financial position a lot, so what the figures are now compared to date of death will be rather different!

Savvy_Sue

sleepymans wrote: »

We figured that with everything already jointly held that if one of us ever became incapacitated, then it would be at that stage that the remaining spouse would be wise to set up an LPA for if he/she then lost capacity.

Is that not a sound enough strategy do you think?

It makes sense, BUT the trouble is that life tends to be not always that straightforward.

There are two issues to consider: one is that the banks are apparently increasingly prone to freezing joint accounts where one signatory has lost capacity, to protect their interests.

The second is that if one party loses capacity or dies suddenly, the other is often badly affected by it: any slight problems can be tipped into major areas of concern by the trauma.

And, of course, there's the situation where both of you are, eg, badly injured in a car accident and unable to run your affairs.

Can you tell we've started work on this? We really must get on with our LPAs ... and updating our wills!

troubleinparadise

On the timing of LPAs or POA - a good friend of mine has had no end of problems In the last 6 months dealing with both the personal and business affairs of her husband who at 53 has totally unexpectedly had a very debilitating stroke (apart from the emotional issues) - so it is best not to wait for a hint of hopefully age-related decline. You really don't know what is round the corner!

It can be too late to sort things out simply if one of you becomes incapacitated - which can be mental as well as physical.

It is definitely better to be prepared in this instance.

getmore4less

Remember a regular POA lapses if the person looses capacity, both lapse if the person dies.

With a LPA is you need someone to act as the certificate provider, who can also be the person to tell so you need only one person for both.