Dealing with finances of dying relative

securityguy

"Yes Keep pedalling, indeed it is. When she told us she'd created a will we did tell her to create a LPA, her words were, "oh no, I'll never need anything like that.""

Life is about choices. She made a decision. As an adult, she's entitled to have that decision respected.

In the 1980s, when my parents applied for a deputyship for my grandmother, EPAs (as they then were) were much less well understood, and she also had a very sudden decline. Applying for a deputyship was a reasonable thing to do, as an EPA had never been discussed. But if I had had an explicit conversation someone about an LPA and they had explicitly declined to obtain one, and they subsequently lost capacity, I would regard their active choice to not sign an LPA as just that, an active choice, and I would not attempt to override it via the OPG.

elsien

So if they have finances to sort out, a house to sell, bills and care home fees to pay and credit default payments coming out of the woodwork, how would you suggest this is managed?
The OP is in the unfortunate situation where the illness is terminal, but someone with dementia could go on for years - how are they going to pay for somewhere to live, clothes, activities and every day needs unless a deputyship is put in place?

Yorkshireman99

elsien wrote: »

So if they have finances to sort out, a house to sell, bills and care home fees to pay and credit default payments coming out of the woodwork, how would you suggest this is managed?
The OP is in the unfortunate situation where the illness is terminal, but someone with dementia could go on for years - how are they going to pay for somewhere to live, clothes, activities and every day needs unless a deputyship is put in place?

Ignore his advice that is both wrong and callous. Sadly unless the family can fund the running costs until the relative dies the OPG route is the only legal route. Unfortunately it does illustrate the importance of having a POA in place. Personally I feel much more secure now that I know my family will not be in the position the OP is in.

securityguy

"So if they have finances to sort out, a house to sell, bills and care home fees to pay and credit default payments coming out of the woodwork, how would you suggest this is managed?"

In the end, the state will intervene via social workers. A consequence of not putting in place things like Lasting Powers of Attorney is that your life will become difficult if you lose capacity, as you will be reliant on your local adult services people as guardian; of course, if you don't have suitable friends or relatives, you are in this position anyway.

Every time someone says "oh, never mind you were stubborn while you retained capacity, we'll fix it for you anyway" the lesson is weakened. Someone was asked if they wanted to make a power of attorney. They replied that they didn't. Now that turns out to be a pretty bad decision. That's their problem, not the OP's.

"The OP is in the unfortunate situation where the illness is terminal, but someone with dementia could go on for years - how are they going to pay for somewhere to live, clothes, activities and every day needs unless a deputyship is put in place?"

Perhaps they should have thought of that themselves? The OP isn't in an unfortunate situation, the person who when asked about doing an LPA explicitly declined to do so is in an unfortunate position.

As I said above, if a relative of mine refused to do an LPA, I wouldn't presume to take via the OPG authority that they didn't want to give me while they had capacity. Yes, this is harsh.

securityguy

"Ignore his advice that is both wrong and callous."

Callous is a matter of opinion, but wrong? In what way? Have you operated an OPG guardianship, and therefore understand just how much hard work it is? If people wilfully set out to impose that workload on others, why should they be rewarded for their selfishness?

elsien

securityguy wrote: »

In the end, the state will intervene via social workers. A consequence of not putting in place things like Lasting Powers of Attorney is that your life will become difficult if you lose capacity, as you will be reliant on your local adult services people as guardian; of course, if you don't have suitable friends or relatives, you are in this position anyway.

Social workers are not able to intervene and take over someone's finances -if there's no family willing or able, they tend to pass it over to agencies who have take it to take the court of protection. Either way it ends up going through the OPG one way or the other, regardless of the person's position when they had capacity. If they don't have capacity then a best interests decision is made, and I fail to see how it could be considered to be in anyone's best interests to be in financial dire straits when they don't need to be.

nwc389

FreeworldImpossible wrote: »

The wife's grandmother suffered a stroke back in May and was deemed to lack mental capacity. She was subsequently diagnosed with leukaemia, which at 93 years of age they have decided not to treat. Some consultants have told us that they think she may only have months left to live.

She's now residing in a nursing home paid for by the NHS as they deem her to be requiring end of life care.

Just wondering if anyone has any info on how you deal with a family members' personal affairs when they no longer have mental capacity? There is no Power of Attorney in place despite her making a will some 6 or 7 years ago.

NPower are being very short with the wife because obviously she isn't on the account. At the outset the wife told them the situation and they said that they would place the account on hold. However, since then a series of debt collection letters have been sent and today there's a letter from a company who've made a home visit who are threatening to gain a warrant to enter the property. In total I think she owes NPower £800, plus there's a BT bill of about £450 which they keep sending threatening letters for. She's phoned NPower again today and they make out they're doing you a favour by giving her gran another month in which to pay.

Do we need to obtain appointed deputy status in order to deal with her affairs, or is there something else we can do?

I had to deal with a similar situation some years ago and when we became responsible for an elderly family member when her existing POA died . Some places were better to deal with than others and luckily I had a little knowledge as I worked in banking.
We did not bother with the application for deputyship as she was over 90 and she had little in the way of savings and was already in a care home.
We were able to administer her state pension and switch it to another bank account by applying through the DWP for appointee status , that allowed us to be able to top up her care home fees and buy anything she needed .
I do agree with an earlier poster who advised you to insist on speaking to a supervisor or manager when dealing with companies as you may find that you get a more sympathetic outcome. It is a fact that quite often training and knowledge of bereavement / POA issues are terrible and you need to be firm about the situation. Deputy ship applications take months to process and are costly and in cases like this it just isn't always practical,or possible to start the process.

securityguy

"Social workers are not able to intervene and take over someone's finances "

Obviously. But they are the people to whom the situation will be escalated, and they will as you say pass it via appropriate channels which will end up at the OPG.

Operating a power of attorney is hard work. Operating a guardianship is much harder, because the record-keeping requirements are substantially more onerous and are audited to a higher standard. Seeking a guardianship is itself both onerous and expensive. It's selfish to refuse to do something which already demands a lot of your relatives (a PoA) on the assumption that they will do something far more demanding (a guardianship).

Yorkshireman99

securityguy wrote: »

"Ignore his advice that is both wrong and callous."

Callous is a matter of opinion, but wrong? In what way? Have you operated an OPG guardianship, and therefore understand just how much hard work it is? If people wilfully set out to impose that workload on others, why should they be rewarded for their selfishness?

Yes I have done so and I fully understand what a burden it can be but I was happy to do it for a close family member. I repeat that it is callous to just abandon someone in this way. It is all very well saying everyone should have a POA but there are plenty of people that don't have £220.00 to pay for the two that are required. Or someone quite young may have had a quite unexpected bad accident that incapacitated them. Do you think they should be abandoned as well? The object of this forum is to help people not make the sort of unhelpful remarks you do.

jackyann

Yorkshireman99 wrote: »

In the case in point it does not help the OP at all. If the company rep gave contact details it would help matters.

I agree with that, but I presume (and hope) that OP can quote the information and that will be helpful.