Writing an urgent will in a care home

Navyblue62

Hello,
My grandmother is in a care home. She has full mental capacity, she needs physical care and is bed bound, which is why she in a care home. Is it possible for her to write a simple will in her care home? She has mental capacity and 2 care home staff can be witnesses. She wants to get this done urgently due to the current world situation.

More information:
My grandmother's will was written many years ago, where she gives away cash sums to quite a lot of people. She no longer has this money as all her money has gone on care over the last few years. She is not happy with this old will and was trying to arrange a new one in March before lockdown.

She has a house which she wishes to leave to myself, her only grandchild, with a clause that my disabled mother who I care for is always allowed to live in the house and it can not be sold whilst my mother is living here.

In 2018 she paid a solicitor about £1500 to create a new will, but this will was never finalised as she was not happy with the solicitor who attended. I have contacted the firm to see if they can assist with completing a new one but I have not heard back, I assume they are fully closed to the current situation.

Please does anyone have any advice for us? She's very worried. Thank you in advance.

xylophone

She has a house which she wishes to leave to myself, her only grandchild, with a clause that my disabled mother who I care for is always allowed to live in the house and it can not be sold whilst my mother is living here.

The will needs an "interest in possession" clause.

Is the manager of the care home able to help her to contact a local solicitor? Even if working from home, he should be able to discuss her requirements over the telephone, prepare and post out a draft for her consideration and then the final version which could be witnessed in the care home?

cbrown372

The new will also has to say this supercedes any previous will. Funeral requests as in burial or cremation.

elsien

If she wants to use a solicitor still it may be possible to talk to them directly using Skype or similar.  Although £1500 sounds like an awful lot considering her will is not that complex. 
Your grandmother needs to think through all the implications of her wishes; for example if for any reason you stop caring for your mum and want to move on. 
ETA she should still have some money to leave as the threshold for self funders is about 23K. 

1Mani1

".........with a clause that my disabled mother who I care for is always allowed to live in the house and it can not be sold whilst my mother is living here."

I guess such an "interest in possession" clause is not something that can be done through one of the cheap online Will writing services?
Can a solicitor also help to track that all assets have been captured within a Will or is that the responsibility of the person taking out the Will?

Savvy_Sue

1Mani1 said:

".........with a clause that my disabled mother who I care for is always allowed to live in the house and it can not be sold whilst my mother is living here."

I guess such an "interest in possession" clause is not something that can be done through one of the cheap online Will writing services?
Can a solicitor also help to track that all assets have been captured within a Will or is that the responsibility of the person taking out the Will?

No, an interest in possession clause needs a proper solicitor, ideally STEP qualified. 

No, a solicitor will not formally help track all assets, that is the responsibility of the person making the will, BUT I would expect the solicitor to ask relevant questions, eg "do you have any valuable collections?" - we were asked if anyone had stamp collections, paintings of value, anything like that. It's worth thinking about before you visit a solicitor: it's probable that your collection of eg garden gnomes is without significant financial value, but if you didn't want them split up after death then you might want to include the whole tribe of them in your will.