Post death help

AccurateIce

Hi All, A brief outline of the situation

My father in-law recently passed away and because it was quicker than expected things never got sorted out properly.

His wife is still alive but sadly has dementia that has been getting progressively worse over the years. 

There are a number of issue that I would like some advice on where to steer the family to get the right advice/mediation.

1, The house was thought to have been put in a trust so any possible care home fees would not eat up the value of the house. However the company who set up the trust where a fly by night company than are now out of business. The documents they provided have incorrect address on one of them so they are not sure if they are valid,  where is the best place to get this information?

2, Sadly the mother in-law is unable to look after herself and 2 of the children are adamant they do not want her to go into a care home as this was their Dads wish. One of the children has offered to move back into the house to care for their Mum but this is were it starts getting messy. The house is too small for them to move in with their own family and would mean they would have to add an extension to the house to accommodate the family.  They are unwilling to get this extension added until there are certain stipulations in place. They want to get the house valued and split the value 3 ways in a 40/30/30 split between the children, arguing that the child moving in would have to uproot everything and sell their own home etc as well as taking over the care of their Mum. One of the children is not agreeable to this and their idea is to put the Mother in a 'good' home and sell off the family jewels so to speak.  So the question on this is where do they go from here?  

A couple of things that may be relevant. The reason for moving into the family home and not buying a bigger house (which would ultimately work out cheaper) is because the Mother in-law has lived in that house for 40+ years and is comfortable in the house, with her dementia they feel taking her away from her home would speed up her deterioration as she becomes even more confused.

One of the children has a lasting POA for Health/Welfare and also for Property & Financial affairs (This is one of the siblings who is in agreement with the proposal)

Any advice offered would be greatly appreciated. 

3, Is there any need for probate as everything will automatically transfer to his wife?

Robin9

An initial thought or two.

It will take 12 months or more for the house to be extended - how will MIL endure this ?    Note also her condition may have deteriorated considerably and might be beyond the care that the child can provide. 

Re the Trust - put the papers to a solicitor and let him/her sought it.

xylophone

If the property has been transferred into Trust, who are the Trustees?

theoretica

Has the child in question any experience of the realities of looking after someone with dementia?  It can become a full time day and night job.  I suggest they talk with GP, social services and maybe a charity like Age Concern about the realities and mum's prognosis before undertaking this.

RetSol

A few questions re the LPAs.  Have they been registered with the OPG?  This is required for it to be effective.  Does MIL have capacity now?  Is there only one attorney? 
Your spouse is one of the "children" , presumably.  Sorry if this sounds intrusive but I am wondering why it is you asking the questions when there are a number of siblings involved including at least one with an LPA. 

AccurateIce

RE: Trust , Rang up the company who took control of the liquidated company today. They put them in touch with the company that stored all documents and no documents have been stored or registered with them so it seems the trust was never registered. Which was expected after reading up on the company that did it and noticing mistakes with the address on the documents themselves.

@theoretica   The child who is willing to move in, they already work with people in palliative care so are fully aware of how dementia will affect her in the coming years.

All renovation works would be at the back of the house which is separated by French doors and is going to be an extension of a previous extension. There will of course be a period of time when there is a fair bit of disruption.

@RetSol RE LPA, it is fully registered with the OPG and there is only one POA. I am asking the questions because my partner(one of the children) has asked me to try and find the best way to proceed with this delicate subject whilst trying to have no bias.  

RetSol

If the property has been transferred into Trust, who are the Trustees?

You may need to do a search at the Land registry to find out who the current legal owners of the property are.

RE LPA, it is fully registered with the OPG and there is only one POA.

To be clear, does the POA only empower the one sibling to act?

The question of MIL's capacity is significant because it will have a bearing on the attorney's power to act at the present time. 

AccurateIce

RetSol said:

If the property has been transferred into Trust, who are the Trustees?

You may need to do a search at the Land registry to find out who the current legal owners of the property are.

RE LPA, it is fully registered with the OPG and there is only one POA.

To be clear, does the POA only empower the one sibling to act?

The question of MIL's capacity is significant because it will have a bearing on the attorney's power to act at the present time. 

I will look at getting them to do a land registry search.

Yes it is just one Sibling. That sibling had POA for each parent with the one for the FIL expiring upon his death. 
Regarding capacity it isn't fully known as the FIL made the decision for them both when alive.  She has moments of lucidity, whether that equates to capacity I don't know and I guess this is something that can be assessed.
When she is asked what she wants to do she always states she wants to stay in her home.

A will search has been submitted today, there is currently one will for the FIL and everything reverts to the wife(and vice versa), but on both his and his Wifes wills it states that if anything happens and Child A is living at the house then it would be relinquished to that child.  This is also the child who is wanting to look after the MIL.  This will was made back in the early 1990's.

Savvy_Sue

This is perhaps a simplistic way of looking at things, but surely the Attorney has to make decisions - including where MIL lives - in MIL's best interests? And since that attorney was appointed to act alone, it's their call. 

It's not an easy equation, because there is a mixture of "what may be best for MIL's emotional wellbeing, now and in the future?" (short term possibly staying where she is and not moving house but longer term?). However, that has to be balanced by "how do we fund MIL's needs, now and in the future?" (which might well rule out giving away all or part of MIL's house and / or paying for an extension which seems to benefit another family member more than MIL, certainly in the longer term, because with the best will in the world, caring for someone with dementia eventually needs a team not a single individual). 

The other thing that strikes me is that the sibling willing to move in with MIL may be experienced in giving palliative care, but I'd say that's a different skill to giving dementia care. To me, palliative care implies a short-term provision - maybe several months, but not anticipated to be needed for years. People with dementia may well live for years after diagnosis, some needing less help but some so much help that living at home becomes impossible. 

And the impact of living with and caring for someone with dementia for years will also have a massive impact on other family members - not just the adult siblings, but also the partner and children living with MIL. 

I'd encourage the Attorney to run any proposal past the Office of the Public Guardian. 

But having said that, it also depends on the terms of the will. 

naedanger

I think the attorney has to consider this purely from the point of view of what is best for the MIL. So does the attorney think it would be in the best interest for the MIL to have a family member move in to look after her? If the attorney is reasonably confident that the family member would manage it would seem to me that this is likely to be the best option. If things don't work out the attorney could take other action later e.g. moving the MIL into a care home if things aren't working at least as well as if she was in a care home.

The will presumably cannot be changed. If child A does move in, then under the will are they entitled to the home? If so the offer to split the house 40/30/30, presumably on the MIL's death, is a large concession. (Not sure how this proposed split would be made legal but a solicitor should be able to advise. You would obviously need to consider what happens in certain contingencies e.g. MIL later moves into a care home.)

(In any event I think a 40/30/30 split is not a lot to ask in return for moving in and looking after the MIL full time. Obviously this is just a personal opinion.)

Marcon

AccurateIce said:

Hi All, A brief outline of the situation

My father in-law recently passed away and because it was quicker than expected things never got sorted out properly.

His wife is still alive but sadly has dementia that has been getting progressively worse over the years. 

There are a number of issue that I would like some advice on where to steer the family to get the right advice/mediation.

1, The house was thought to have been put in a trust so any possible care home fees would not eat up the value of the house. However the company who set up the trust where a fly by night company than are now out of business. The documents they provided have incorrect address on one of them so they are not sure if they are valid,  where is the best place to get this information?

You could be wasting your time:

Some firms make a lot of money selling schemes to “protect” homes. They cannot work because once you have had that thought of taking some action to get more public money, any scheme is scuppered, even if the home is put into a trust. Save your money. And remember if you, your spouse or partner, or a relative over 60 or severely disabled remains in the property, its value is ignored. Source: https://money.radiotimes.com/retirement/hold-onto-your-house/