Next of Kin when estranged from family

elsien

VA2020 said:

Torry_Quine said:

Next of kin has no legal meaning. You can name whoever you want for hospital. It's just a point of contact for them. A partner is fine.

Thank you! What about in a situation where you lacked capacity and decisions had to be made on your behalf there and then 

Best interests decision for health/welfare, involving the people that know you best. Which could be partner, friends, children, whoever. Or without speaking to anyone if it’s an emergency, 

But as hospitals have a bad habit of only wanting to speak to one “next of kin” (which is not what the Mental Capacity Act says) and also get hung up on blood relatives (which is also not what the MCA says) you can register a NoK with your GP as a starting point, bearing in mind that that NoK has no legal standing whatsoever other than being a preferred point of contact.  

You really need to get LPA sorted. Without it, for finances, there is no legal mechanism for anyone to access any of your bank account or speak to anyone on your behalf. If it looked like you would not regain capacity someone would need to apply for a deputyship for your money and that is taking months at the moment. 

lr1277

You said you found the LPA. Just to confirm there are 2 types of LPA.

One is for financial matters and property. The attorney can start acting on your behalf before you lose capacity if you wish.
There is also a health and welfare POA where the attorney can only act once you lose capacity.
Each LPA costs £82.

As you are sorting out your affairs, do you have a pension to consider? What happens if you pass before you collect your pension?
With my private pension I was able to assign a beneficiary.
With government provided pensions I think only dependents get money from your pension. At least that is the case with my NHS pension. I am guessing you are not married to your partner. In which case your partner would get no part of your pension. I don’t know the case if you are married and your partner is working, whether your partner would be considered a dependent.

With a private pension I understand it is outside your estate for inheritance tax purposes. My understanding is this because you do not dictate who gets the money. That decision is made by the pension trustees. You nominate one or more people but the trustees make the final decision. Say you only nominate your partner. But after you die, a child you didn’t know about appears and puts in a claim on your pension. The trustees decide who gets what. At least that is my understanding.

RAS

lr1277 said:

As you are sorting out your affairs, do you have a pension to consider? What happens if you pass before you collect your pension?
With my private pension I was able to assign a beneficiary.
With government provided pensions I think only dependents get money from your pension. At least that is the case with my NHS pension. 

With a Government pension there is also a death in service payment (3 times salary). You can nominate who receives that, although legally the trustees make the final decision.

VA2020

lr1277 said:

You said you found the LPA. Just to confirm there are 2 types of LPA.

One is for financial matters and property. The attorney can start acting on your behalf before you lose capacity if you wish.
There is also a health and welfare POA where the attorney can only act once you lose capacity.
Each LPA costs £82.

As you are sorting out your affairs, do you have a pension to consider? What happens if you pass before you collect your pension?
With my private pension I was able to assign a beneficiary.
With government provided pensions I think only dependents get money from your pension. At least that is the case with my NHS pension. I am guessing you are not married to your partner. In which case your partner would get no part of your pension. I don’t know the case if you are married and your partner is working, whether your partner would be considered a dependent.

With a private pension I understand it is outside your estate for inheritance tax purposes. My understanding is this because you do not dictate who gets the money. That decision is made by the pension trustees. You nominate one or more people but the trustees make the final decision. Say you only nominate your partner. But after you die, a child you didn’t know about appears and puts in a claim on your pension. The trustees decide who gets what. At least that is my understanding.

All really helpful, thank you.

I would do LPA for finances and health. 

I have an NHS pension of 6 years, and they have death in service. So I have nominated my sister for DIS, should that ever be relevant. My pension knowledge around NHS is not majorly strong even though I’ve been there for a number of years, I’ve never really thought about that, so it’s helpful to consider. I also have other pensions outside of this from previous work but very small amounts

I don’t cover adult Health hence my query as my knowledge on adult is really scarce as I know it differs a lot from when it’s children vs adult care.

My partner works, we’re not married but I also own my own home and pay for this independently so at this current time, everything is left to my sister and brother will wise but nothing outside of my assets has been written down. 

VA2020

RAS said:

lr1277 said:

As you are sorting out your affairs, do you have a pension to consider? What happens if you pass before you collect your pension?
With my private pension I was able to assign a beneficiary.
With government provided pensions I think only dependents get money from your pension. At least that is the case with my NHS pension. 

With a Government pension there is also a death in service payment (3 times salary). You can nominate who receives that, although legally the trustees make the final decision.

Thank you! 😊
Yes I have my sister nominated for DIS but I didn’t realise trustees make a final decision.
Learning a lot today! 

RAS

The stuff about trustees is important. If you were allowed to dictate who the DIS benefit to went then it would not be outside the estate.

So you need to be aware when you think about your will that you sister should get this sum as well as anything she received from the estate. And the DIS benefit does not count for IHT purposes.

TBagpuss

Mojisola said:

The Royal Free hospital have this advice -

https://s3-eu-west-1.amazonaws.com/files.royalfree.nhs.uk/next_of_kin002.pdf

You could print off several cards and keep them in your bag/car/etc so that one is likely to be found in an emergency.

You can also ask for your partner to be put on your GP records as your NOK.

This is very sensible. You can probably also ask your GP to add a note (and include it on your card, or give your partner a pre-signed letter) to explicitly state that you do *not* want your mother to be contacted or to have any input. 

VA2020

Mojisola said:

The Royal Free hospital have this advice -

https://s3-eu-west-1.amazonaws.com/files.royalfree.nhs.uk/next_of_kin002.pdf

You could print off several cards and keep them in your bag/car/etc so that one is likely to be found in an emergency.

You can also ask for your partner to be put on your GP records as your NOK.

That’s great. Thanks so much for taking the time to find that 😊. Will print them! 

VA2020

TBagpuss said:

Mojisola said:

The Royal Free hospital have this advice -

https://s3-eu-west-1.amazonaws.com/files.royalfree.nhs.uk/next_of_kin002.pdf

You could print off several cards and keep them in your bag/car/etc so that one is likely to be found in an emergency.

You can also ask for your partner to be put on your GP records as your NOK.

This is very sensible. You can probably also ask your GP to add a note (and include it on your card, or give your partner a pre-signed letter) to explicitly state that you do *not* want your mother to be contacted or to have any input. 

Great idea re GP as I’m seeing them soon so will ask if it can be added to notes 
Thanks for your help!

lr1277

I know this may sound morbid, but you should have the Do Not Resuscitate conversation with your family and/or your attorney for health and welfare.

When my dad went into hospital a few years ago and the prognosis did not look good, the doctors asked us this question. As we had already discussed this with dad, it was easy to give the answer he wanted given.