Help! IHT, PoA, tapering. Bear with. It’s complicated.

Rapscallioniam

Savvy_Sue said:

Spendless said:

There's a couple of phrases that come to mind when you describe your BIL. One is 'When people show you who they are the first time - believe them' the other is 'Listen carefully to the accusations, they're actually confessions' So with the latter in mind, how much access does your OH have to the savings, investments etc your BIL manages on his Mum's behalf - is everything intact?

Agree with what has been put above re what you can do and understand what you're saying with that how can you prove this is Mum's shopping, ultimately you can't 100% but your BIL has showed his hand, as well as keeping receipts I would also go for a bibs and braces approach with a spreadsheet and a journal. 
Sunday 30th July - Bought Mum's shopping at Tesco - 42.87 (and then  keep the receipt plus spreadsheet entry)
Monday 31st July - Paid Mum's Gardner £40
etc with it all including any  birthday/xmas gifts.

Then as and when the day comes if BIL does try anything, you've covered yourself detailing as much as you can.  

Plus, if you've got, say, 6 months of gardening, cleaning, shopping WITH RECEIPTS then it's going to be harder to argue that all the previous payments were unauthorised / unnecessary. 

Boh excellent points. We'll set that up and keep it all recorded from now on.

Thank you both.

Rapscallioniam

KITTYKAT8_2 said:

If your OH has POA with her brother, I would ask to see all the details of saving and investments, OH would be entitled to do this.

Entitled to, this but absolutely will not under any but the most extreme circumstances. It will cause too much trouble. BiL is very defensive about his stewardship of MiL accounts. We have our suspicions about how much he has mishandled them but for the trouble it would cause any scrutiny we could apply now wouldn't be worth the trouble. My OH sisters DH is a fully qualified retired accountant and he is equally sceptical of BiL, but even he, who really does count the pennies, thinks it's best to leave him (BiL) to it.