Clearing home as lpa as parent gone into care. Items in will

nicter

Hi

We would appreciate some advice please. We are selling dads house to fund his ongoing care home fees (We have lpa health and wealth and are also executors of his will) He has named a quantity of items in his will to be left to family members. We dont have anywhere to store these items ( some large items of furniture ) Are we able to distribute these items as per the will when we have to empty the house ?

silvercar

The general rule is that if items specified in a will are no longer in the possession of the estate, that clause of the will fails. So if you need to sell items to pay for care fees, then unfortunately the intended benefactors won’t get their expected inheritance.

If there is no real value in the items, there would be no harm in gifting the items now, though you should keep a record.

elsien

As above, it really depends on the value of the items you’re talking about. And if they are valuable, whether he has enough other assets to cover his fees for long enough that the money from them wouldn’t be required anyway

Savvy_Sue

You have LPA, but does Dad still have capacity? If he does, then you could ask him what he would like to do about items mentioned in his will.

However, you might need to be sure that the value of the house will enable Dad to pay care home fees for a decent amount of time, UNLESS the items are of insignificant value.

Keep_pedalling

If these are low value items (and most furniture certainly falls under that category) then I can’t see any problem in gifting them to the family members if they would actually want them. May even save some house clearance costs.

silvercar

In any case, a will could be changed many times during a lifetime, they may not be the benefactors when the time comes.

nicter

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/comment/81928949#Comment_81928949

No sadly dad no longer has capacity

Thankyou all for the helpful replies

Sapindus

I would gift them to the intended recipients but keep a record signed by both parties that this has been done, in case anyone (or their own relatives and beneficiaries) forgets when the time comes to implement the will.