Baby Safety Gates discussion (merged)

ELLA

Hi there as the title say's my 84 yr old nan has NO will. She is scared that if she makes one then something will happen to her.
Also she doesnt want one of her daughters to get a penny, how on earth can we stop that happening if she wont make a will.

When the time come's and my nan's time comes to an end then we know full well her daughter will come sniffing around. When she also finds out what my nan has put away in the bank then she will make sure she will get some of what she believes is rightfully hers!!

Is there any web sites we can show her to make her come to terms with the fact that if she dosent sort something out then her wishes wont go to plan for her.

Sola

Show her this post:

My aunt wanted all her stuff to go to my sister who was also her goddaughter. She didn't make a will, and her good-for-nothing daughter (who'd disappeared years before) turned up after she died, and got the lot, worth about half a million which in the Seventies was a heck of a lot. So the aunt's verbal wishes counted for absolutely nothing. The ONLY way to circumvent this is for your Nan to make a will - properly.

Not sure what you can do about the superstitious view though.

Spendless

ELLA- We had a similar problem when my SIL seperated from her 2nd husband but had no wish to divorce him. They had no children together but SIL had a child from her 1st marriage. Eventually (and it took a year!) we persuaded SIL to make a will. We pointed out what would happen to her money by showing her a flow chart. I used to have it saved to favourites, but I've deleted it and a quick search hasn't found me the one. The most similar I've found is this one for you to show your gran.
http://www.tenminutewill.co.uk/main.cgi?aff=2344&page=6

Biggles

ELLA wrote: »

When the time come's and my nan's time comes to an end then we know full well her daughter will come sniffing around. When she also finds out what my nan has put away in the bank then she will make sure she will get some of what she believes is rightfully hers!!

That's because it will be rightfully hers. Unless there's a will saying otherwise.

Willman_Rodders

hi Ella,

The answer is as has been stated - your nan must make a will.

If she is adament that she does not want her daughter to inherit then she needs to seek professional advise. Her daughter may have a preferential claim on her estate which a professional may be able to help reduce/ or even extinguish.

The next problem is where to store her will. Here the risk is that when she does die her daughter will find the will and destroy it (Strictly illegal but these things happen.) Then as no will can be provided for probate your nan will be deemed to have died intestate (i.e. assumed to have died without making a will) with the result her estate will be distributed in accordance with the rules of intestacy. Under those rules if your nan is not married at the time of her death then her estate will be distrbuted between those of her children and equally where more than one. You can see her daughter will therefore inherit at least a prt (if not all of her estate).

The solution I sometimes suggest is that the will is therefore stored at her bank where her money is saved. Why? Because when she dies the bank will be notified of her death and will release the will only to her named executors - in the meantime her account will be frozen. Watch out though for the annual charges the Banks like to charge for the storage of the will.

lynzpower

Sola wrote: »

Show her this post:

My aunt wanted all her stuff to go to my sister who was also her goddaughter. She didn't make a will, and her good-for-nothing daughter (who'd disappeared years before) turned up after she died, and got the lot, worth about half a million which in the Seventies was a heck of a lot. So the aunt's verbal wishes counted for absolutely nothing. The ONLY way to circumvent this is for your Nan to make a will - properly.

Not sure what you can do about the superstitious view though.

my immiediate feeling is 'have you made one'

If you havent ( and I havent either FWIW! So here I am with my advice ) then how can you tell someone else to do one? Wills are not just for the old or ill.

Maybe you could talk about it in a supportive way. I do remember finding it very difficult to talk about wills at work ( when I worked with older people) as it just seemed so macabre. However, making a will can be a very positive experience for those involved, all depends on how it is put to them, or how they view death in general ( adn as a listener how YOU view death)

Those with more experince than me in the trade suggested that I look at will writing, as a therapeutic experience, after all, it is the finality of life.

Questions you could ask:
have any of your freinds made wills
how did they do it?
do you think they struggled to do it? if so, why?
what problems did they encounter when writing it?
Aside from the obvious macabre aspect, what positive things do you think that writing a will can bring?
Take advice from her about what she knows of them, as you are so young etc none of your mates have done thiers yet, but you want to do yours as its so important. Its not uncommon where generations often write thier wills at the same time, the younger members, supporting the older, and vice versa.

Some older people too can feel ( and quite rightly lets face it!!) that the will is the picking over the bones and scavenging. where no will is written then thats exactly what probate turns out to be. The additional factor is that usually its a family member that suggests the will writing and people will think 'whats thier motive, what do they want from me' - so theres a lack of trust- and occasionally they will think - 'stuff them all let them scrap it out with each other after Ive gone- wont bother me!!'
MAybe she doesnt want to give YOU anything, and doesnt want to say that directly to you this might be an aspect.

However, if she ( or you!!) wants to leave the lot to the cats home, then so be it! :A

youngbutwise

Hi I'm not sure I'm posting at the right place so please feel free to move my thread.

I am looking to buy 3 safety gates for our house. I've been shopping around and find it hard to choose.

Would you recommend pressure fit rather than screw fit?

Wood or metal?

Any brand in particular?

And I've just read you shouldn't fit pressure fit at top of stairs. So I may well go for 2 pressure fit and one screw fit (for top of stairs).

I'm looking forward to your replies.

Nicki

Depending on the layout of your house, you might not actually need one at the top of the stairs. If you have a narrow landing which gives on to the stairs for example, then you could use a pressure fit one across the landing, which avoids the need to screw anything in, or just put a gate across the kids bedroom door?

Personally I'm not a big fan of gates at the top of stairs if it can be avoided, as once the child gets a bit more inquistive, they can try to climb over the gate, and topple down the rest of the stairs if they manage to get the pivoting angle right as they try to climb if you see what I mean (in other words only put their foot a few inches up in the gate, then bend over it, and gravity pulls them over the top in a forward roll down the stairs).

As for pressure fit over screw fit, we used both, and didn't have problems with either, though obviously the pressure fit ones were easier to instal and could be removed when you didn't need them (eg take them off the kitchen after the kids had gone to bed).

webbie

Beware - they are all different sizes to fit different width stairways!! I assumed stairways are fairly universal - but when I moved house my pressure fit ones were too small.

I now have a wooden "extendable" stairgate which is screwed into the wall and it's much better. It also opens all the way rather than a central gate - which are also pains.

youngbutwise

thanks to both of you.

I do have a narrow landing upstairs so will bear your advice in mind and I do prefer wood over metal.