Please Help Father In Seriously Ill

claire1973

I do hope I have posted this in the right area.

My father in law aged 50 suffered a massive brain hemmorage several weeks ago after a fall. Since then he has had stroke and now has possible meningitis (todays verdict). He had debts of 25k, then took out a remortgage to clear these dets into one payment which he said he could afford. We had no idea about the debts or the remotgage until he told us several months after.

Since this has all happened we went to his house to check on the house and to collect his post. In short, we had to fight our way up what was the garden path, the whole garden is overgrown. Inside the house it was filthy, you can't see the carpet with rubbish and letters all left unopened! It is like this in every room. He has had depression for many years and always says I will come to your house, we don't live near him, he always said my place is a bit of a mess so I will come to you.

We have made a start opening the mail and trying to sort the extent of his debts. Obviously we need to contact his mortgage company, banks etc but in order to do this I understand we need to do something like a Power of Attorney thing.

Can anyone advise us as to where we need to go to find help? My father in law would not be able to sign anything as he is in a comatose state most of the time and when awake is confused and not making any sense.

From what I have seen so far I feel that he will lose his house. He has bills to pay but a bank balance of minus £2500.00, and we have no money to pay them.

Thank you

kimlisa66

Hi Claire

What a sad story...I know exactly what you are going through so I hope I can help a little.

My husband's dad suffered from schizophrenia since he was a young man, trouble is it wasnt talked about by the family, they referred to it as Roger's Illness. He was divorced from my husbands mum and she did very little to look after his affairs so it was left to the three kids who didn't know where to start.

They never discussed money with him for fear of upsetting him and basically !!!!! footed around him to such an extent that the house he is living in never had a day's maintainence done on it and he was living in it with an outside toilet, no hot water, no heating, and the roof was falling in.

The council became involved as did social services and he had to be moved out to a flat whilst an improvement grant was applied for which will be charged against the house when it is sold on his death or sooner.

While this was going on, it transpired he was in dreadful debt as well, buying things from magazine supplements, such as franklin mint and all that load of old tat. He kept it well hidden but he owed money here there and everywhere and we are pretty sure he handed over the deeds to his house at one point as they cannot be traced.

The upshot is you must get professional help from CAB or your local Mind Association. I work for a branch of Mind in the South and we have a project that deals with debt and mental health. Its very specialised but there might be something similar where you are.

I would advise trying to find a mental health advocate to act on your dad's behalf to start writing to the creditors to explain the situation but definitley call your local Mind, as well as National Mind which has a legal helpline number listed on its website. Just google Mind to find the number.

Let us know how you get on.

Kim

sam89

Firstly, huge hug to you.

Your Dad-in-law will have a "named nurse" responsible for his care. Explain to her that you need to see a social worker for advice about his current financial situation. The ward will have a social worker attached who will be able to help you with advice and contacting the relevant people to deal with his debt and sort this out.

They will probably arrange for the consultant to write a letter putting everything on hold until things can be sorted.

I'm a staff nurse who works in rehab and this type of situation is not unusual. Talk to the staff on the ward...they will help you.

If I can give you any help at all please pm me.

Sam,
x.

kazmeister

Sorry Claire, I dont have any advice to give but just wanted to give you a massive hug for an awful situation. Hope you get some advice real soon. and best wishes for your dear father in law.

poorandindenial

Hi Claire - I am really sorry that you are going through this tough time.

You need to get hold of some professional advice asap. You can speak to the debt counselling charities (they advise as well) but I think you do need to get some legal advice as soon as possible. You can speak to the banks etc to let them know what has happened but you may need to get power of attourney to do anythign much more than this.

Have a chat with CAB - of all the debt charities because they have the widest remit and do more than just debt and they should hopefully be able to put you in touch with a solicitor who will do one session free or for a low fixed fee and will also be able to get you a debt advisor.

I have a scheme at work where I can get a small amount of free legal advice (as long as it isn't abotu something to do with work) do you maybe have one of those schemes, they are often tied to 'employee support' schemes.

It might also be useful to get in touch with a charity, perhaps Mind as they will be able to talk you through how you go about getting power of attourney (if you need it) and can explain the law around mental capacity. Although your FIL isn't old it may also be worth speaking to help the aged, your current situation is not unlike those that people go through when people are older and lose their mental capacity (even temporarily which hopefully your FILs will be)

claire1973

Thank You for all your advice. I have just checked CAB and they have a session on Wednesday 10.00 - 1.00 so I will go along and see them.

I will ask his nurse if I can see a social worker. To be honest he has been moved around so much he always seems to have different nurses. He took a turn for the worse yesterday and was moved again. The ward has strict visiting hours and when you are allowed to visit the doctors have already done the ward round. We did get to see the duty doctor on call today and he apologised about no doctors coming to see us and us only having the nurses to ask. The nurses are doing a great job, I'm not faulting them in any way but getting to see his doctor has been a battle.

I will also contact MIND. My worry was that if he loses his home where would he live. We have no room and would the council re home him seeing as he did have his own house. So many questions but I know CAB will point us in the right direction.

Our family is small, in fact there is only a couple of us so all your advice means the world to us. Thank You

Poosmate

I'll ask my mom tomorrow if I can remember. She got Power of Attourney for my nan a few years ago. I think you just need a letter from your FIL's doctor confirming his inability to act for himself. Not sure if you have to get solicitors involved. Hopefully I'll remember to ask mom before it gets too late in the evening to call her!

You still need to get professional help and advice as well though.

In the meantime, take care

Poo

poorandindenial

If you can't get to see the doctors then ask the ward staff what the best time would be to phone and speak to a doctor, that way at least you can speak to them, not quite as good as face to face but better than nothing.

(I don't want to sound gloomy but...) if in the future it does look like he will lose his home then get in touch with Shelter, they will be able to help you through the quagmire of local authority paperwork and politics. If he still has a social worker at that point they should be able to help with it all too as should CAB.

Good luck going thorugh all that paperwork and getting to the bottom of what is going on. Fingers crossed for you that this all works out in the end.

poorandindenial

I just found this website about power of attourney etc:

http://www.publicguardian.gov.uk/index.htm

kika

You can find out his consultant and then call his secretary to make appointment. I know people have done this at my hospital as have same problems with busy drs.

RAS

Hi

The rules on power of attorney changed in October 2007, so you need to look at the public guardianship web-site that PAID linked to.

Please also contact Age Concern or help the Aged, as they have legal advisors who may be able to provide telephone advice despite his relative youth. cetainly my reginal Age Concern office were brilliant. It would be worth locating the national stroke charity.

One thing to keep really close tabs on, and one reason to be fairly careful of the hospital social worker is that if dad is released from hospital into care because of his medical condition, then the NHS covers his continuing treatment. If he is released into your care (and believe me they will do everything possible to achieve this), then he becomes your responsibilty and will have to sell the house to cover his care.

It is absolutely essential that all family members are aware of this and that you get proper advice from one of the charities in this area, as it is still a psost-code lottery which is subject to repeated adverse reports by older person's charities.

If in doubt, refuse to take him out of hospital or make any arrangements to transfer him until you have advice.