To think they should tell us where the will is

I agree, it would be so simple if all wills had to be registered to be valid. There is already a database.

I totally agree with the OP. Anyone disagreeing with them has obviously never been screwed over in someone’s will. Why wouldn’t you just tell your child? Unless you had something to hide maybe? It’s nothing about being grabby or thinking they’re going to die, it’s something you do to safeguard the people you love. OP I’d be suspicious about this.

The way wills work is crazy in this country. You're supposed to make sure there is one but the deceased may not have told you there is one, not told you where it is, not used a solicitor and not registered it. In which case you're reduced to randomly hunting for it. How long do you search before giving up? It all puts huge pressure on people already grieving. The only sensible thing is to at the very least tell executors where it is and to have multiple copies. Makes me think we should have a system where anyone can register a will, no solicitor needed, but if it's not registered it's not valid.

On power of attorney, a lot of people also don't know that you can set them up to only come into effect if/when you've lost capacity to make decisions yourself. So for people who don't want to hand over control too early, you don't have to. It is much better to have one in place, than to be dealing with someone who has lost capacity and find you can't get anything done for them.

DH and I have told the DC where our wills are and that apart from a couple of small bequests everything is split equally between them. We do need to set up POAs, resolution for 2025!

My mum had her will done 2020 because of COVID, naming siblings POA and execs [I live abroad] it was done by a solicitor at home. I was apparently a beneficiary but have never seen the will or been contacted. I come from a seriously dysfunctional toxic family hence the move abroad. I have recently checked.gov site and nothing listed. Over the years my mum has owed me large sums of money which she always said she would eventually repay, there seems to be no way of checking.

Me parents used solicitors for their Wills, and after their deaths the solicitors contacted me, as I was an executor. Maybe that is the case here.

My friend's dad died, and the siblings were hunting the will in his 'office', they kept finding notes where he was reminding himself to 'tell them where the will is' - but no clue as to where it actually WAS.
In the end a few weeks later it was located in a filing cabinet that had already been searched half a dozen times - but the file W for Will had got dislodged and fallen underneath the rest of the contents of that drawer.

Your DH has done the right thing by asking about POA, and given your own lived experience, you know how a degree of stress is taken away, at a time of bereavement, by not taking on a mystery task of investigation. I think all you can do is wait a few months to have him raise it again from a ‘who would you like to manage your affairs if you became unwell?’ point of view. Some people are very peculiar and short-sighted; do they have an equal marriage, eg if your FIL had a stroke, does MIL have access to accounts to pay bills?

OP, maybe you could ask 'do the executors of your will know where it is? If not, how do you expect them to ensure that your wishes are met?'?

This is the best advice. The executors of a will need to know where to find it. It's difficult enough to deal with the death of a parent, without struggling to find the relevant paperwork.

It's fine if the parents don't want to tell their son where the will is. But he needs to at least be assured that the executors know where it is. And it would also be helpful to know who the executors are (if they are not close family, and would need to be informed in the event of the parents death)

We have given copies to our 3 children and have information in books etc. to make life less stressful for them. My husband has dementia so if I go first he'd be lost without all this being sorted.

My mum is in her 90s and a couple of years ago she went to a health review at her local GP surgery. She saw a nurse who spent at least half an hour talking to her about health, power-of-attorney, writing a will, where the will is kept, the problems that can arise from a badly written will, etc. she was full of horror stories which my mum absolutely loved about people whose will couldn't be found and consequently everything was left to the wrong person, and that sort of thing. It was probably the most useful surgery visit my mum had had.

Sorry but your PIL are idiots

If it is with a solicitor then just say which one.

If it is in the house, just say where.

Yeah I was just thinking of a less obviously shining sibling, and the presumption that it's him because he's a bloke is quite a big one

No - although there is a Wills register in England and Wales, it is entirely voluntary and many Wills are not registered anywhere. Wills are often not even drawn up by solicitors - anyone can write a Will and have it witnessed by 2 people.

The problems begin when a person dies and nobody in the family knows whether or not there is a Will, or where the Will is. It might be registered, or it might be held by the solicitors who help to write it (if solicitors were used) - but it might be held in a bank box, or in a drawer, or hidden in a cupboard under the stairs, or held by one of the witnesses or the Executor but nobody in the family knows who this person is. Default inheritence rules only apply once it has been established that there is no valid Will.

"Maybe they wanted someone who respected their boundaries to be executor.
If you think they actually have a will and your husband doesn't know if he is executor it's more logical to assume they've got someone they like and trust involved"

Perhaps, but what happens when the "someone they like and trust" is also about the same age, and perhaps is in ill health or even passes away before the person concerned does? It's all very well nominating Joe from the Bowls Club, but Joe might be too frail to undertake the role of Executor, or he might have moved or misplaced the Will, or the Will has got mixed up with Joe's paperwork. And the question still remains, how will the family (or even the surviving spouse) know that Joe, or a solicitor, or "someone they like and trust" has been nominated as Executor if they don't have this information - they might not know of any of these people.

Maybe they wanted someone who respected their boundaries to be executor.

If you think they actually have a will and your husband doesn't know if he is executor it's more logical to assume they've got someone they like and trust involved

Has he asked his siblings if they know any more than he does?

Re them refusing a health POA because 'it's personal', I bet that principle would go out of the window if/when one becomes ill and in need of care, help at home or general running around.

Maybe it’s all sorted out and with a solicitor who will contact you in the event of their death. You can’t push people to give you info if they don’t want to.

For those saying they’ve spent weeks searching for a will, do you not just have to check the will register and if it’s not registered on there then the default inheritance rules apply? Genuinely curious as will be in a similar position when PILs die, I doubt they have done one.

Odd. Maybe they haven't done a will which is why they're being snippy about it?

I also agree that full-on transparency is the right way to go. All the POA's sorted and wills and whatnot all in one place and everybody who needs to know, knows where it all is.

Anybody who has dealt with a deceased estate will know how important it is.

DH is probably an executor

It would be entirely reasonable for DH to ask them privately whether their executors know where the will is. This would clarify whether he is executor. If he is, then it is reasonable g DH or him to know how to find it.

As previous posters have pointed out, executors are usually asked whether they are prepared to take it on. They can also refuse to act.

The rest, not so much. I have some sympathy with their not wanting to engage if he is not executor but is assuming that he is.

OP, maybe you could ask 'do the executors of your will know where it is? If not, how do you expect them to ensure that your wishes are met?'?

I realise you were talking about POA here, BlushPine, and agree that if the parents don't want it drawn up that's absolutely their choice to make

However that comes with consequences, and one of them is that relatives may not be easily able to offer the sort of support they might have done once capacity's been lost ... not even if the senior who once insisted they "didn't need to know" starts to expect their input

I believe it goes to the suriving spouse or, if it's over £322k, it is split between the spouse and any children. (The spouse gets the first £322k and half of the remaining estate; the remaining half of the estate is split between the surviving children.) I think the worry would be the delay to the probate process if there is no will. Maybe the parents are just being contrary but, unless they've left everything to someone completely random or a cat sanctuary or something, I just can't imagine why they wouldn't say where the will is stored. It's hard enough dealing with all the admin that comes with death, on top of the grief itself. I don't know why they would deliberately make it harder.